Some of the levels of the tower are a major pain in the ass. You can't really use vanilla characters to do it, you need to use some cheap skills to get the job done. It definitely ramps up in difficulty a lot, both in the AI, and the skills that the CPU uses. When the AI is using instant guard impact, instant throw evade, and all that other nonsense, and they have 300% defense--yeah--it's a bitch.

There's a mission in particular where you basically need to use crit finishers to get it done. I was stuck on 45-46 for a while, but once I figured out what to do, they weren't that bad.. just make sure you bring the soul gauge damaging skills to the party and be ready to use critical finishers. 47-59 were pretty easy.. and 60, well, Algol is a dumbass.

There was one in the 30's (I think) where you had to defeat three people per stage, and had 80 seconds to do so.. that one was a bitch too. I ran out of time quite a few number of times. It's not all hard, but some of them are a little frustrating.

You don't need to get those chests to earn the equipment btw. Once you get 30 achievements, they'll all be available to purchase in character creation assuming you have enough gold to purchase them.

Character creation is way more addictive than I had anticipated. I just made like 10 costumes for Cassy and three custom Cassandas. I still haven't ganked that cool sailor moon though. I should do that.

Their AI probably isn't better than you. It's not like Virtua Fighter's awesome, as of yet unmatched AI. It's just that they set you up against silly odds in the tower. They put you up against a slew of enemies with ridiculous skill sets, defense, etc. You have to beat them at their game.. by loading out skills that take them down and abusing powerful moves and powerful characters.

I hate Astaroth, but he got me through a few stages on the tower that would have been a lot more difficult without him. Those same techniques against people would get you slaughtered.

That's why I don't much care for the tower. Descending is a lot more fun though.

I just played quite a few matches online. When it works well, it's a lot of fun. I haven't touched ranked yet.. but player matches are a pretty good time. I just try to stick to five bars and two player rooms and it's been good. Sometimes four bars is equally as passable, but it's less of a sure thing.

Now if I can pry myself away from it, I will.. or.. I'll make more Cassy.

Traits effect the base states (Health, Defense, Offense) to some degree.. I'm not exactly sure how that works to be honest. I'm pretty sure the good/evil alignment effects stuff in story mode, and I'm not sure if it does anything else.

I've only made a few characters from the ground up so far, but I like doing both. Creating new costumes for my favorite characters has its own appeal.. because I do like using the existing characters. I find that they have a lot more.. character.

For the tower, I did have to mix and match equipment to get the skills I wanted, but it's not very difficult, just don't expect those to be very attractive customs. No real harm though, you can always just delete them when they've served out their purpose.

Well I have two more honors/achievements left to get. I can pretty much say goodbye to single player forever now. I'll still play the descending tower, without skills, I think.. just for practice.. and maybe arcade and of course training. So far as the more challenging efforts for single player goes though, I'm through, done, forever.. never again.

I've also purchased every bit of custom equipment, outside of the weapon sets. I think I'll need several hundred thousand more gold to purchase all of the weapons. If you're wondering, so far I've earned and spent about 1.5 million gold. For my final pieces of equipment, I'll probably just farm gold on TOLS floor 60. It's the quickest path to 100%.

My two remaining achievements: 100% collected, and level 20 in ranked. I'll probably take my time getting to level 20. Many, many people have done it already.. but I've been spending most of my time online in player matches. Ranked is pretty tough, really.. people will do anything to win.. and it's much more compeditive. Losing feels a lot worse when it counts for something, after all. I'm level 14 now.. so I anticipate making 20 before too long.

I think I'll delete my cheesy Astaroth mods that I used to clear the upper floors of the TOLS and to rape the descending tower. I made it to floor 39, I believe, with a pair of Astaroth's. It didn't take much in the way of skill though.. the AI is just incredibly weak against him, because with the proper skills he's so strong that it doesn't take much to keep your HP up and clear a floor quickly. Last I checked I was 220 on the leaderboard for descending... but I'm sure that placement will drop quickly. I'm not bragging--it wasn't hard.

I do love this game. It's not the perfect sequel, for sure.. but it's still damn good.

edit: Okay, level 20. I guess I didn't take my time after all. I thought I could manage to keep a 2:1 win/loss ratio too, but it all fell apart there at the end when I started got up to 20. I'm 70-40 now. Not bad I guess.. but I probably just got lucky anyway. I'm going to stick to player matches for a little while until my game improves a bit more. Ranked is frustrating.

Now if I only had a ton more gold :(

Yeah, of course.. I don't think nearly as many people play special versus period.. ranked or unranked. Most (all) of my custom characters that I actually use online have no skills.. and I believe their base stats are unaffected by equipment and character traits as well, they just use the base statistics of their weapon style.

People attempt the most ridiculously cheap shit in ranked play though. From people who just spam Kilik's mixups, which are harder to block than they should be w/ latency.. to people who decline to even play you if you have a winning record. Granted, I didn't set out to find people who I knew were better than me.. but come on.

Latency isn't that btw. It's not as good as playing someone locally, but online w/ 4 or 5 bars is pretty smooth. I've experienced less lag here than in DOA4, at least. When it does lag, it can be bad.. from slowdown to delayed button input.. but so far that's been the minority of matches.

You also earn gold online in ranked matches.. but not very much. I think I'll go farm Algold for a bit. I want to finish purchasing the rest of the weapons and be done with it.

edit: Damn.. more than two million gold earned and spent so far--and I still have around twelve characters to purchase weapons for. Did you have to make some of them cost in excess of 20,000 gold Namco? Sheesh.

All of the real characters, yes, that's how you unlock them. The guests are unlocked by various encounters in single player. The Apprentice is unlocked by defeating him with Yoda or Vader in arcade mode, and the other guests are unlocked by encountering them in story mode.

No one uses every single move a character has. You have to decide which moves are best, and how to use them strategically. It also helps to understand things like frame advantage, ie. when you know you can safely punish your opponent. Knowing how other characters move, and how people use them is important too--as is a keen understanding of how the game works in general.

It will take time to get good, but you can probably hold your own online anyway. The vast majority of people aren't good. Going into practice mode and learning moves helps a little, as does fighting against different AI's in training, but it will only get you so far. Knowing how people fight is far more important.

Start here: http://www.caliburforum.com/forums/showthread.php?...

I encourage you to lurk those forums heavily. You'll find loads of helpful information there and the community as a whole is pretty friendly. There are some asshats here and there, but there are also people who are willing to help a newbie. I'm no pro, and I've found that just being there has made adapting to SC4 much easier than it would have been on my own.. having hardly played Soul Calibur since SC2.

I still have to earn several hundred thousand more gold to finish purchasing all of the weapons before I get my final honor. It's pretty frustrating, really. I think they made them too fucking expensive. By the time I had completed every other achievement in the game, I should have earned enough gold to 100% the game, I think.

I don't think The Apprentice is nearly as bad as some people have suggested. The only reason he appears brutal in arcade, compared to other characters, is because his AI is ramped up dramatically. I don't like the guests, any of them, but to me he's not the most offensive of the bunch. Who is? Shura. She has Cervates' moves but has a significantly increased range. That's bullshit.

The DLC is probably bullshit, you're right.. but I think part of their problem is with how their internet functions work. In order to insure that everyone can see your custom characters, they need to insure that every user has the data. The last update on the PS3 was 16 megs, which likely includes the next batch of DLC. They don't have a system in place where that data can be shared to other users on the fly, so they have to make sure that they update everyone's content.

Seriously though. The Force may be bullshit, but there's nothing unstoppable about him.

I just want to see some gameplay fixes, the sort of stuff they're going to include in the arcade edition. Shura doesn't bother me because I assume that she'll be banned in competition, and people who use her online, well, they're just a joke. So far most people either use Cervy or Kilik anyway, and spam spam spam. They're not that hard to beat though.

I'm sort of glad you can't make custom Jedi. It would be neat, I guess.. but on the other hand, I think you'd see way too many of them online. Better off without them, I say.

Such an awesome game. Me and Grift played some tonight. I need to get my old crew back together so we can play. Once my SCII powers return I'll be a force to be reckoned with. Right now, in my larval state, I am weak and defenseless. Oh, and this *runs*

You really had me convinced you were buying the PS3 version too. Bastard. I'm really happy that there's no lag issues between us, with around a thousand miles in distance there--that's pretty impressive. People keep saying that Virtua Fighter's netcode is better, which I haven't had a chance to play online, but compared to DOA4 I think SC4 is pretty dang stable. Good games, and don't worry.. you'll get better and there's plenty of people out there that make me look horrible.

Check out some of my links in this thread, they're helpful.

Phellan_Wolf: I'm not sure. They haven't actually announced SC4:AE as far as I know, so right now it's just an assumption. There's always the possibility that this will stick to the consoles, but I hope that the AE is going to become a reality. I guess only time will tell.

OMG! Yun-Seong is such a pain in the ass in this game. His mixups are so fast, and so much harder to block online than they should be. Maybe I'm just not used to facing off against good Yun-Seong users online yet, since they seem few and far between--but I'm not sure why--because he fucking rapes. That five hit, juggle you all over creation kick combo is brutal too, once you're launched, it's all over.

I wish I could get into encounters like that more often online.. because frankly, I'm never going to improve my game facing off against a lot of the people in player matches. There's some really, really good people out there.. but they're not nearly as common as your average spammer.. which isn't exactly a challenge.