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SNK's Last Blade series may not have had as many games as SamSho, but it remains one of their most solid fighting game titles. It is also among the first fighting game series that Daisuke Ishiwatari worked on, who also worked on Garou: MotW.Gameplay-wise LB was rather combo friendly compared to other SNK fighters at the time, thanks in part to it's Speed mode which allowed Chain combos and allowed for Custom Combos. It is also, perhaps the 1st SNK game to utilize super canceling special moves into supers, which can be done in Power mode. ...and then there's EX mode which combines both at the cost of having lower defense. These 3 modes would be balanced out well in LB2 (In LB1 Speed mode's CC was similar to SF Alpha 2's)Last Blade 2, however, is considered the best game of the 2 as it is featued in various FG tournies in Japan, such as the Eclipse of SNK event. ...and I personally agree as I find LB2 more fun to play as well than 1, it also feels more balanced in terms of gameplay, if not characters.However, what really makes the LB series stand out is it's setting and. The events of the game take place during a pivotal point in Japan's history, namely the end of the Tokugawa Shogunate and it's opening of borders to foreign nations and trade.Whether this has a major role in the game's story is...hard to tell mainly due to SNK's mediocre translation efforts.Non the less, the stages in the game are beautiful and reflective of the events of that era, which brings me to the graphics.There's no doubt that this game has the best animation in SNK's FG library from the 90s, the animation and colors greatly surpass SamSho, KoF and Real Bout at the time....and the music, my god the music, if you've never heard the music of this game before you're missing out A LOT, especially LB2's music. The Arrange soundtrack of LB2 is epic:I personally like the character designs of each character, and it should be noted that Rurouni Kenshin (aka Samurai X) did have an influence on some of the cast-Moriya has red hair similar to Kenshin, and is wandering swordsmanMukuro in LB2 is based off Shishioh fromWashizuka is an older SaitoShizumaru from SamSho 3 resembles Kenshin as wellKagami resembles Aoshi(You now suddenly want to go back and rewatch R. KenshinAlso Awakend Kaede is Luke Skywalker, don't believe me?My fav. characters are Setsuna and Kagami, gameplay-wise. Funny thing about Setsuna, I discovered LB2 at my regular arcade during the time I had a PSX and played Megaman X4 and FF7, and in those games my fav. characters were Zero and Sephiroth (notice a pattern here? Hey it was when I a young'un gimme a break =P)While Shinkiro did do the artwork for the 1st game, I feel that Senno Aki, aka TONKO, is THE Last Blade series artist (he did the art for LB2), besides Shinkiro did a lot of SNK fighters anyway that it's hard to think of any other artist who did official art for SNK during the 90s. Oh and Aki also did artwork for Garou MotW:Let me know if I linked one too many un-allowed images >_>;As fare as availability is conerened-Last Blade 1 is available on JPN PSNLast Blade 2 got released on the Dreamcast as Last Blade X with some additional stuff like anime cutscenes and Musashi from LB1 being playableThere was also an LB game for the NeoGeo PocketEDIT: LB1 and 2 are available on the Wii Virtual Console, thanks for the heads up gang.