I've always wondered what years the games are meant to take place in - due to having Samurai, Knights, Pirates and all other manner of figures from throughout hundreds of years of history in the same place.
Even For Honor had an explanation for that.
This post had me wondering how anachronistic Soul Edge is so I looked some stuff up. Again, not a historian or anything, but it seems like it was actually not all that bad? A couple of instances of number fudging, one glaring issue in a backstory, one anachronism with an excuse, but mostly all stuff that actually could make sense in the late 1500s.
Reminder, Soul Edge is 1584. I didn't bother looking into the rest of the series.
Rock's story is kind of ridiculous because it's really weird having a Tarzan plot without planes. Think of the logistics of that; you can't fall off a boat when you're over uncharted territory. Still, I guess you have a frame where there might be a reason for a ship to be in America while Rock can be raised by Native Americans. The Spanish had begun colonization in 1492, while the English didn't found Jamestown until 1607. Maybe they were sailing to the Spanish colony for trade purpose, and when Rock washed up after Cervantes sunk his ship, he found that he was unable to connect with England again because there weren't any settlers for him to connect with yet?
Sophitia's totally outdated, being very Ancient Greek, but there's at least a justification given. It's mentioned that Hephaestus picks her because she still believes in the old gods and he gives him weapons that he created himself. Sophitia would be in Ottoman Greece, so I guess Greek orthodoxy and Islam would be the main religions there at that point.
Mitsurugi, Hwang, Seung Mina operate on a highly linked timeline, putting them together. The Battle of Nagashino was in 1575, and was influential due to the successful employment of firearms tactics, so marking Japan's late shift from the samurai cavalry charge. Again, the game takes place in 1584. Hiideyoshi Toyotomi reunifies Japan in 1590, ending their civil war and leaving them with a huge combined military force and a restless warrior case with no war left to fight. Japan then invades Korea in 1592.
Mitsurugi is rightfully disturbed by the battle of Nagashino and fears the power of the musket, which inspires him to search for Souledge. It seems like it's a little late or Mitsurugi to search, but I guess he didn't have to go right after the battle. Meanwhile,
Hwang and Seung Mina's story is basically about fending off Japanese invasion, but the actual invasion hasn't happened yet when the game starts. It more specifically says specifically says they're concerned about an increase in Wokou pirate raids and view it as a prelude to invasion, but don't know if it's true that there was or could be an increase in Japanese piracy. Wokou pirates at this time were actually mostly ethnic Chinese; they had samurai allies but don't know if they could be controlled as part of an invasion. Korea also apparently had no idea that Japan's civil war had stopped, which meant they had no idea that they had a powerful military lying around, and assumed if an invasion happened it would just be more pirates raids. But I'm nitpicking; at least the events of Souledge are around the right time.
Siegfried matches our current image of noble knights, but might line up more with Landsknechte in reality; German mercenaries. Siegfried actually is a German mercenary and bandit in-story, not an actual knight. Siegfried's sword might be a few decades too late for standard use, but still had specialty use among Landsknechte. Full plate armour is more current to this period than it was in most of medieval times. It's effective defense against early firearms due to their weak penetration.
Siegfried's father is a knight, but I don't think knights had totally disappeared at this point, although infantry had eliminated their value. So I don't think that's anachronistic. There were also military orders around - Order of Saint Stephen was founded in 1561, for example - and its members might be called knights. The biggest anachronism issue I can see in this game is that Siegfried's father was crusading at this time. I think crusades had run their course by the mid-1400s, well before this game.
Li Long's story revolves around Wokou pirate raiders and samurai lords. These both happened at this time, so there's no problem here. I think there's a shaky assumption here that Wokou are Japanese because Li Long goes to japan to deal with them but I also don't know if they would have known their ethnic makeup at the time. I think they just assumed they were Japanese based on earlier raids.
Voldo's master is an arms merchant, can't find much about those. You had plenty of people selling war at the time so I guess people could sell weapons too. Vercci hides his treasure and sets Voldo to guard it due to the outbreak of the Italian Wars. The first Italian War started way back in 1494, which would mean Voldo would have to be like a hundred. But maybe it could be the last of the wars, which ran from 1551 to 1559. Voldo would still be sealed up for decades, but considering that he's physically and mentally deteriorated from the experience, that much works.
The game takes place a good half century before the Golden Age of Piracy, but piracy was already growing at this time. The big score seems to be Spanish ships carrying materials from their colonies back to the homeland. Cervantes' father is a privateer supplementing the Spanish armada, privateering being officially sanctioned piracy. He is killed by an English warship. The Spanish armada was actually defeated by the English and their privateers in 1588, so a few years after this game. I think the English and Dutch were much bigger on hiring privateers than the Spanish at the time, if the Spanish did it at all. The Spanish were already a top naval power, while the English and Dutch needed to hire privateers to compete.
My thinking is Cervantes is weird, but him being a pirate is totally appropriate for the time the obvious issue is that his father was a privateer for Spain, when Spain wasn't the big privateering country. The second issue is fitting in these events with how old Cervantes seems to be. Cervantes' father was sunk by an English warship when he was young, but the Anglo-Spanish War that sunk the Spanish armada starts the year after this game is set. What's more, Cervantes seems to be fairly old, and is immortal, having even been noted to have mysteriously disappeared for some time. I think it would make more sense if Cervantes
wasn't contemporary, but someone from the early 1500s or late 1400s.
I still thought of Mitsurugi as the hero since he destroys Soul Edge in his ending. Although making Siegfried's ending the canonical one was great since it gave us Nightmare, which I couldn't have guessed at the time.
At the risk of making a lot post even longer, there were actually multiple canonical endings to Soul Edge. Mitsurugi doesn't find the sword but his bad ending is otherwise canon; he challenges a musket-wielding infantryman to a duel and loses. Siegfried's bad ending is canon, he becomes Nightmare. Li Long loses to Cervantes as in his bad ending, but doesn't die. Sophitia and Taki's endings are kind of weirdly fused so they both shatter one of Cervantes' swords, but Nightmare has the other half of Soul Edge.
_/¯
