Being the 4th game in the series, the controls are pretty solid. And don’t think that everything was kept all the same this time around. A good amount of changes happened between two and three, and just as many happened for four.

One of the most notable features has to be the addition of the Soul Gauge and Critical Finish. Each player gets a Soul Gauge. As a player spends time getting attacked and blocking that player’s Soul Gauge will decrease. Alternately, being on the offensive will increase the player’s Soul Gauge.

When one player empties the other player’s Soul Gauge, the opportunity to do a Critical Finish arises. To do a Critical Finish, you hit all four face buttons on the controller at the same time when the other player’s Soul Gauge is empty. The resulting move will deal a good amount of damage and finish the fight right there.

The Star Wars characters don’t seem to fit in the gameplay to me. If they want to put Vader, Yoda, and Apprentice in a fighting game, then why not just add a few more people and make a Star Wars fighting game? Millions would shell out the money just to see Boba Fett in action, I’m sure, not to mention the green dancing girl from Jabba’s palace. Anyway, for better or worse, Vader, Yoda, and the Apprentice are here in the game.

Darth Vader himself seems sluggish, while Apprentice is amazingly quick. Both can use force powers, which seem all the more out of place when put into the Soul Calibur universe. I still do not understand why the decision was made to add these characters to the game, as it seems to take away from the feel of the game overall.

Those of you who liked the strategy game that was added in Soul Calibur 3 should keep around your SC3 discs, because it doesn’t make an appearance this time around. While removing this can take from the replay ability from the game, they compensated elsewhere.

However, to add some replay ability to the game they added an online mode. Just like with Tekken 5 Online, you’ll have the ability to fight with other players from all over, giving you some competition you can’t just get from a group of friends sitting around on a couch. This is a much needed addition to the series.