Jan 112017
The Soul Calibur series kicked off 20 years ago with Soul Blade, the PS1 home conversion of arcade hit Soul Edge. This episode we look at Edge and Blade, which have no fewer than THREE official soundtracks to explore.
SHOW NOTES
0:00:00 – The Edge of Soul (Soul Blade)
0:13:02 – Epic Calling (Soul Edge)
0:14:17 – The Gears of Madness (Soul Edge)
0:17:04 – Dragon’s Call (Soul Edge)
0:22:50 – Kkaduri (Soul Blade)
0:25:23 – Bravely Folk Song (Soul Blade)
0:34:27 – An Oath of the Sword (Soul Blade)
0:35:59 – A Haunting Wind (Soul Blade)
0:39:54 – Darkness of Fate (Soul Blade)
0:47:03 – A Continental Gale (Soul Blade)
0:50:45 – Doubtful Judgment (Soul Blade)
1:02:04 – Our Way Home (Soul Blade)
Holy hell, Continental Gale is out of control.
The games take place during the 1500’s so the character mish-mash, while slightly anachronistic, isn’t completely off the wall.
i love that intro song. A couple times a year, I’ll just remember out of nowhere “hey i should listen to that opening again!” and then i’m blasting it on repeat. i used to sit at the title screen hoping it would play again. 9 times out of 10 the game would go into an attract mode match, but sometimes the CG OP would start and kid me is singing along.
I didn’t play the Soul Edge back in the day, so I was quite surprised to hear how much rocky-er it is when compared to the much more symphonic score of the later games.
Very entertaining!
Like a lot of folks, I started with Soul Calibur. I did see Soul Blade in an arcade in Iceland, but it didn’t look very good compared to Virtua Fighter 2 or even Tekken. It made a lot more sense as a console game. In any case, really good music here. It was cool to hear the themes and motifs that would recur later on in the series.
Brett, speaking of non sequitirs, you should check out the soundtrack to Arrival(not THE Arrival, the late 90’s Charlie Sheen alien flick). It’s nothing like anything you play on this show, but I suspect you would appreciate it. The movie is also phenomenal.
Remember being absolutely blown away by the Soul Edge arcade first time I saw it in Euro-Disney land. Rock wielding his big axe and letting out his war cry was an unbelievable sight. The levels were cool with that raft floating down the river and the one with the tall grass blowing in the wind. I also remember being drawn to Li Long because of his nunchucks. The PS1 home conversion was pretty solid, very pretty for a Playstation 1 game, maybe one of the most technically advanced games Namco did for the system.
A few years later Soul Calibur managed to blow me away once more when I loaded it up on my Dreamcast.
It’s a cool series, even though I think Namco gradually got too far away from the neat concept of historical swordsmen duking it out. In my opinion Soul Calibur got increasingly tasteless with nonsensical anime costumes and straight up pornographic outfits for the ladies.
But yeah, the music is pretty rad, that Rock theme is beyond epic!
Thanks for another episode, keep up the good work!
Speaking of swordsmen, I would love to see an episode on the Tenchu series of ninja games, as the first few titles for PS1 and PS2 had incredibly cool and atmospheric “samurai music” for lack of a better word. Just a suggestion…. 🙂
Great episode as always, first time i respond or comment for anything really.
Alright. this needs to be shared.
Hi, my name is Christian and I live in Sweden.
Last year or so our swedish network broadcast a orchestrated game music consert by the swedish radio symphony orchestra.
It’s about an hour long and I want more people to watch this, its fantastic!
The concert is in swedish but there is a description in the notes.
This is not my video or recording of it, and i am sorry if this goes for spam, but i don’t know where to post this otherwise so other gamemusic fans can enjoy this.
Please listen to the Megaman Suite 1:02:15 in, its amazing.
https://youtu.be/-PkdLMIz-Ys?t=5m26s
I am sorry for writing this here but it is just to good.
Sorry for grammar and my rambling.
I hope Brett you are seeing this and maybe i am late to the party, but you haven’t mentioned it on any shows i listen to, So please give it a go.
Never ended up commenting on this one, but I remember a friend showing me “The Edge of Soul” years ago and I dismissed it as being way too cheesy. And while it is cheesy, listening to it again after all these years made me realize it’s actually quite brilliant. I wish this was in karaoke! :O
I also have a copy of Soul Blade/Edge on PS1 that was being given away in the office…I need to give it a whirl sometime!
I’m extremely happy that you guys covered this game. It is my favorite soundtrack and one of my favorite fighting games. I really wish Namco cared more about Soul Edge/Blade. Sure it lacks the graphical polish of its offspring Calibur but I would love. For Namco to remaster the game and give it online capabilty. I hope you do a Rocktober for The Calibur series and cover the 1-5, BrokenDestiny and Legends.