Soul Blade gets a bum rep. Most gamers cite Soul Calibur as the first installment in this venerable fighting franchise. Soul Blade (or Soul Edge as it was called in the arcades) is actually where it all began. This game made some pretty big waves in the Arcade and on the original PlayStation upon release. Today we’re here to talk about the latter version.
The story here is pretty typical for a fighting game. Soul Blade takes place in the tail end of the sixteenth century. Legends speak of a sword called the Soul Edge; an evil blade with unmatched power. It turns up in auction but is acquired by the dread pirate Cervantes. Nine fighters enter a tournament to acquire the blade – some wish to harness its power and others to destroy the evil sword.
No matter their background and goal the Soul Edge has attracted a pretty colorful cast of characters. You have knights like Sophitia and Siegfried, ninjas and samurai, and a few others. Then there’s Voldo. We’re not quite sure what he’s supposed to be. Each character in the roster has their own specific fighting style and signature weapon. Pay attention to the weapons because that’s the bread and butter in Soul Blade.
At first glance Soul Blade appears similar to 3D fighting games like Tekken and Virtua Fighter. The first thing you’ll notice is that these characters use weapons, and you’d be right if you guessed that this makes the game play differently. Space between you and the enemy is more important here, with varying range and speed of attack based on said weapon. You have three basic attacks, strong, weak, and kick. Each character also has their own special moves that are unblockable.
Speaking of blocking this is one of those few fighting games that has a dedicated button for it. You can perform a high or low block and figuring out which you’ll need will require quick reflexes. This protects your life bar from being depleted, but at the cost of the character’s weapon gauge. This is another unique aspect of the game. When this bar is depleted your weapon breaks but the fight continues barehanded. Your move pool is more limited, but victory is still possible. This doesn’t actually happen often but it’s still a neat touch to the gameplay.
Soul Blade is still fun but there are a few ways in which it shows it’s age. The big one is in the sidestep system. Instead of the now standard eight way movement here you can only move into the foreground or background. You do so by either double tapping up or down on the directional pad. It’s a functional system but limited. It takes a bit getting used to but still allows for just about as much freedom as you would want in a fighter such as this.
The game plays a bit more slow than your typical fighter of this era. Let me rephrase that; it’s more meticulous. The action isn’t as fast nor is it as furious, but in some ways that’s an advantage. Button mashing is more difficult because of this. You need to time your button presses for the end of the slower animations or else you’ll be sitting there for a split second of dead air. That means you’re left wide open to be struck. Some have called the game sluggish but that’s far from the truth. It’s well designed for the speed at which it plays.
Everything else in Soul Blade is pretty much by the books. Matches are best two of three format, and you win one when you drain your foe’s life bar. You can also get a win via ring-out, but this can be difficult to accomplish. Few attacks in the game have any real ‘push’ behind them. Most of the time I got a ring out completely by accident and could not put any viable strategy behind it. Because of the slower paced nature of the gameplay I found that the timer runs out on me more in this game than other similar ones. It’s not a good thing nor is it bad, but it’s certainly unusual in a fighter.
Something really must be said for the cinematic approach taken with Soul Blade. A lot of care was put into the presentation. The level of polish is ahead of its time. This holds especially true for the fighting genre. The character models look really good but because each fighter had a weapon their models have generally less detail than in Tekken. What might be the kiss of death for some fans however is that Soul Blade runs at only thirty frames per second. That means the action is not nearly as smooth as it is in the biggest fighting games of the time. I think it runs perfectly fine.
The audio is really well done too. The announcer is dynamic and the introductions are pretty beefy and epic. I thought this made the game feel much more cinematic. Additionally, there’s a fair amount of voice samples used for each character. They seem to each have two lines, and a plethora of grunts and cries. These sound a little muffled but the quality is fare overall. I’m not sure why these aren’t higher quality, given the hardware, but whatever. The music itself is sweeping and epic. I absolutely love the style this game incorporates. This is definitely one soundtrack that’s worth tracking down.
Soul Blade has largely been forgotten and shoved to the back of the pack by its follow up. It’s a fighting game that, while outdated by Soul Calibur, has enough elements all its own that it stands out against the sea of fighters from this era. I really like the style this one incorporates, and the presentation is top notch. The fighting engine is solid. The side step function might feel outdated but it’s functional. I prefer this one to many of the other high profile 32-bit fighting games. It’s still worth checking out especially for fans of the franchise.
