Soul Calibur IV

[Wselfwulf]

Not sure who else plays this, but hey, the werewolf mask in the costume section is wicked. But anyway, first question, who is thrown off by the massively slowed in-game framerate? Raph's basic horizontal is no longer a preposterous interrupt (sort of)!

[PariahPoet]

Dang this is a fun game! It pisses me off that female characters can't have cool masks.

[Kaebora]

I got quite frustrated with the game. I used to be an avid Soul Calibur II player. I even won a couple of public tournaments. The gamers that never experianced that well-balanced masterpeice of a fighter game enjoy Soul Calibur IV emmensely.

However, to my dismay, it isn't anywhere near as balanced by comparison. Too many characters have those moves that can be spammed and remain unbroken throughout an entire round, much like juggling a character to the point they can't retailiate. This is nothing new in the fighting genre, and can occur in many games. In SCII only two characters could do this with one or two moves: Xianghua and Kilik. However the moves were avoidable with the right footwork.

In SCIV, I ran into multiple instances of being juggled in mid-air until my health was gone, or diminished significantly. I still won half of the time, but the easy time my friend was having using extremely cheap moves sickened me. The parry ability was not working most of the time, even when I timed it just right. Granted, to a person new to the fighter genre it would be enjoyable, but I noticed how unbalanced the game was compared to other fighter games. I can at least guarantee it wasn't as bad as SCIII.

The only disappointment I have that is no different from ANY fighter sequel, is that the move list for characters is vastly different. It would be nice if a series would keep the same move list in each game until the controler scheme changes, and with the SC series the controller scheme is quite universal and not prone to change.

[Wselfwulf]

Hah, you think juggling combos have balance issues in SC? You should see tekken. Though yeah, SCII was probably the most solid title, though even that had a bit of balancing issues, poor Astaroth.