MUSICSHARE: Soul Edge - Khan Super Session
Soul Edge: Khan Super Session [MU] | [MF]
For me personally, 1996 was a really shitty year except for the fact that it launched the PS1 version one of my very favorite arcade games of all time, Soul Edge. Now, you whippersnappers probably do not know this game, because the PS1 had cooties, but you are familiar with its children, the Soul Calibur series. They are really lovely versus fighting games that took the ground that Mortal Kombat and VirtuaFighter had been forging and made them SO COMPLETELY AWESOME that those other flagship titles started stealing stuff from them, most notably how different weapon styles actually make people move differently instead of just have a different animation model.
Random loretastic crap you do not care about is that the Soul Calibur is the good fragment and the Soul Edge is the evil fragment, they are two distinct weapons ANYWAY yeah.
What I loved about this game were a) the music b) the character designs c) the fact that there was a plot. See, western games have this thing where if there is a series, and games of that series have multiple endings, the beginning of the next game must be logically connected to EITHER ending you could have come up with. Japanese designers think this is bullshit, and they determine which of those multiple endings is the "right" ending, and the other crap is just bonus and doesn't matter in the canon.
The "right" ending for Soul Edge is what completely hooked me on the series: high-ranking noble son Siegfried Schtauffen, because he was a medieval fratboy, dressed up as a highwaman with his best friends and tormented peasants and merchants like an asshole; during one of their Pranks Gone Wrong, his parents were accidentally killed (he didn't know it was them, they didn't know it was him, swords slipped) and he suffered a psychotic break because he never really meant to hurt anyone and no one told him hazing was bad and seriously you guys what the fuck. Convinced that he witnessed their cold-blooded murders at someone else's hand, he goes seeking the Sword of Legend because it is the only weapon that can avenge their deaths.
Unfortunately the Sword of Legend was actually the evil soul-devouring blade Soul Edge, so when he conquered the zombie pirate Cervantes and claimed it, it twisted him into Nightmare. YEAH YOU KNOW NIGHTMARE, DON'T YOU.
GEE CAN YOU TELL SIEGFRIED WAS MY FAVORITE
When Siegfried was the Fated Hero of SC3 -- meaning his claiming the Soul Calibur in order to not be a sixteen year-old boy anymore and generally being FUCKING AWESOME in a quest for redemption -- I did a pretty consistent little happydance. I still do a little happydance. Oh Siegfried, I will give you hugs and cookies and make it all better. <3 <3 <3
"Darkness of Fate" is his track in the original and it is spectacular.