A rather diffrent take on the fighting genre but still fresh and innovative.
User Rating: 9.3 | Soul Edge (PSOne Books) PS
Just becuase it's a fighting game don't mistake it for a clone of Tekken while at the core it boils down to the same thing pound the life out of your opponent Soul Blade has some fresh ideas that seperate it from Tekken. A start on these fresh ideas is the weapons life bar it appears under your health and when you block part of your weapons life vanishes if it empties your weapon breaks leaving you to fight with your hands and feet ala Tekken. But a complaint about this weapon loss feature is that when you lose your weapon the hands and feet movelists are the same for each and every character. Also a fresh idea is the fact that there are interactive endings by pressing a certain button combination at a specific point in an ending it changes into the second and often more cheery ending. Another idea is the Edge Master mode choose a character and battle through some matches but these aren't your average matches these matches sometimes have special conditions for example "beat the enemy with your energy decreasing" or "Break the enemy's weapon" make for challenging if somewhat interesting battles. While playing through this mode you will unlock weapons for the character you are playing as these weapons carry special abilities that mix up the gameplay even more a favourite weapon of mine is Hwang's Phantom only the grip bit can be seen the actual blade itself is invisble. The graphics (considering it's PS1) are advanced the opening CG intro (and it's awesome song) look stunning. The character models themselves are impressive they slash and hack just as you'd expect them to. Unfourtunately one of the faults of Soul Blade is the fact that the stages look different in design, gameplay wise the arena's are identical by size and other things. The soundtrack here is impressive each level tune (and the afore mentioned intro song) all get you into the action like Sophitia's temple stage the music really goes with the stage there. The weapon sounds themselves are great the clashing of the swords the footsteps on the floor the thud when your warrior falls flat on the floor are all perfect. A problem that arises with the fighting mechanism unlike Tekken if an enemy falls to the ground unless you jump up and stab them on the way down it's impossible to hit them otherwise until they get up. Despite it's flaws (and forgivable ones there are too) Soul Blade is still a really great game with alot of unlockable weapons and characters it will keep you playing for ages.
