Soul Blade

If the words weapons and fighting sound good together to you, Soul Blade, for the Sony Playstation, may be the game that you are looking for. Soul Blade places you in charge of ten characters. Each character has his or her own weapons and at least two different costumes to wear during a fight. What makes Soul Blade such a good fighter is the fact that there aren’t a lot of fighters that allow the player to use weapons and fight it out! It is a shame companies don’t utilize this weapon fighting genre a bit more.

Most of the time a company will put either great music into a game or good sound effects. Namco went out of its way to make both good. The music is definitely top of the line. From the opening song, to the music during games, you will fall in love with the great music. Sounding like an orchestra from an epic movie, Soul Blade is definitely good enough to purchase a soundtrack for! The sound and sound effects are equally as good. From swinging weapons, to the announcer, it is all top of the line.

Next, even if a game has high quality music and sound, it also needs to be challenging to keep you coming back for more. Soul Blade is tough, while not being too hard. When you first play the game, the first thought you will have is, “Man, this is way too hard!” Your thinking will remain the same until you get used to the blocking system. The blocking button system, while sometimes annoying, is really a good feature. By using it, the game receives an added bonus of more depth. After taking the time to adjust to the controls, the game will get easier, but never too easy. And just when you think you are going to win every match, the player runs into the last two guys. These two are probably the toughest computer opponents I have ever played!

When Tekken 2 came out, Namco was praised for producing some of the best graphics for a console fighting game. They have outdone themselves with Soul Blade. The game looks even better than the arcade counterpart: Soul Edge (Namco changed the name with the Playstation version due to the fact the arcade game wasn’t too popular)! Details are evident all throughout this game. When you win a match you actually see the winner move his mouth and talk! These graphics are so good, Tekken 2 seems more like a SNES game than a Playstation game!

So, while I have been praising Soul Blade, it is time to discuss the pitfalls of the title. While the game is tremendously fun, it does grow tiring after a few hours of play. The game’s replay value is smaller than Tekken 2’s due to the limited number of characters. Don’t let these minor setbacks hinder you from picking up Soul Blade. Although the small number of characters can be dull and boring, SB makes up for it with multiple weapons per character and a story mode to earn these weapons! Soul Blade is certainly in my top 5 of favorite fighters on the PSX. Do yourself a favor, if you enjoy fighting games, the time has come to make a new purchase..