The Five Best Starter Characters in Soul Calibur IV (PS3, Xbox 360)

Soul Calibur IV is possibly the biggest fighting game out there at the moment. Online play is quite busy, but unless you’ve played a lot of the other games, you probably get your butt kicked almost every time. Here is a list of the five best characters for new players. They can help you learn the ropes of the game, or possibly do a bit better against those hardcore players.

Voldo may seem quite complicated to play at first. With so many different stances and moves, he is actually quite complicated. However, because of all these moves, his speed and the fact he’s so unpredictable can make Voldo easier to play. Essentially, Voldo can be a very good choice for anyone that wants to button mash for a while. You might learn something about how he plays after a while, but it’s still fun to play as Voldo with the button mashing.

Usually slow and powerful characters can be easy to play for starting players, but Siegfried is even more so. He’s slow, but not too slow, and his sword does a lot of damage for what it’s worth. His sword has a lot of range, but his kicks and headbutts can be very nice for close range combat. The only thing that can bring him down is a fast character that can use the eight-way run to run circles around him before his sword can do much at all.

Maxi is a martial artist that fights mainly with a few kicks and his trusty nunchucks. Maxi specializes in close range, with almost no long-range attacks. He is very fast, and can be a bit unpredictable. Plus, his combos can be almost ridiculously simple to figure out; I’ve managed to pull off some very long combos with just simple button mashing.

What can be more fun than fighting with a very long pole? Kilik fights with such a pole (it’s actually called a bo staff). The bo staff manages to keep enemies quite a distance away, while allowing for a lot of easy-to-pull-off moves. Some of the more complicated moves can be tough to accomplish, but can be done if you take some time. Although just doing using simple moves can prove to be quite useful.

Mitsurugi is seemingly the most balanced character of all in Soul Calibur IV. He’s not too fast or slow, his sword does decent amounts of damage, and his moves are simple to pull off. You don’t even really need to attain combos or complicated moves to do much. Mitsurugi can easily lead you to victory against any other newer players, and you might be able to hold your own against some moderate players as well.