i am still not used to seeing darth vader in SC4...

Sweet, $80. Thank you for encouraging higher-than-normal collector's editions, Halo 3 and GTA IV.

First BF:BC and now this. People are going to be panning Namco about this unless they clear things up in a hurry, considering how much of a shitfest the last DLC post ended up becoming.

Oh joy. Another 80 bucks to spend? I'm sorry, but unless the added bonus material is really worth it and the box is extremely sexy, I will have to go standard.

I mean, Final Fantasy IV DS comes out in July too. I was expecting this to be an August release. Damn it.

@Raziel Dune:
Same here... he's too... Futuristic.

Well, there's one more game I can cross off my list.

I refuse to pay $20 extra for a better version, and I'm not going to buy the regular version if I miss out on actually in-game content by doing so.

My budget is extremely tight this year, and even though I only want a small handful of games, I'll be lucky if I can afford half of them. Bullshit like this makes the elimination process a lot easier.

Good job, Namco!

Tournament Kit consists of one can of coca cola and one can of spray cheeze whiz.
Extra customizable content consists of "new samurai armour" for Vader/Yoda.
On a serious note, why does this game need a special edition?

I hate not being able to edit typos.

@Xideo: ...because it's a poorly disguised way for Namco to make more money.

On another note, who really cares about canon in a fighting game? Since when have these types of games been known for their narrative? I've played every SC and I still have no idea what's going on. Something about an evil sword and a good sword, eternally pissing in each other's coffee.

i never buy special editions anyway because i am crazy and NEED all of my game cases to be in sync with each other, but i probably wont get this anyways unless there is a way to get vader on the 360 version. Also, why are they putting starwars characters into soul calibur? just seems so random...

I’ll probably pass on shelling out $80 for the premium edition, but I’ll still be getting this game at launch for the PS3. I can’t wait to play as my old favorites; Mitsurugi, Cassandra and Zasalamel. I am curious as to who’s penning the comic for the premium edition. Could it be Takuji Kawano? or Mine Yoshizaki? As an illustrator, I’d love to see what talent they have behind that.

I miss the days when I didn't know Vader was an attention starved crybaby who builds effeminate robots for some reason...

dude, premium edition should have both vader and yoda... ha ha

but yeah rumor is that yoda or vader will be a downloadable character on their respective consoles.

"extra customization content" hmm does that mean using lightsabers costs more?

@smuckersisgood: For the same reason they put Spawn, Link and Heihachi in SC 3 - it sells extra copies to the fans of those games. Well, except for Heihachi... ;)

I was going to check this post to see how many other people are irritated at this new "$80 pricing on Limited Edition" fad. I miss the days when I'd get something rad for $10 more, or even when the limited edition was the same price (I'm looking at you Unreal Tournament 2004!)

A tale of souls and swords, eternally retold…

My soul still burns

Still no Talim. No Talim, no sale. You listenin' Namco?

@Captain Impulse: yeah, but Darth Vader is gonna sell some copies, as will freaking Yoda... I'd rather have the yoda, but PS3 can't escape its destiny... PS3 IS Darth Vader... And Yoda is green, but can he be stopped by a red light...saber?

Two souls intertwined in a struggle to find a power that can surpass the skies and transc...Round One, Fight!

Does the announcer ever finish the pre-fight rambling intro?

Thank you very much $80 collectors editions. My wallet wasn't quite being raped enough by the $60 on current gen games. At $80 the tournament kit better come with someone to play against.

@ epionx111: Yeah, I'd be pretty shocked if they didn't do that.

@bobtheduck: Precisely. Namco knew what they were getting into throwing Star Wars characters in the mix, although I'm sure they're probably at least somewhat confused (as am I) by the backlash some have expressed. When did we stop being gamer nerds and start becoming fiction critics?

im waiting for the wii version to have Obi-wan :|

...one can dream

G'DUR!!! ps3 darth vader and yoda... failbox 360 vader and yoda....yoda shall break the 360 for he is broken....the fuck he can juggle characters for? tournament thingy.... obviously i can throw a tournament at my local house, gamestop, arcade, you know the whole shebang...yea...i shall own with yoda on me ps3 and smash all...but for the most part taki and kilik.... PSN: Jogenmaru... take me on when the time comes if ya dare..jk im not that good. im mediocre

I predict that Hori will announce a new LE SC4 Arcade Stick any day now.

I'm really weird in that I HAVE to buy the Collector's Edition; I feel like I'm missing out on something otherwise.

So, yeah, I'll be dropping the $80 on this come July 29th.

This still sounds like one of those schoolyard NES-era rumors that kids used to spread, like Samus getting naked, or Animalities in Mortal Kombat II. "Dude! Darth Vader's unlockable in Street Fighter II Turbo! Trust me! All you have to do is jump E. Honda non-stop for thirty seconds, and at the end, land on Chun-Li's face! Then the game says you rock, and there's totally Darth Vader!"

It's just bizarre.

@bobtheduck: Oh my God it all makes sense now.

@yanthrax:

Agreed. It's bad enough that publishers have created a science out of giving as little as possible for your extra $10, now they want to charge an extra $20.

MGS4 still takes the crown though, with less extras than a $10 premium at a $25 premium price.

so ps3=darth vader and 360=yoda right?

@thinkfreemind: Amen. Namco what are you trying to do to me? Just announce Talim already. Arrgh this is very frustrating.

@ FistyDollars: Yeah, also stuff like "There's a game where Mario fights Sonic! And Snake is in it too!" This is the dawning of the age of really bizarre crossovers. Although having Lloyd from Tales of Symphonia in Soul Calibur Legends still gets a "...whuh?" from me.

Someone needs to start legislation against these collector's edition things. Just wait:

"Halo 4, the greatest game to hit your consoles since Halo 3, comes in 7 different editions. For 59.99 plus sales tax, you will get the standard "core" Halo, which, like the core 360, will get you absolutely nothing. Game comes with the game case and a blank DVD. For 69.99 plus tax, you get the first 2 levels of the campaign and a Halo 4 duffle bag!... For 299.99, you get the full single player campaign, all of the multiplayer maps that we've decided not to rip you off and charge as DLC later (4 all new maps!) a cool, giant, huge, life-sized (4 inch) Master Chief figurine, and a metal tin!"

Games don't deserve these things just because its a sequel. Assassin's Creed, the figure was the best thing about buying the game, Bishock, barring the broken ones, was awesome. Halo, waste, GTAIV, give me a freaking break, SC4? No sale.

*note*
Don't mean to sound too anti MS by using Halo as the example, but I can't think of a single Nintendo game that has ever pulled this crap and I can't think of more than 10 recent games worth a damn on the Xbox that DIDN'T pull this crap.

What is this "Canon" thing people keep on mentioning? =/

The force will be with me when i chose the ps3 version. I will join the dark side and toss all the 360 ones on the floor. I will then blame darth vader for making me hate Yoda!

This is going to look like fun though. :D

Fuck you Namco.

Why the hell is every damn company doing this!?

It's like, I want the extra content, but what the hell? 20 bucks? That could've been DLC for 800 pts or whatever Playstation uses. But noooooooooo! Collector's editions are the in-thing!

Stupid...

@Detha: How do we prevent every god damn company under the sun from taking advantage of this crap?

@usfslacker: 'Cause you totally have to buy it. It's the only version. I'll quote Gerstmann on this one:

I believe it was a famed Canadian economist, Bruce McCullough, who first introduced me to the concept of "dollar votes." We vote with our money. If something outrages you, don't buy it. Bang. Zap. Done. Move on! I know that sounds simple, but it's way more effective than trying to feign outrage on the internet about something you probably weren't ever going to buy in the first place.

'Collector's' or 'Limited' editions are not new. It's right there, in the former title--something for collectors to purchase.

I hope they make Kilik's fighting more like it was in SC2 rather than that in 3. Kilik was my favorite character, then I completely stopped using him and switched to Nightmare in SC3.

Awesome. However, what the hell? They released Soul Calibur 3 the EXACT same week in 2006. I know because SC3 came out on my birthday in 2006 (which was a Tuesday). The 29th is the Tuesday for that week. So really, what the hell?

woo hoo it comes out on my birthday!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

@ usfslacker: I have to disagree, personally I thought the comic by the Penny Arcade guys was the best thing, and roughly 80% of why I bought it. Also for $299.99 there's no way they'd just throw in the multiplayer maps.

@Dir_en_grey: From the Wiki:
[en.wikipedia.org]

@Dir_en_grey: Canon is term used for any officially recognized storytelling in a given work. Any plot that is accepted by a creator to be a true extension of a storyline can be considered canon. Crisis Core is a canon storyline to Final Fantasy VII, as it is an official work by Square-Enix who created FFVII. Any changes in a sequel, prequel, or remake that would contradict facts from a previous work are a retcon, not non-canon. In this case with Soul Calibur 4, the Star Wars characters are not a part of Soul Calbur’s official storyline and are thus non-canonical characters interacting with canonical characters. Almost every crossover work or fan-fiction can be considered non-canon because it isn’t a part of the established plot recognized by the authors of the work. Many people live and breath canonical plots. Canon

Oh right because a game that has previously featured Link, Spawn and Hehatchi as playable characters really gives two damns about canon.

Plus without the inclusion of Vader and Yoda would anyone really care about this game?

And thus, myself and $80 dollars will soon be parted.

@Captain Impulse:
@KeroseneClimax:
Much thanks for the info guys! =)
Guess my English really sux =/

methinks we all need to pray for the day when collectors/limited eds go back to they way games like lunar 2 eternal blue complete were: rediculously packed with goods that made the price worth it (the supreme quality of the game didnt hurt either) and hey if you preordered it you got a punching puppet XD sadly i wasnt into it at that time and dont have one...

@Kcet: The only difference being there was no "regular" edition of the Lunar games, so whatever they charged is what you had to pay. Granted, Working Designs' releases were worth every penny...damn I miss them.

@Captain Impulse: I'm pretty sure it's very well understood that Gaming Nerds, or nerds of any type for that matter, are concerned about their respective universes/canon getting intermixed. Especially when they fit like a square peg in a circular hole.

In any case, I am looking forward to this game with an intense fervor. Vader/Yoda or not, I'm getting it upon its release.

@AZRoboto:

I was thinking the exact same thing. First MS jacks the price of games to $60 when the 360 comes out and now in the wake of Halo 3 we're seeing all these $80 collector's editions. Does anyone actually pay that much for a game? $80?!? It's total insanity. If you want a little plastic toy or a some PR material, write to a studio and have it sent your way. A lot cheaper than shelling out close to a hundred bucks for a game that shoehorned Yoda and Vader into the publisher itself has lost faith in the franchise without gimmicks. Too bad, to -- Soul Calibur for the Dreamcast is one of the best fighters ever made.

@JohnnytheFuture: Yeah, but it's a fighting game. How many people are seriously looking forward to plot developments in SC4?

Looks like there might finally be a Special Edition version of a game that's worth shelling out the extra bucks for; I'm guessing the "tournament kit" will involve some way to record matches, which I can live without, but I'm curious as to what the extra customization content will be. Extra costumes and custom character parts, perhaps?

I do have to say, however, that the article headline was rather misleading; I saw it and thought Namco was going to dump all of the backstory completely out the window, which wouldn't have been cool. Bonus secret characters and things like that is not "disregarding canon"; it's just the game's developers having some fun. Isn't that the idea, to have some fun? Chill out about it already.

I'm surprised I never asked this:

Will Vader's alternate Costumes be:
A. Anakin Skywalker
B. Respirator Albino Anakin Skywalker
C. Vader without Helmit
D. James Earl Jones with a Lightsaber

So what Is it Namco?

Ugh. The canon debate. I hate to break it to you folks, but Soul Calibur has no canon. Seriously the storyline of each game is "a bunch of zany folks try to either obtain or destroy some sword". And they try to make it sound serious by saying things like "eternally retold" or use the word "soul" alot.

It's not even...a story. At all. Honestly.

@ph15h needs followers: I forgot to add. PLATINUM PLATED VADER. That's right... you get him in different metal platings. GOLD VADER too.