Soul Blade (aka Soul Edge) review

Jun 4, 2025

So this is my first blog entry here, and as my main thing is video-games, this is what I'll usually write about here, and I kind miss writing about stuff I like. I don't mind if nobody will see this, I just miss putting my thoughts into words. This blog will probably beat most garbage you'll read from gaming journalists anyway, that is, the ones that still have a job somehow. Not everything will be this long, of course, but I like to have the freedom to write about whatever I want here.

Anyway, I've been streaming Soul Blade for the past four streams (about to stream the fifth one after writing this) and I'm absolutely in love with the game. Usually, after so many hours, I grow tired of whatever game I'm playing, but this one is still yet to overstay its welcome. This is something I've been wanting to do for a while with fighting games in particular, to get out of my cozy comfort zone, that being Street Fighter II and Mortal Kombat I/II, and take a deep dive into the unknown, in this case, a completely different fighting game franchise altogether.

I knew I wanted to start with a 3D fighting game, because quite frankly, I never liked them. They just never appealed to me, not even a little, so it was the perfect thing to challenge my open mindedness. I chose the Soulcalibur franchise because I remember seeing Soulcalibur 2 having different guests exclusives to the consoles at the time, that being Heihachi for the PS2, Link for the GameCube, and Spawn for the Xbox. I thought it was the coolest idea ever, to have exclusive guest characters depending on which console you owned. Not to mention, Darth freaking Vader is a guest character later in the series, and I just love that guy. Every time you see me pausing to drink juice while streaming, I'm drinking out of my Darth Vader cup, not to mention that Darth Vader CRT I fought hard to get. But yeah, not only that, but the games looked pretty cool and fun. But alas, it was a 3D fighting game, so I never gave it a chance... until now, the year of our Lord, 2025.

As customary for when I play a new franchise, I like to start with the first entry, and with this particular one, that would be Soul Blade. Well... the game was originally called Soul Edge, and retained the same name when it was ported from the arcade to the PlayStation in Japan back in December of 1996. But when it came over to America the next month (PAL came later in May... slower games have slower releases I guess, lol), the name was changed to Soul Blade. 

Why? Because of one guy, Tim Langdell, who decided to copyright to the word "Edge," worldwide, which needless to say, was beyond ridiculous. He bullied a lot of developers with frivolous lawsuits, and even got games taken down, harassing everyone in the industry (especially Apple Store) that dared to come near the aforementioned E word, but eventually got put in his place by a judge, and none other than Electronic Arts. But yeah, to avoid the headache at the time, Namco simply replaced the word "Edge" with "Blade" and thus, the discrepancy was born. They kept the same attitude for the sequel, as Tim was still around suing everyone and their uncle, but changed the name of the series to "Soulcalibur," which mind you, I think it was a great idea, because it sounds just great. The rest is history: the franchise was very successful, and as you may know, spawned several sequels.

Now, as for my own experience with this, their first iteration, well, it has been nothing shorter than an absolute blast. First of all, the intro is mythical. I actually had heard it plenty of times before, as it's used as Maximilian Dood's outro, who is one of the few streamers I watch, but although I was familiar with the song, I didn't know this was the game where it originated from. The intro is only present in the PlayStation version, the arcade original doesn't have it. 

Anyway, the second thing to notice, is just how stunning the graphics look for a PS1 game. It is rich in detail, colorful, sharp, and just overall stellar. I was expecting a pixelated mess, which mind you, never bothered me much, as I'm a big fan of PS1 graphics (and so are other people, judging by the amount of popular indie games with PS1-style graphics nowadays), but instead, what I got being presented before me on this old Trinitron was positively jaw-dropping. I'm not sure if it's a 100% true, but I did find evidence that the game's internal horizontal resolution is actually 640 pixels, which then gets squashed back to 4:3 for the CRTs of the time (for reference 320x240 would be 4:3, and many other games run at 256 pixels horizontally, which are then stretched back to 4:3 on your CRT). 

That explains why there's such clarity and high level of detail, and doesn't suffer the "it hasn't aged very well" label that many games of that era get, unless you're one of those idiots that arbitrarily label every older game in such way. The stages are fantastic, with things happening in the background, such as castles being destroyed, flags being raised, bonfires being lit, ships bobbing up and down, a raft floating down river, etc. Oh, and there are lighting effects too, such as the aforementioned bonfires casting lights and shadows on your character model, it's amazing. Because I also capture games simultaneously in full screen via a scaler and capture card, and can see them at the same time on the LCD monitors above me as I'm streaming, I gotta tell you, it doesn't even come close. What I see before me on this CRT might as well be HD. I'm dead serious. Yes, I know about OLEDs, but I don't have them, so once I do, I'll compare them both, of course.

The third thing you will notice is the music. It slaps, hard. Although at the time of writing I haven't tried it yet, there's additional options on the PS1 version for even more musical variety, which can be changed on the options menu. And again, that intro. Madone, it's just so freaking iconic. A lot of work was put into this game's musical score, which was composed by Masumi Itō, Benten Maru, Yoshiyuki Ito, Aki Hata, and Taku Iwasaki. Masterfully done, my good sirs.

Finally, the meat and potatoes of any self-respecting title: the actual gameplay. It's absolutely fantastic. And that's coming from someone who was beyond skeptical about 3D fighting games. It's technical, it's fun to learn, it feels great to master, it's responsive, and it's... man, it's just good. Yes, for me there are little annoying things that I was expecting from 3D fighting games, such as facing the wrong way sometimes when an opponent dodges you, but overall, it doesn't come close to putting a dent on the amount of fun gameplay this game has to offer. And I was told on stream by franchise veterans that the sequels have much smoother gameplay, which upon hearing, really makes me look forward to what I have in store when moving on to the sequels in the future.

But back to the fighting, unlike retro Mortal Kombat (mind you, I still love MK, and always will), you're not just learning how to exploit the AI, you are actually playing the game legitimately, learning patterns to dodge attacks with skill, not just cheap tactics or triggering the AI to do stuff. Even when you do purposefully trigger the AI to do things, such as baiting them to perform a wake up attack, then dashing back to avoid it, and then forward to punish with an attack, it requires time and precision. You will get punished, sometimes severely, when you miscalculate it. For someone who is used to the former and not the latter, it's an absolute breath of fresh air. Take Cervantes, for example, there was no exploits when it came to defeating him after many tries, there was just getting good with timing, blocking, and attacking. And after so many hours playing the game, I just can't believe how much it changes when you pick a different character as well. Like a completely different experience. Did I mention they have different weapon options to choose from as well? And what if I told you, that you go through a fun and challenging process to unlock those weapons, one by one, with an entirely separate game mode?

Enter "Edge Master Mode" - it's like Mortal Kombat Konquest mode, with lore exposition, different challenges, and of course, secrets galore. Sure, some of the challenges can be annoying, but it's all in a way that feels good once you figure it out and overcome them. And there's just so much content if you want to unlock everything. And that's exactly what I'm doing. Even the "arcade ladder" has replayability, because every character has secret endings that you can unlock with secret combinations. One of them is even its own mini game, where you dodge bullets while walking forward in the hopes to strike a guy who is reloading a rifle, in order to show him that swords are still relevant when it comes to warfare. This game is just awesome, dude.

Because I usually play shorter games (there has been exceptions, such as Demon's Souls) and rotate my hardware often, I get a few of my followers that are either tuning out or annoyed that I've been playing the same game for so long, and to them, I say "bon voyage and happy trails, buddyroll" because while I'm having a blast, I see no reason to turn this game off anytime soon, or at least not until I either 100% it, or have enough of it myself. I mean, imagine getting this awesome game back in the 90s, only to play for a week and then toss it away? Well, for starters, I'd get my ass whooped by the adults who bought me the game, that's for sure, as things were no chicken feed back then either. Naw, Soul Blade is absolutely amazing, and I couldn't be happier that this is the game that I picked for a fighting game deep dive journey. If you're coming from the channel, and somehow read this post, I hope that you too, are having a good time with me in this journey. If not, too bad, Waluigi time.

So impressed I am with the game that I bought the physical Japanese disc, appropriately titled "Soul Edge" and I will be saving some money to get the official Namco fight stick to go with it as well. I can always revisit the game and maybe do an Ultra Hard challenge or something. Anyway, this was my first blog entry here, if you read this, I hope you enjoyed it enough to try this game, if you haven't already. Until next time, take care, and shine on!