[merylsilverburg]

Currently playing "Soul Calibur 4." Seriously thought I would never buy this but after trying it out, it's surprisingly good. The balance, design, and difficulty are just right this time, the improved Character Creation (able to create up to 50 characters from scratch and 50 edits for each of the main cast) is very enjoyable, and graphics are lovely.

The new Critical Finishes are very gimmicky so they come off as lame. The same goes for the equipment breakage. Basically if you break a piece of the opponent's armor (either from upper, middle, lower, or all) they'll receive more damage in that area. But there's no noticeable difference, at least to me. So me thinks it's just NAMCO's fanservice feature.

The story mode still makes you go "?" though, the Arcade is, well, arcade-ish, and the Tower of Lost Souls is mildy fun. Most of the time would be spent trying to get the Honors (aka rewards to unlock new equipment for Character Creation) which some are impossible to get if you refuse to go online like me. It saddens me a great deal considering I have 30 out of 50 Honors.

My major beef has to be Darth Vader and his Apprentice. Sorry "Star Wars" fans but it's still unfathomable to me why NAMCO decided to listen to those who wanted them in here. Even after playing their stories - which laughably tries to make their appearance in the game make sense - I still don't see it. And Darth Vader is rather a dud - being the one of the most popular icons ever, you'd think he'd be cooler than what he is. And the Apprentice...what a little $#&*. Cannot stand him and his stupid stance/pose and his stupid repetitive moves over and over and over again. There's just some people you hate automatically and for me, he's one of them.

Well, aside from that above, I'd say that this is a great addition to the SC series.