I was never really in to 3D fighting games. I wasn't even into 2D fighting games that much after Street Fighter II. I did play Marvel vs. Capcom, Darkstalkers and a couple of others occasionally though. The Soul Blade series is an exception though. Soul Blade was originally released as an arcade game before being ported to the PlayStation in 1995. It wasn't this game I started with though...I started with its sequel SoulCalibur on the Dreamcast in 1998 and while I played it quite a bit, I never tried any of the sequels of which there have been many.
Soul Blade was developed by Namco as an arcade game and released in 1995. A slightly enhanced version was released for the PlayStation the following year. Namco was also the company that developed Tekken and some of the controls and moves in Soul Blade are reminiscent of that series. In Soul Blade, your weapons also has a life bar. If it gets depleted, you lose your weapons. There is unique special and powerful move that each character has that can be used under certain conditions but it depletes one third of your weapon.
The story involves a group of warriors searching for the ultimate sword. Every character is searching for the sword for their own reasons. Unfortunately for anyone seeking the sword, it feeds on the souls of both its victims and its wielder. Ultimately, you must face the pirate Cervates if you want to obtain the Soul Edge.
I'm not sure what appealed to me about this series of 3D fighters vs. others. I think it was several things. I liked the aesthetics of it more than most. It had unique characters and the moves seemed not that difficult to learn which is nice. It also had decent music and sound. In fact, there were two soundtracks released on CD for Soul Edge. Of course, I started with SoulCalibur which improved upon most of those factors.
At any rate, if you are a fighting game fan than chances are that you have played at least one game in the series. If not, then I highly recommend giving this series a try. My favorite is still SoulCalibur. I'm not sure if there is a way to play the original Soul Blade without the original arcade game, PlayStation version or emulation. There are a bunch of newer games in the series as well but I have not tried those. I'm sure the graphics, music and sound have continued to improve but I'm not sure how the fun factor compares.
Screen shots above are from the PlayStation version of the game.
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