You start with a limited amount of clothing; you can buy more items and equipment with the money that you make from battles and the various game modes as well as getting items by doing the challenges in the Tower of Souls (we’ll discuss that later on). Every aspect of your character can be changed physically, you can pick numerous faces, hairstyles, alter the height/weight/musculature and voice/character voice pitch until you’re happy with the character you have. You can make sweeping colour changes to the character or you can colour each individual part of the clothing to create a finely honed design. It’s possible to spend hours just tweaking in this part of the game, picking powers, buying new weapons and refining until you have the character you want: male or female.

There are lots of characters to unlock in the game; they can be used in the various game modes. There’s the revamped story mode that gives you new battles with opponents jumping into the fray one after the other, without a chance for a second breath. You might have a secondary character join you, which you can switch to by using the right bumper at any time as long as you have enough energy to do so. There are five stages to the story mode this time around, so it’s possible to complete the core story characters in a short time. You can buy secondary characters in the character creator and unlock special characters through story play, so there’s a lot to do in this mode.

Then you have Arcade Mode, with the usual 2 round (or 3) timed battles that last for 8 stages. The Tower of Souls, where you must fight a through x-number of floors as you ascend the tower, pay careful note of the opening text that tells you what you might need to do to unlock the treasure chests that contain bonus clothing and armour. You’ll also find as you play this mode other equipment unlocks for purchase in the character customisation system. Descending the tower means that you must fight from floor to floor without stopping and the further down you go, the greater the rewards.

There is the usual vs. mode as well as a mode that allows you to fight without weapons and special abilities/powers. There are various options to set here and you can choose the match you want to fight.

The game however falls down from being truly great since it’s marred by a laggy online play experience. It can feel like you’re battling through treacle on some servers and the overall enjoyment of fighting someone who you don’t know online is marred by the fact that wins are often hit and miss, based purely on the server conditions and not decided on the skill of the opponent in question. Hopefully a few patches down the line this problem will become a thing of the past because purely from the excellent story mode, great unlockable weapons and items and superb Tower of Soul’s challenges this game deserves a better score, it’s lowered by those lag issues however.

The graphics in Soul Calibur IV are excellent, they are true next-generation style and they have a visual appeal to them. The model designs and fighting animations are wonderfully done and they lend a real sense of character to the various stalwarts of the series, like Taki and Kilik. The special effects are well done, not too over the top and they don’t obscure the all-important action. The level designs and the presentation in the graphics are top notch. Along with the music and the audio this is an all round package that lives up to the task of taking Soul Calibur into the next generation platforms.