The Super Soaker Hydro Blade is the second largest of the Soaker Tag line Super Soakers released in 2004. Unfortunately, unlike the Super Soaker Triple Aggressor, the Hydro Blade does not have a separate pressure chamber and, instead, relies on pressurizing its entire reservoir in order to feed its nozzle.
The reservoir on the Hydro Blade is a decent size, albeit a little small for a blaster of its size. The reservoir is also opaque, making determining remaining water more difficult. The reservoir does feature a Fast-Fill cap, meaning the cap does not need to be completely removed if being filled from a hose; instead, one just must rotate the cap to line up the arrow with the 'Fill' position indicated. Unfortunately, if the water pressure is not strong enough, the Fast-Fill cap does not operate as intended. Streams produced by the Hydro Blade is a solid one. Rated a little beyond 2x here at iSoaker.com, the stream has a good feel and consistency to it. The trigger grip area is also rubberized, giving a nice feel when holding the blaster, even if the grip gets wet.
Pressurizing the Hydro Blade is simple and straight-forward using its pump. One minor point of complaint is the fact that the pump does not appear to be able to fully retract into its housing. As such, the pump grip's exposed piston section may be a potential breaking spot if this blaster were accidentally dropped.
The Hydro Blade's most noticeable feature is its retractable foam-disc 'hydro blade' at the top of the blaster. When retracted, the Hydro Blade operates as most other single-nozzled pressurized-reservoir blasters. However, by pressure a button on the side of the soaker, the disc flips to the forward position. The Hydro Blade's stream is split apart by the disc and the disc rotates, yielding an interesting 3-dimensional fan-spray pattern. However, due to the nature of water, some of the stream also ends up flung back in the user's direction as a light mist. It would have been nice had the Hydro Blade included a small water barrier/splash guard to keep the user from getting hit by his/her own stream.
Overall, Super Soaker Hydro Blade is comparable to most mid-sized water blasters. However, its limited reservoir size means more trips back to the refill station. While able to go head-to-head against other mid-sized soakers, the Hydro Blade can be easily outclassed by anything more potent than a Super Soaker XP 270. The Hydro Blade's blade feature offers interesting defensive options, but as its use also results in some dampening of the user, the Hydro Blade's usefulness ends up cut a little shorter.
Pros
Good solid stream, easy to pump and pressurized. Hydro Blade feature offers interesting spray pattern.
Cons
Limited reservoir capacity and no separate firing chamber. Hydro Blade feature also dampens the user to some degree. No strap. Pump does not fully retract, thus may be more prone to breaking if dropped.
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