Soul Eater : Battle Resonance

Soul Eater: Battle Resonance is a Japanese fighting-action game developed by BEC and published by Bandai Namco Games for PlayStation 2 on January 29, 2009. Based on the Soul Eater anime, it turns the series’ meister-and-living-weapon partnerships into one-on-one battles built around "soul resonance."

The setting is Death Weapon Meister Academy, where students seek to create a Death Scythe by feeding a weapon 99 evil human souls and one witch’s soul. The game centers on Maka Albarn and her scythe partner Soul Eater, alongside Black Star and Tsubaki, and Death the Kid with the Thompson sisters; their rivalry, cooperation, and pursuit of stronger weapons frame the story.

Battles use a side-on perspective with 3D character models and deliberately accessible inputs. Directional commands and attack buttons produce strings, special moves, launchers, pursuit attacks, and character-specific actions. Standard attacks, evasive attacks, and tag attacks form a counter relationship, while sustained defense can lead to a guard break.

Its defining system uses separate resonance gauges for a meister and weapon, or equivalent gauges for solo fighters. Successful attacks, Soul Charge, and timed dialogue prompts between partners build those meters. Spending gauge enables powerful resonance techniques; leveling up at full gauge grants character-specific advantages, and a fully built level-three gauge unlocks an unblockable ultimate technique.

Adventure Mode retells material from anime episodes 1 through 24 and adds an original story through more than 50 missions, with fully voiced characters. Other options include Arcade, Free Battle, and three-versus-three Team Battle within Single Mode, plus local head-to-head Versus play for two DualShock 2 controllers. The cast begins with eight selectable character teams or fighters and expands as conditions are met.

Although the PS2 and PSP editions share their core modes and fighting system, this PS2 version includes Soul Theater, a gallery of more than 550 stills from anime episodes 1 through 24. It also adds casual outfits for Maka, Black Star, and Death the Kid; the PSP version instead supports ad-hoc matches between two handheld systems. On PS2, matches are loaded from disc and Versus is local rather than portable ad-hoc play.