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Ultimate Blade is the byproduct of what would happen if you merged Media Ring's "Tactical Fighter" with Great/KSS' "Wrestle Angels". Released in 1995 by the small team at POPCOM Soft (also known as Popcom Software, they are best known for their "Zavas" titles) Essentially, what we have here is a fine fighting simulation with a light story where the future of mixed martial arts culminates into the "Ultimate Blade" tournament (2025) which prospered in America during the nineties and made its way overseas to Japan where it became a huge hit, attracting fighters from all over the world to compete as a way to scout the best fighters as well as keep fighting junkies off the streets. Every few years, the ultimate fighters get the opportunity to train at the ultimate university in a no-holds barred open tournament, and your job as a scouting manager is to raise two of five fighters to reach the top, and it won't be easy.

Each fighter has wildly different starting stats, skills, personalities, disciplines (in this case, fighting specialty and preferred techniques), likes and dislikes, etc. For example, Akane (hakama-wearing martial artist) is the youngest of the bunch with a background in old-school martial arts (primarily Aikido and Kobudo) as well as a local prodigy in Japan as one of the youngest winners of the All-Japan martial arts convention at 16 years of age, but is somewhat selfish and narcissistic as a result, so she starts with horribly low morale and is hard to please, and her small frame makes her very vulnerable to attacks. Another specializes in karate and is generally unfaithful, another is a Muay Thai expert who is serious, skilled and loyal (being one of the easier to use, though his jumping attacks are a little harder to land), and so on and so forth.

Your goal is to construct two basic schedules for your fighters to follow, balancing attack, defense, speed, stress, morale, and other factors to win the Ultimate Blade championship (which starts two years after the last tournament in 2027). Characters earn money by winning exhibitions which can be used to buy items or participate in side activities that help boost your abilities or relieve stress. You can also hold a consultation with your fighters (check how they're doing, scold or praise them), check your abilities, your tournament stats, configure options, and more. It's also worth mentioning that you will occasionally have opportunities to learn new moves as you train, which is key in winning later.

At the end of each training session, you will have the opportunity to participate in a battle to earn money, where you can manually fight or leave it to chance (inadvisable). Manual battles are card-based, where you draw cards with different numbers and techniques to fight the opponent, with some moves taking precedence over others. The most powerful attacks are combination skills, but they require multiple cards with the same rating to use. You will likely lose a lot starting out as the cards are rigged in the opponent's favor and their stats are significantly higher than yours starting out, so it's advised to wait at least a good ten training sessions or so before you go after the opposition, but this depends on different factors like ally morale, available funds, etc. Play in a way that you're comfortable with.

The graphics are pretty good with neat illustrations and actual animations during fights, though the enemy sprites are quite limited and seldom match their illustrations. The music, on the other hand, is pretty awesome with some great use of the good 'ol punchy Yamaha sound. While the game isn't as deep as either Wrestle Angels or Tactical Fighter, it's interesting to see a hybrid of sorts in Ultimate Blade which helps it stand out in the vast sea of sim / management titles. This is a basic video of the game in action. Enjoy.

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