Using the force in Soulcalibur IV

Last week I wrote impressions of Hilde, the new female character with a pole and a short sword, so when I got to play Soulcalibur IV again I went straight for the Star Wars characters.

Darth Vader, Darth Vader’s Secret Apprentice, and Yoda have a second meter underneath their life bar which is linked to their force powers. Darth Vader has a choking move and a powerful unblockable burning force punch. Be careful, if you use either of these moves and don’t have enough force you’re temporarily stunned. Darth Vader’s Secret Apprentice has force levitation that I couldn’t master in my brief playtime. He also has fast strikes with his lightsaber held in a reverse grip. Yoda’s force powers give him a Force Cancel. The move momentarily gives Yoda a glowing green shield that stuns any enemy that hits him. Also, Yoda doesn’t slice the other character’s kneecaps with his lightsaber. Yoda jumps, a lot. His basic button mashing combo has him do a double jump with two vertical lightsaber swings. Yoda’s height does give him an advantage. When I tested Voldo against Yoda I found I couldn’t dance around Yoda waving Voldo’s katars. I had to utilize vertical attacks instead of wide horizontal swipes.

Even though Soulcalibur IV has an armor breaking system, you can’t knock off Vader’s helmet. The Star Wars characters take “battle damage”, but do not have dramatic effects or scars. Another disappointment for the Star Wars crowd is you can’t make a custom Jedi Knight with the character creation system. Yoda, Darth Vader, and his apprentice are the only characters who get to have lightsabers in Soulcalibur IV. Speaking of the character creation system, the classes from Soulcalibur III are gone. You have to clone a fighting style from one of the existing characters, minus the Star Wars cameos, for your custom creation. Armor and equipment affect the custom character’s stats so there are statistical differences for player created characters.

Bonus characters created by manga artists like Angol Fear are also clones. Angol Fear has the same moves as Seong Mina. Kamikirimusi borrows Nightmare’s attacks and Scheherazade is really a female version of Raphel.

And, no, Kratos isn’t in the PlayStation 3 game.

Not sure about Soulcalibur IV? There are plans for a demo, but it won't be coming until after the game is released. 

One final note about Soulcalibur IV, there are hungry lizardmen with giant utensils. I wish these were playable characters just to have a force vs. fork fight.

Images courtesy of Namco Bandai.