Released in December 1996 in Japan, and in 1997 in North America and Europe, Soul Blade is the PlayStation port of Namco‘s Soul Edge arcade fighting game – the predecessor to the Soulcalibur series.
Soul Edge was a pioneering early attempt at using Motion Capture in a fighting game – for the realistic animation of the combatants – and it had quite an impact on fighting game fans when it was first released.
Developed by “Project Soul” and released into arcades by Namco in April 1996, Soul Edge is a weapons-based, one-on-one fighting game that serves as the predecessor to the Soulcalibur series.
Developed by Produce! and published by Hudson Soft – in Japan only – in 1996, Super Bomberman 4 thankfully does have a fan translation available, which makes the game fully playable in English.
The sequel to the first Sword of Hope, The Sword of Hope II was developed and published by KEMCO in Japan in 1992, but wasn’t localized and released into North America until 1996. Europe (and the rest of the world) didn’t receive a release of the game at all.
Developed by Sting Entertainment and published by Squaresoft in 1996, Treasure Hunter G is a tactical Japanese Role-Playing Game that features exploration, turn-based combat and a fantasy-based storyline that mixes magic and technology. It was released in Japan only, but a fan translation makes it playable in English.
The beleaguered 3DO port of id Software‘s classic Doom is often referred to as “the worst port of Doom” by fans of the game, but it’s actually not a bad conversion at all. Yes: it is relatively slow, compared to other Doom ports, and yes: the game runs in a reduced-size window, but it still plays pretty well and does have its plus points.
Zombie Raid is a first-person arcade lightgun shooter for one or two simultaneous players. It was developed and distributed by American Sammy in 1996.
The 1996 PlayStation version of Aicom‘s classic isometric shooter, Viewpoint, was ported by Visual Concepts Entertainment and published by Electronic Arts. It features updated graphics and music, with the same basic gameplay elements of the original.
X-Men vs. Street Fighter is Capcom‘s third fighting game to feature Marvel Comics characters, following X-Men: Children of the Atom and Marvel Super Heroes, and is the first instalment in the Marvel vs. Capcom series. It was originally released as an arcade game in 1996, and was ported to the Sega Saturn in 1997, the Sony PlayStation in 1998, and Windows PCs in 2001.
Lunar: Walking School (aka Lunar: Sanposuru Gakuen) is a Game Gear exclusive handheld RPG first released in 1996. It is a spin-off/side story from the main Lunar series published by Game Arts. This ‘Walking School‘ edition was developed by Ehrgeiz and written by Studio Alex.
Again: thanks to the efforts of fans a number of translation patches exist to make the game playable to non-Japanese speakers/readers.
The King of Grabs 