Though I thought very highly of Dead or Alive, my attempt to pinpoint when the 3D fighting game genre came into its own (or "got good" if you want me to be less polite) has now taken me a few months back to Soul Edge or Blade or whatever the hell you want to call it.

Soul Calibur and DOA are pretty much neck-and-neck for me, and whichever series I prefer changes with the weather. I was hoping that these initial releases would be different enough in terms of quality that I could easily point to one as being better, but it turns out this is not the case!

Sure, Soul Blade differentiates itself by focusing on weapons and even has a surprisingly robust story in the form of the very funnily named "Edge Master" mode, but I think I prefer the weight of Dead or Alive's characters and how that game paces combat. Soul Blade has a deeper combo system, but Dead or Alive is easier to pick up and play. Dead or Alive has jiggle physics, but Soul Blade has Voldo-- there's a lot to weigh here!

That said, Soul Blade released on consoles first, so for the purposes of my completely pointless experiment, it has DOA beat. I could take this back even further and try Tekken 2, but I've played the demo enough times already and I'm not especially impressed by how it feels. Look, it's a weak excuse, I know. I just need to free up some time so I can figure out how the hell you chain Taki's Critical Edge into an actual combo so Sophitia can stop beating the absolute piss out of me. Google is not being helpful, every old GameFaQs and Reddit thread I find basically just says "do it better." Do what better!? It's not in the manual! OH FUCK SOPHITIA IS RUNNING RIGHT AT M-