I don't think they're that broken at all. Cervy and Kilik players online aren't that difficult. Most of them are actually pretty easy to beat, because, like you've said, they're not actually that good. Kilik spammers are a joke. I don't even think he's especially good online, it's just effective enough to beat enough people, that they keep at it. They're easy enough to defend against, and most of them have no defensive play at all.. making them so easy to punish that it's silly.

There may be issues, but Kilik and Cervy aren't. Seriously, if you're losing to Kilik spammers online, you need to re-evaluate your approach. There's nothing they do that can't be dealt with quite easily. His moves are slow and easy to predict, and easy to punish.

Cheese it up with Astaroth. You're almost done. 1[ A ]B, 1[ A ]A are your friend + HP drain + strong vertical. Floor 60 is cake, since you can just make Algol ring himself out.

You only need 30 chests, if you want that achievement. Otherwise, don't even bother.

Good. You literally don't need anymore. Once you reach 30 achievements/honors, all that equipment can be purchased for gold from the character creation menu anyway. A couple of pimped out Astaroths makes every single player mode a piece of cake.

Okay, my gold subscription ran out tonight, so I decided instead of going back online right away, I'd finally get around to knocking out that last achievement. I farmed Algol for a bit, and bought the rest of the weapons.. so..

YAY!

100%--1000GS. That's about three million fuckin gold!

Just start getting honors/achievements--by the time you get 30, all gear will be available for purchase at the character creation menu. Tira is pretty cool, she's a lot better from what I've seen in SC4 than she was in SC3. Big improvement.

Is it possible to bring your custom character with you and play on a friend's console somehow?

On PS3/360 version? On both?

Bring your hard drive. That's it. You can't copy your customs to another profile--on either console. It's a bummer, I know. But hey--just get him to 100% his game, and you can remake your favorite customs on his! :/

It certainly would be nice to be able to copy custom character data to a memory card--or to send them over Xbox Live. They really should have considered such a thing an option. I totally plan on making my friends play on my profile, or making them watch me remake some of my customs before we play on theirs.

Don't let that stop you from playing the game though. It's fucking fantastic.

Yeah I played it some on a mate's PS3 and I'm enjoying it far more than I thought I would to be honest. I'm pretty much just fishing for info on what version to get, and the main incentive for me to get the PS3 version would've been if we could somehow pit our characters against one another on the same system.

360 version it prolly is for me then.

I really need a stick though. Fucking d-pads are driving me nuts. I did filed the d-pad on one of my controllers down and that did the trick, but then I got an elite with a sexy black pad and problems are back. I just don't feel as compelled to go homocidal on sexy blackness though. :|

Yeah, the Xbox 360 d-pad is horrible.. though I must admit, I wouldn't want to play without a stick on either platform. Check out the Hori SC4 branded stick, it should do the trick. It's available on both the Xbox 360 and the PS3. I've owned various versions of Hori's EX stick, and they're great. Arcade quality? Eh, maybe not quite, but damn close enough that you probably won't be able to tell the difference.

With all of the great fighters landing on the 360 in the near future too, it will get plenty of additional use. It makes me crazy happy to see so many new entries into this genre coming in 2009. It's like it was just on vacation.

This was a great start to a long line of badassness.

The OST gets integrated into the game, and adds previous Soul Calibur music to SCIV. I don't think it's worth it, personally, but I think you're misinterpreting how it's meant to be used? There's an option in the game to configure DLC music for use in game. I don't see that as much of a value, since the original music for SCIV is typically excellent.

Also, the content that's sold for 200 MS points may or may not be included on the disc, but I think we'll see simular downloads in the future that are still under 200 kilobytes, but are actually new content. Some have mentioned that the last auto-update for the game on the PS3 was 16 megs, which seems to indicate that it contains more data than simply an updated executable. I think they'll be distributing future DLC to every user before it actually goes on sale, because there's no system in place in the game for you to share content on the fly. Every user must have the DLC, since there's an expectation there that everyone online should be able to see your custom characters that use that gear.

I'm not saying their DLC is any more of a value than you're suggesting, but I don't think it's much worse than what other developers bring us either. I'd rather get new custom character equipment, where I can share my creations with other users online, than say, new costumes for a game like Ninja Gaiden, where they're meant to be enjoyed solo.

But anyway.. back to the previous topic for a second: Hori's home sticks are indeed pretty fantastic devices. I want to track down their wired Xbox 360 gamepad as well, since it probably has one of the best d-pads out there.

I also am quite fond of my Street Fighter Anniversary stick, as I love the western style arcade controllers for 2D games. It has shit buttons though, and I would like to modify it at some point in the future with real happ parts. I've been tempted to mod it so that it can be used on the Xbox 360, but I'm not sure it's worth losing the compatibility with the other consoles it was made for.

Does anyone know if there's any good PS2 or Xbox to Xbox 360 adapters on the market? Or is that a futile cause, thanks to Microsoft's proprietary control over.. controllers?

Cervy is good, and pretty accessible. I'm trying to add some variety to my roster and having trouble finding a good fit. My Cassy has been consistently improving since I picked up the game, and I don't know, maybe I'm expecting results more quickly than I should with other characters. I'm messed around with Amy a little bit (236 owns) and Hilde, but I'm not sure if I'll stick with either.

Hilde is actually very interesting. She's a little difficult to use effectively though. You might expect her to be best played at long range, with that huge staff, but no.. she seems more comfortable at mid-to-close range. What really throws me a curve ball are all of her charge moves. That makes her extremely unique among the rest of the cast.

At least with Amy I have the benefit of using another small character who is relatively quick on her feet. Her juggles are difficult to time, compared to Cassandra, but she's got an extremely diverse move set and all that 236 twirling reminds me of Cassy despite how different they really are.

I might try to reacquire some Sophi skills, or pick up Lizardman too. Lizardman is very cool now. Despite their weapons, all three (Cas/Soph/Liz) characters are very, very different now. Lizardman's crawl stance is pretty damn wild.

I need to re-up my Xbox Live. This game loses all of its appeal offline, outside of local multiplayer, once you complete the honors. It really is a shame that no one, and I do mean no one, sees VF's presentation as a source for inspiration. Everyone else just looks at each others lack of commitment to solo gameplay as a nod that it's a-okay. It aint! 2D and 3D fighters alike need more compelling single player content. Training (real training, not this dummy shit--there's not even a record/playback option for the training dummy in SC!), compelling AI, virtual arcade tours, etc.. compelling gameplay, not nonsense repetition!

Oh I know that's what we were expecting, and in some ways, I feel like the solo aspirations of Soul Calibur IV may even exceed expectation. It's just sad that it takes so little to satisfy those expectations. We should be more demanding, as an audience, now that there's a better example of how things could be done. Critics and gamers alike should take up Sega's example, which in some ways takes a step backwards in VF5, and still manages to go above and beyond other games in the genre.

Why should we be satisfied with the same old execution that we've seen countless times in this genre.. now that we've been given an example of what kind of presentation is possible? This isn't just on Namco either, any other single example of a versus fighting game is equally guilty, 2D or 3D. I recognize that these are by nature multiplayer games, but that does not give them a free pass, or at least, it should not.

Now, I'm fine with multiplayer only experiences, but don't pretend to care about solo presentation when you really don't.

Though it may be difficult to do online, if someone literally does the same move, over and over again, it becomes really easy to GI it every time. I haven't encountered anyone who literally just does that single move with Cervantes over and over again, but I have encountered plenty of people who attempt to use one move over and over again online. It's frustrating, but once you know how to defeat it, they're cake.

I would suggest trying to see if you can shake the stun.. move out of range, or try to figure out a way to counter attack or punish it. I haven't played a Cervantes player with that lame of an approach for a while so I'm not going to be able to give you any specific solution on the matter.

Cervantes isn't that hard to play against in my experience so far though.. his chains are some of the most easily punished in the game. See if you can get out of range by sidestepping, if that doesn't work, see if you can figure out a way to punish on block--and if that doesn't work, guard impact is your friend.

Once you get to level 20... I'd forget about ranked. You'll find less compeditive gaming in player matches, for sure, but you'll also have a lot more fun. The biggest problem I have with player matches is that there's far less challenges to be found, but when you do find a good match up with your skill level, you'll find that they're not just trying to cheese their way to victory. People try to take advantage of latency in any way they see fit in ranked, because their W/L ratio is too important to them.

edit: According to calibur forums, you should be able to sidestep 4B+K really easily, I can't confirm that right this second, but that sounds pretty reasonable. Then you should be able to punish him pretty easily.