Game #931: Soul Blade

 Before Calibur, whatever the hell that means, we had Blade!

 I give a lot of praise to Capcom's PS1 fighters, but maybe I've been sleeping on Namco, because Soul Blade is the complete package. Top-notch gameplay and loads of content make this one one of the better fighters on the original PS1.

 Let's start with the epic opening video, fantastic song and fantastic visuals that really pump you up for what's to come. Then the menu comes up: Arcade, Edge Master(Single player baby!), Survival, Training and Team battle. The game has 10 fighters, each fighter has 3 costumes and two different colors for two of those, y'see what's up Soul Calibur 6? Playing through Edge Master you can unlock 7 extra weapons for each fighter. You can unlock a few characters too. Soul Edge, a Cervantes clone, Seung Mina's father, a Hwang Clone, as well as bonus costume-versions of Siegfried(Siefried!, who is basically Nightmare) and Sophitia, with Sophitia!(No armor) and Sophitia!!, which is basically a bathing suit. Not bad for a fighting game of its era!

 Beating the game ends with an in-engine cutscene that features invisible QTEs that actually change how the ending plays out. Your mileage may vary on these, and you'll probably have to look up on a guide how to get the good endings. Edge Master features special matches for every character, you have to fight enemies under different, unfair conditions, and you unlock weapons with special properties for your efforts. You can then use these weapons in Versus mode, pretty cool! Plus, Edge Master features a new, different, text-and-images based endings for every character.

 The game plays pretty smoothly, although there's a caveat for looking so good... the framerate has some drops every now and then, depends on the stage mostly. You have have four main buttons: Vertical and horizontal slashes, a kick and a guard button, and you can also parry attacks and even use powerful moves that cost weapon durability. That's a new one, in this game your weapons can break leaving you with your fists, and now blocking makes you incur damage. So while the game feels very familiar, you'll even recognize moves from modern installments of Soul Calibur, the durability gauge gives it something that now other game in the series has, and that alone makes it interesting.

 Soul Blade offers so much content alongside very tight gameplay, making it an easy choice for anyone that likes fighting games. 3-D fighters of this era tend to feel a bit clunky, but this one is pretty darn smooth, to the point that it almost feels like a modern fighter using and old coat of paint. I like it.

8.5