The soul still burns in Soul Calibur IV. For the first time Namco takes the weapons based fighter to the next generation systems. With the jump comes higher graphical quality as well as various additions, such as the Character Creation section and online play.

The story mode, although only consisting of five stages for each character, is interesting to go through for any fan of the series. Each character has a story and you go through stages where you face off against between one and four enemies at one time. Sometimes you will have a companion that can back you up if you lose, but the main focus is to take out the enemies and move on. At the end of the story you face either Nightmare or Seigfried depending on if you play a “good” or “bad” character. There are also some characters, such as Nightmare and Seigfried, who face off against a new character called Algol at the end. It may be short, but with the amount of characters in the game it could take you a while to make it through the story mode and see all the endings.

There is also the Arcade mode that consists of eight battles. This is also the first time you face off against a Star Wars character unless you chose to use the platform specific ones (Vader for PS3, Yoda for 360) in the Story mode. Some may see adding Star Wars characters as not really adding to the storyline, but the writers have done a good job at explaining why Vader would come to the Soul universe looking for the swords.

The seventh battle in the Arcade mode sees you face off against The Apprentice from the upcoming The Force Unleashed game from LucasArts. He is an incredibly cheap fighter who uses perfect combos along with his Force powers to destroy you. Ranged fighters like Seigfried don’t have much of a problem with him, but any fighter that needs to get close is going to have a tough time against him. If you’re lucky enough to beat him with Vader in the PS3 version, The Apprentice unlocks as a playable character. The last fight is set up much like the Story mode where you face off against Algol, although he is quite simple to defeat when compared to previous one.

New to the series are the Character Creation tool, online play and the Tower of Lost Souls game option. If you are at all into creating characters, you’ll love the tool and there are already people creating some of their favorite videogame, comic book and popular fiction characters as fighters. The best part is you can take your creation to any of the modes, including Story and online, and play with them.