Ranking of Fighters 0026: VR Troopers & Soul Blade

First. Ben is bespectacled

Lube up for science

For anyone interested in the original series that VR Troopers took footage from, they are:

• Metal Hero Series: Superhuman Machine Metalder
• Dimensional Warrior Spielban
• Space Sheriff Shaider

I recommend following tokugifs on twitter if you are interested in Tokusatsu

Surprise science is the best science.

Good science.

In the spirit of Mr. Drew Scanlon: We are...VR Troopers.

Thank you for playing the whole Soul Blade intro.

Catelyn Stark

VR troopers more like VR bloopers

Fact: The opening to Soul Blade is the greatest banger in video game history.

@animasta: VR Poopers lololol

For the love of God, can you please correct the spelling on #3 Marvel Super Heroes? I see Heores every show and it's driving the left side of my brain insane!!!

LETS FIGHTING LOVE

Ben looks good with glasses. It suits his face.

Samurai Showdown is lowered... but the soul still burns.

Damn Jeff is looking slim these days. Good job man I don't know what you're doing but it's working.

doodStare

As a child hipster I played VR Troopers on my Genesis instead of Power Rangers on a SNES that I didn't have. Wonderful.

Welcome to the stage of SCIENCE, eternally scientific.

OUT OF TIME

You guys don't know how deeply happy it makes me to see Soul Blade rank so highly on this list. I remember being dragged to a pawn shop when I was five years old to look at some bargains by my mum, and saw this game lit up in a display case alongside some other PS1 gems. It screamed to me that I needed it, and my mum said sure, despite the £25 price tag.

When I got it home and saw that fucking intro, I was so content with my life and my purchase, and then experiencing each of the awesome, imaginative stages one after the other without a single dud was just pure magic. I loved the simplicity of them -- stone platform + clean, beautiful background + animated element -- and that ethos of simple but clean is found in the mechanics, too. The soundtrack is also fantastic. I'm glad it soared into sixth place without a hurdle, because I never heard anyone but me talking about this game at school in the UK.

When I went to America in '99, one of the arcades had Soul Edge, and I couldn't believe it; it was my favourite game in a huge machine! (I'd never seen an arcade cabinet before). I met this cool group of teens and twenty somethings who were surprised such a little kid who could barely reach the buttons knew any of Siegfried's moves. One of them bet me his cup of quarters that I couldn't beat him, and I felt like a grown-up for the first time ever, it was rad. I absolutely destroyed him.

This and Tekken 3 are still my all-time favourites of the '90s fighters.

glad to see promotion of lab safety habits to prevent chronic workspace injuries

Fighting games are low-ish on my interests list but if I'd owned Soul Blade on my PS1, I think that might have changed.

I remember having a bit of a crush on that girl from VR Troopers. Also the intro to that show still feels like a bit of a Japanese TV acid trip compared to similar shows from that period.

Loved me some Soul Blade - back at college we would play Edgemaster mode and pass the controller for hours. The endings were great too, especially I remember Hwang's scaring the crap out of me the first time I saw it.

Should I watch VR Troopers? Both seasons are on Netflix, which accounts for a mind-blowing 92 episodes!

No. It's not great. It does have a talking dog though. It's made using the footage from at least three different Japanese shows. So every battle has Ryan Steel split up from the others because they have no footage of them together. Same with many villains. They jump into "jets" that shoot and the footage of villains from another show are shown exploding.

Fun fact: it was originally conceived of as a vehicle for Jason David Frank after he finished shooting as the Green Ranger on original Power Rangers. Filmed a pilot and everything. But then the green ranger and Tommy were so massively popular they brought him back as the White Ranger and cast some other guy as Ryan Steel.

I'm happy Soul Blade ranked high, but in my opinion it should have been number one. I love Rival Schools (well 2 mostly) but come on...best intro ever, phenomenal music, interactive endings, a lot of weapons, different modes, the first game in a dynasty of great games...just awesome all around. Me and my friend played it to death during our late teen and early adolescent years, me playing with Taki, and him with Li Long. I only considered myself proficient once at a fighting game, and this was it.

I have such fond memories of Soul Blade.

Oh right, video embeds are still busted. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDZersVkkiY

the top 50 fighting games of all time may have been distilled down into list form, but science can't stop until the top 9999 have been determined

I played a lot of VR Troopers on Sega Channel. This is bringing back a lot of good memories.

Well...it was a good 20 years not having the VR Troopers song stuck in my head...

Not gonna front: the skug turning into Clone Ryan was a weird, nice touch. I appreciate little touches of effort like that in otherwise mediocre fighting games.

Also bringing back some memories of those GREAT character designs. Darkheart was my DUDE. His tragic backstory of being Ryan's father, abducted by Grimlord and forced to fight his son kept me tuning in day after day! And the best part? It probably 100% holds up and wouldn't come off as corny today!

Man, gotta say, Jeff is looking freaking great!

45:27 : Jason: "I like the flavor of Taki's butt not the texture." :)

God I love Soul Blade's intro.

I will be lubing my wrist all the time now. Thanks Science!

Why didn't I get a notification for this one?

Continues to be the best show on this website.

VR Troopers is great to watch in a cytube or something like that. Not as good as Saban's Masked Rider but its probably my second favorite next to that.

EDIT: On second thought, Superhuman Samurai Syber-Squad is second easily.

Jan really got Vmix down.

DUAL TRIUMPH is a pretty baller phrase though.

Some of the #. in the ranking list have a space after them before the game time and some don't. Never gonna not think about that when the list comes up.

The TONE of this VR game is at least good, even if the composition is meh. The FM is at least half-solid at least!

The Edge of Soul was the Indestructable of its day.

Jeff is lookin GOOD

I put hundreds of hours into Soul Blade back in the day. There's a Mitsurugi ending that has you try and slice a bullet which I remember being incredibly hard. Also, the one Siegfried ending has him turning into Nightmare.

Also, this reminds me the alternative costume stuff in Soul Calibur 6 sucks...since it doesn't exist.

Hmmm... haven't gotten the last few GB videos posted to Youtube and had to come here just to get redirected to Youtube.

Edit: It's because they're uploading them days early and then making them public*

That Cervantes level music sound like a cross between the Soviet Anthem and the theme to Monty Python and the Holy Grail