Although it still is better than other fighting games out there, it feels like there are lots of things missing.
Gameplay is still the same as Soul Calibur 3, this isn't bad at all, because it was solid before and it is still solid now. Newcomers to fighting games won't have a hard time at all learning the game. The game is not very demanding on fast inputs, besides you won't have to remember long combos because the longest combos you will find will be of about three buttons, this puts the game focus onto finding the opponent's weaknesses instead of remembering long inputs.
The character roster of Soul Calibur 3 returns except for Olcadan (we want him back!) and Abyss. Amy makes her debut as a regular character with her own moveset. New characters are Hilde, a female soldier with both a spear and a short sword and Algol the game's end boss which absorbed both Soul Calibur and Soul Edge and he can transform them in any weapon he wants to both of these characters are good additions to the roster and fit nicely with the others, although some more characters would have been more than welcome since just two characters (three counting Amy). The game also comes with guess characters from Star Wars, Darth Vader for the PS3 version, Yoda for Xbox 360 and The Apprentice in both versions. Darth Vader is the character that fits better with the roster with a solid moveset and few force powers, Yoda on the other side it's slow but very difficult to hit at and a fight against him it's really boring. The Apprentice it's the games sub-boss in Arcade mode and it's very tricky to use and to fight at and it relies too much on it's force powers making him a bit of an unfair character but he is completely beatable. If you were looking in any challenge to unlock all the characters then think again, in SC3 it took you some time to unlock every characters because you had to either go several times through the somewhat long story mode or play a lot of battles and they would unlock themselves. Here you start out with 30000g and you need around 40000g to unlock them all so it won't be any difficult to unlock them at the start of the game, this feels somewhat unrewarding. On the other hand there are just five bonus characters their movesets are copies of the regular characters and the world could have lived without them.
Each character has it's own strategy and is unique because of the different weapons and style givens. You have long ranged, short ranged, fast but weak, slow but strong. And each character itself has different strategies so you won't get bored with them anytime soon.
Graphically the game is completely superior than it's predecessors and presumes some of the best graphics around. The returning characters have most been given new outfits much more detailed with amazing lighting effects and fluent movement,that's one of the biggest pros of this game. The stages don't stay behind, they are meticulously detailed with impressive lighting effects and amazing environments. Although you'll sometimes feel that some scenarios aren't just that creative, four stages are part of the Tower of Remembrance and it isn't at all that great, one stage of it would have been ok, the Lost Cathedral from SC3 was much more better. Then you have the three Star Wars stages which the three of them are inside of the same spaceship`and none of them are really that great graphically, they are ok but they aren't as astonishing as some of other scenarios, besides, they could have chosen any place of the Star Wars universe and they chose a boring spaceship. That seems like wasting seven stages that could have been more creative.
Don't expect to find any sort of new modes in single player. Single player counts with the boring and short story mode which really lacks story and is incredibly short (about five fights each character), SC3's story mode was good, you traveled around the world, sometimes you had a cutscene in which you had to input something, you were given choices that affected whom you were going to fight, and besides ,you were presented with a story. Here they throw you in some text and you have to go with every character around the same five stages, after you completed it five times it becomes extremely boring and you have to do it around thirty times. Then you have the Tower of Lost Souls in which you have to ascend from the first floor to the number sixty in which you have to fight Algol. Of course each fight comes with a different challenge and you'll have to customize your character with different items to overcome the enemies numerous abilities, if you want more you can go for the hidden item in each floor in which they give you a riddle that is the objective you need to fulfill to get the item. Descending is like a survival mode in which you have to descend as many floors as you can and then you are ranked in the official boards by how many floors you reach. Overall this mode is good but nothing from the other world. Then you have the Arcade mode in which you have to go through 8 fights, then you are ranked in the online boards by how much score you get. Last you have the training mode which is nothing else than fighting an invincible dummy. Compared to other games this might sound good but for Soul Calibur these are really low standards, it is a shame they scrapped the fun RPGish mode Chronicles of the Sword from SC3 , the tutorial mode which explained every single thing of the game and the story mode which was very good.
One thing that has been improved for good is the character creation. Now the created characters's bodies now look like people and graphically they are similar to some of the regular characters. Now you can modify their voices by changing their pitch and you can modify their body size and tonality but you still have to choose from a preset face. Overall you have lots of items so you won't have any problem customizing him but all the custom movesets from SC3 were thrown away, now your character will have the same moveset as any regular character and that feels like a waste.
Online mode isn't that bad but there isn't a lot of people nowadays and it has some flaws which are annoying. If you select Quick Match, around 90% of the times you will get a message of "The room is full" and instead of keeping searching it will throw you back to the main menu. This will happen also while selecting a room because the game has no refresh button and you'll be thrown into the main menu a lot of times. It's a minor thing that turns out to be really annoying and frustrating. And expect to see a lot of Kilik's in ranked matches.
Amongst the extras you have the Chain of Souls which is a diagram of every character of the game, its story and its relationships with other characters, it's a nice touch. Then you have the art gallery which has all the concept art and last you have the honors. Honors are like trophies or achievements but ingame, you get honors by doing accomplishments but it's strange because the game itself doesn't have trophy support and it feels like a missed opportunity.
Although it still is better than other fighting games out there, it feels like there are lots of things that are missing which were in previous games that would have made it a must have game.