Some work as a highly-damaging counter attack when timed properly. Others work from far away to punish projectile-firing opponents. And even then, not all special attacks are alike: some of them require the opponent to be in close range.
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They have various systems where any character can call upon a special attack after beating the stuffing out of the opponent, or as a way to make a comeback when half your health disappears. Look at the many, many 2D fighting games on the market. Solution #1: Make them Super or Ultra, but not Critical! Even if this is only for posterity's sake, at least I'll have something to point to "what went wrong" when the game comes out if the Critical Finisher system was barely changed.
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Even though there is very little chance that of the people working on SCV are reading this right now, I still feel the need to put down a small list of what I think could be done to fix the problem with these Critical Finishers. But now they are trying to find a way to make people use them more, yet not turn them into an instant "I Win" button. As shown in the E3 trailer, they will be returning in some form to the fifth game. The developer said that Project Soul had received a lot of feedback about the game and the problems with the Critical Finishers were an example. Honestly, I think it was a bad choice (among others) to put in Soul Calibur IV, but for the most part it was useless outside of a few special battles because you would never get those conditions just right before you were struck down the old-fashioned way, by which I mean a cheap ring out. It had three components: a piece of the enemy's armor had to be broken (doesn't matter which), their Soul Gauge (little glowing ball next to their health bar) had to be blinking red, and then you had to press some shoulder button to trigger it. A Critical Finsher was essentially an "I Win" button to punish people who blocked all the time.