Bonus characters

• Angol Fear (designed by guest artist Mine Yoshizaki)
• Ashlotte (designed by guest artist Oh! great)
• Kamikirimusi (designed by guest artist Hirokazu Hisayuki)
• Scheherazade (designed by guest artist Yutaka Izubuchi)
• Shura (designed by guest artist Hiroya Oku)

Gameplay

Modes

The fourth Soulcalibur game features the familiar Story, Arcade, Training and Museum modes. A new mode called Tower of Lost Souls has the player fighting special battles in order to gain rewards.^[18]

Character Creation

Character Creation from Soulcalibur III returned in Soulcalibur IV. Instead of including original weapon styles for use with certain classes of fighters, SCIV now allows players to simply choose which character from the series they would like to have their created character mimic (excluding Algol and the Star Wars guest characters).

A wide array of new pieces of equipment are available for use in SCIV’s Character Creation mode, and new options include a wider range of character voices (now with pitch adjustment) and the ability to change a character’s general physique and muscularity.

In addition, equipped items now also affect a character’s statistics. Armor, weapons, and accessories may increase health, attack or defense; they may also grant skill points that allow the character to equip special traits that affect the character’s playstyle. These traits range from automatically triggered guard impacts, the ability to cause damage against a blocking opponent, or even a stat increase based on parameters such as an opponent’s alignment or gender. Standard characters will also be able to be modified in this way to a modest degree, allowing custom costumes and skill sets to be used in Special VS. mode. Custom characters can still be used in Standard VS. mode, but without any of the special abilities gained through equipment or weapon choice.

At the moment only one profile is allowed for offline versus mode, meaning that only one profile’s created characters can be loaded at a time. If a friend comes over with their profile and saved characters, the only way to play with their custom characters is to either log off the other profile, or go through the process of recreating all the characters on the other profile. The game does not recognize two profiles and two save file, only one.

Active Matching Battle

Multi-fighter battles in Soulcalibur IV use a different structure from its predecessors, nicknamed Active Matching Battle (AMB). Similar to the tag system of games such as King of Fighters 2003, the AMB system allows players to switch to other members of a ‘party’ of fighters with the push of a button. Also, instead of starting a new round for each opponent defeated, new opponents will simply run into the battle immediately after a K.O. – with the exception of certain combatants. Matches utilizing the AMB system only appear in the Story and Tower of Lost Souls modes.

Soul Gauge & Critical Finish

Soulcalibur IV features an all-new Critical Finish system. Next to players’ Health Meters is a colored gem that represents the “Soul Gauge.” Starting green, the meter will change to blue when attacking and change to red when guarding. When the gem is pure red, an opponent can do a strike that breaks off a part from the character’s armor, altering their appearance and making him or her weaker for the remainder of the match. More damage is inflicted on the area of armor that was destroyed. There are also three green boxes below the gauges, reflecting the area of the characters’ armor: high, medium, and low.

If the character manages to empty out the opponent’s Soul Gauge again, he or she will get a short chance to perform a powerful Critical Finish move, which will defeat the opponent instantly, by pressing all four face buttons at the same time. Each character has his/her own personal Critical Finish move. Namco says that it developed the Soul Gauge to decrease the benefits from constant guarding, thus giving the game a faster tempo and making the matches more offensive.

Force abilities

The Star Wars guest characters, Darth Vader, Yoda and The Apprentice will all feature unique, Force-based styles. Darth Vader will be able to utilize Force-based pushes and chokes, Yoda will use the Force to launch himself into the air for complex aerial attacks, and The Apprentice will be able to use Force lightning. These moves will drain a special Force Meter, which recharges gradually when not in use.

Online Battles

For the first time in the series, Soulcalibur IV will have the option to fight against other players online. Confirmed versus-modes available in online battles are Standard VS (for classic matches) and Special VS (for customized characters). Director Katsutoshi Sasaki has mentioned that created characters will be playable in the online multiplayer mode.

^{Premium Edition}

The Premium Edition of Soul Calibur IV includes a 48-page softcover art/comic book illustrated in full color, an XL 100% cotton t-shirt, and a tournament chart that allows “fans the opportunity to document the battle amongst friends”. It sells in a metal packaging and was released on the same date as the Regular Edition. Gamespot also mentions that there will be exclusive access to extra customization content in this version. The “extra customization content” refers to the download of the Soul Calibur (complete) and Soul Edge weapons, which can be equipped to various fighters. In New Zealand, United Kingdom and Australia there will be a Steelbook case edition with bonus DVD containing, 4 trailers in HD, 4 wallpapers, exclusive concept art and an exclusive booklet with character biographies.

Reception

SoulCalibur IV so far has received mainly positive reviews, garnering an overall percentage score of 91 on Metacritic for PS3 and a 90 for the Xbox 360 through 7 reviews.

IGN praised the graphics, “The game’s character models are highly detailed and in some cases gorgeous.” with particular emphasis on the design of the character Hilde. Gameplay-wise, IGN recieved well the Tower of Souls mode, though they thought it could have been “deeper with a more fleshed-out, contextual narrative and a wider variety of specialty matches.” GameSpot praised its smooth Online play but felt that Story Mode was short and disappointing.

Soulcalibur IV Unlockables

Achievements

Unlocking Characters

Unlock Create-a-Soul Items/Weapons

Tower of Lost Souls Hidden Items (Ascending)

Tower of Lost Souls Reward Items (Descending)