I pre-purchased Soul Calibur IV in June, hoping it would be at least as goos as it predecessors. I've played Soul Blade and many of the characters were still going to be in this release, so I took the chance.
On July 29, 2008, I sat by window anxiously waiting for UPS to show up and lo and behold at 11:07 it did, I ran to meet the UPS driver like he was a long lost lover, and I was happy as child on Christmas morning.
I dove right into the game, not realizing I had a key chain that also came with the game, I discovered several hours later.
The game-play had that old familiar feel to it, if you played it in the past you should have no problem picking it up and doing some damage. The characters looks and animation are remarkable as well as the graphics. The different modes offer some depth to the game, but as I have read the story mode was disappointing to most, but not to me. The Tower mode makes up for that 10 fold and is not as easy as the Story mode either. The ability to not only customize the default character, but to actually create a character from scratch is an awesome feature not typically found in fighting games of this genre. You will probably spend more time customizing and creating new characters than fighting. I had my girlfriend come over and play and she spent 40 minutes creating and customizing her character, which took me less than a minute to beat, LMAO. Anyone ca plat this game it is easy to pick up, and once you hae one characters moves down you can just about play all of them. Darth Vader is a cool character, though I wish his kicking skills were a little better, but we still will rule the galaxy with an iron fist.
Needlessly to say, I am very happy with my purchase, the key chain is kind of crappy, but what do you expect, it was free.
Buy it, if you are truly a fan and if you are just getting on the wagon, the learning curve is not steep at all. ENJOY!!!

I think this might just be up there with a must have. Personally I would rate this higher than Halo 3! it's just overated is all

If this already good fighter series does have vader the ths is going to beat tekken easy and the already famous franchise will be better