Are/were Namco ashamed of Soul Blade?

[MJN SEIFER]

I don't reckon Namco would be ashamed of Soul Blade. For a game initially released in 1996 it was quite impressive and Namco should be proud of it. I guess the leap in quality between Soul Blade and Soul Calibur means Namco distinguishes the two as seperate franchises.

It was impressive, I was definitely impressed with it - more so than Tekken in fact (mostly because Soul Blade payed more attention to the storyline), but the last part in what you say makes sense - as good a Soul Blade is, you can clearly see the change in Soul Calibur.

I haven't played Soul Blade in a looooong time (probably as far back as the late nighties) so I can't say whether Namco has even acknowledged the games existence in the Soul Calibur series. All I know is that without Soul Blade we wouldn't have Soul Calibur so whether Namco is ashamed of the game or not, its a pretty significant game in their portfolio.

I still play it (the only Soul I don't have is Soul Calibur), and yes there is evidence of Soul Blade in the later games; Your probably not that familiar with the characters anymore, so you may not know what I'm on about, but when you look at the SC character's storylines there is evidence of their SB storylines, even if they're not complete (this is because SC mostly follow's Siegfried's SB storyline, but it follows the other character's storylines up until a point) I don't know if you remember what happens in Siegfried's Soul Blade ending, but that is pretty much where Soul Calibur begins.