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Oh man, I was beyond infatuated with Soul Edge here in North America on the PlayStation. I bought the special controller with the game as soon as the local EB to me got it in. I was dropping a good $10 a week in the arcade machine.

I was friends with the staff at that EB and they hooked up the controller to the copy they put in the demo PlayStation so I could try it out. I was going to buy the controller they hooked up but another customer asked to try it, then another and another. In the time it took them to get me another arcade controller they sold 4 more to customers that tried it out on the demo unit so they left it hooked up. They knocked $10 off my bill for asking to try the arcade stick and it helping them sell so many so quickly.

Most of that staff eventually ended up working for Brady Games Guides or whatever it was called - remember strategy guides? Those phone book size glossy page books were amazing.

My community college had a Soul Edge machine in the Student Union building, and I, too, fed it many quarters. Who was your favorite character? I tended to play Seung Mina for her balance of speed and reach. My other characters didn't survive past that first entry.

I mainly stuck with Taki, in many situations it felt unfair using her but the people I was playing against were much better than me so I took whatever edge I could get. I also liked Mitsurugi a lot.

My buddy played Mitsurugi and Sigfreid almost exclusively. And I miss Rock. He seems to have vanished once the Soul Calibur series took off.