One of the few game demonstrations that didn't take place on the heinously crowded CES show floor was Namco-Bandai's Soulcalibur IV. Instead, Namco decided to give the press its look at the first next-gen Soulcaliburin a spacious club, Las Vegas' Blush. With our first hands-on with the game, we definitely appreciated the space (and the lower noise levels) as we put Soulcalibur IV through its paces. But we didn't realize that the real reason for all that space was for the Stormtroopers.
I'll Inform Lord Vader Myself
Namco announced its guest stars for IV at tonight's event -- Darth Vader for the PlayStation 3 version and Master Yoda for the Xbox 360 version. Although we're a bit dubious about how appropriate either is for the Soulcalibur series, we have to admit that two lightsaber users make a lot of sense for a game about magical sword-fighting. And that's not just us rationalizing because we run a Star Wars tabletop game, or because we got to stand next to Darth Vader in person while we played Soulcalibur IV.
On the copy of the game we got to play, running only on the 360, Taki, Cassandra and Mitsurugi were the only available fighters. Two stages were available: the gated garden of a castle, and a ruinous square set in the middle of an overgrown swamp. The amount of detail on the characters, from Taki's oni-headed shoulder pads to the motion of Mitsurugi's knotted belt, was astonishing to see in motion. Not just in motion, but in very smooth framerates as well. But we'll take this moment to mention that Taki's DoA-style transformation is just as poorly done as it seemed during E3: absurdly massive breasts moving with absurdly exaggerated physics seemed a bit much for a Soulcalibur title.
We'll admit that compared to Soulcalibur II, we felt Soulcalibur III was a bit anti-climactic; it never quite clicked like II did. With IV, it feels like the Soulcalibur's team focus on gameplay is 100%, with a few minutes of game time sending us right back into old, fondly remembered patterns of guard impact, strike, and ring-out. It's a testament to the quality of this early build of the game that game editors across the room found themselves almost immediately bunkered down in front of the televisions, forming lines and calling out "got winner!" Discussions of how badly laid-out CES was or plans for the year's content miraculously ceased as everyone, series vet or newb, did their absolute best to beat any and all comers.
It's still too early to call Soulcalibur IV; the team certainly has plenty of time to work on it. How well the single-player, character creation, and online systems will work are all open questions. But after our brief time with the game at CES, playing with a meager three fighters and two stages, we can't wait for more.
