Soul Calibur IV

Pros: Plenty of character choices, fun strategic fights, customizable characters, solid multiplayer, and pretty graphics.

Cons: Collecting all the items requires a lot of patience and a cool head, difficulty often varies from a walk in the park to impossible, and some of the characters are very questionable or annoying (Voldo particularly).

First things first, I am not a fighting game enthusiast. In fact, I tend to avoid them. This is mostly because I don't like losing, so I get stuck in a perpetual lose-lose scenario. I don't play them because I lose, and I lose because I don't play them... Soul Calibur II was probably the first fighting series I didn't mind losing at. So when it came time to expand my gaming library, I decided to go with something other than a FPS and got Soul Calibur IV... I wasn't able to stop playing for two weeks.

Characters
The characters are fun, detailed, and seem very balanced - besides yoda who can't be grabbed and is too short for high attacks. Each of them retained the same moves as the first game, which isn't a bad thing. Well, except when I invited my friends over for a couple matches and was surprised to find that they were at home enough to beat me even though I had two weeks of practice.

Sound
The music in this game is nice. I'm very fond of the character customization music. The rest sets a good mood and it doesn't really get annoying, but seems forgettable. Voices on the other hand can get terribly annoying, the high pitched phrase "JUST KIDDING" sends shivers down my spine. Irritating may come from only a select few characters, but a lot of it doesn't make any since.

Gameplay
You get all your standard combos with additional parrying, grappling, and countering as well as a soul gauge that allows special abilities if full or special finishers against you if you block too often and empty it. Customizable armor is also available for almost all characters, adding quite a bit of interest in the form of character creation. Everything put together makes for some surprisingly strategic and enjoyable battles.

Design
The majority of my play time resided in a mode called Tower of souls. It is by this mode that you gain all the equipment to customize your characters. You ascend the tower battling groups of enemies one at a time, often followed by a boss character at the final stage. Clearing the challenges can be hard when your characters have a health bar that remains damaged from each progressive stage, but this does add a layer of strategy when you can equip your characters with abilities and armor to fit each situation. It starts getting frustrating when you consider items that are only obtained only when you perform a specific task like not taking damage and the probability of ring out\death over 9 fights and you'll find yourself replaying some stages 20 times or more. There is also a lengthy screen that comes up when you fail, making me wish there was a way to open the menu and retry mid-battle.

Overall
Despite some of it's less enjoyable moments, there isn't many fighting games that I've enjoyed as much or spent as long playing as this one. If you like fighters and have a little money to spare for what is now a very cheap game, I say go for it. Just be warned you might go a little crazy if you try to get all the items. I give it a 8.8/10Get more detail about Soul Calibur IV.