Soul Blade

Soul Blade
Console	Sega Mega Drive, SNES
Date	1997 (SNES version)
Engine	SNES Fighting Engine (SNES version) Mega Drive Fighting Engine (Mega Drive version)
Sound engine	Data East High Seas Havoc sound driver (Mega Drive version) Capcom (Super Pang/Super Buster Bros.) (SNES version)
Alternate names/hacks	Soul Blade Super (Mega Drive version)

Soul Blade is a bootleg port of the PlayStation version of the fighting game of the same name (named Soul Edge in Japan) released for the Sega Mega Drive and SNES. The Mega Drive version is named "Soul Blade Super" on its title screen, and both games are similar to each other in content.

SNES version

Title screen.

The SNES version of the bootleg Soul Blade port is largely similar to the Mega Drive version, although it carries its own set of differences. The SNES version's title screen has a notice at the bottom of the screen reading "1997 SFC VERSION" along with blinking text that reads "PUSH START BUTTOM" (sic). When the start button is pressed, the game will then show the main menu options.

Character select screen.

Unlike the Mega Drive version, the SNES version only has six available characters instead of nine, removing Hwang, Li Long, and Cervantes from the roster. This game uses the same SNES Fighting Engine used in other known bootleg SNES fighting games, possessing some of the same quirks as those games. Compared to the Mega Drive version, gameplay in this version is significantly worse, with controls being unresponsive and the AI for opponent characters performing attacks much more aggressively to an unfair degree, even on the easiest difficulty. The final boss in this version is Li Long with a corrupted color palette.

The SNES version is dumped, with both a raw dump and a cracked version of the dump known to exist. The raw dump is of unknown origin and is 3 MB in size. Said dump is likely copy protected and does not boot in any known SNES emulators. The cracked version of the ROM is the same size as the raw dump and removes the copy protection, allowing it to work in most SNES emulators.

Gallery

SNES version

Front of the box.

Back of the box. Note the moveset list, which includes movesets for Cervantes and Hwang, who are not playable in the SNES version.

Cartridge (uses Super Famicom cartridge shell).

Trivia

• The "PUSH START BUTTOM" text graphics used in the SNES version's title screen are also present in the Mega Drive version's ROM data, although they appear to go unused in-game. This suggests that the development of both versions are connected to each other, although in what manner is currently unclear.
• Graphics from the SNES Tekken 2 bootleg are present as leftover data in the SNES version of Soul Blade, suggesting that this game started development and was likely released after the Tekken 2 bootleg.

See also

• Soul Edge VS Samurai Spirits
• Virtua Fighter 2 VS Tekken 2