Samurai Shodown

Blogs are best for a stream of consciousness type thing, so here’s my early take on Samurai Shodown from SNK and publisher Athlon Games.

It is effing fantastic and any fighting game fan should play it!

Actually, even if you’ve only got a passing interest in the genre, this might be the fighting game for you. No, you won’t find some long drawn out story mode that features all sorts of hats and weird costume customizations to tick the box of constant pleasure through being given free things. What you will find is an incredibly solid fighting engine with tense combat, low reliance on combo play, and high demand for spacing, blocking, and quick strategic thinking. Execution is very important too, but even if you never pulled off a fireball in your life in Street Fighter, you’ve got a chance to win in Samurai Shodown.

Much like the original game and its sequels, very specifically Samurai Shodown II, this one emphasizes the back and forth of blocks, parries and thrusts to make every decision important. Samurai Shodown 2019 has a four button scheme of Light, Medium and Hard slashes as well as a Kick button. Combinations of those buttons have some unique effects. The in game tutorial does a fine job explaining those functions and they can be invaluable additions to your game. The details are easily located on the web so I won’t go into detail, but know that this game has a really solid and well considered fighting system at its core. The Light/Medium button combo used specifically to dodge is a very cool part of this system.

What really struck me about the game right from the start last night is that this is a sort of perfectly realized modern take on the 1990’s fighting game. It’s got a stellar graphics engine with some excellent 3D modeling and art that takes you to a unique place. The soundtrack sets an appropriate mood with lots of nice throwbacks to the series roots. The arcade-style single player character driven path to the (amazing) final boss is very much in line with those days of old. I didn’t tinker with the Dojo yet and its ghost fighters, but that along with more standard training modes will do fine to prepare me for online play. Local versus play is slick although load times are a little long, but once you’re fighting, that all fades away. The gameplay is great.

Finally, online is Ranked or Casual and yeah, the casual room is messy. It needs work. It’s designed for friend play and not just random next man up stuff, but that seems to be a constant failing of Japanese fighting games in recent history. *sigh* What I was very happy with was the online game performance. No lagging or stuttering in any game I played last night. I set it to 3 bars and up for connection rate, too.

So why would this appeal to someone who’s not just into fighting games? I think its bright, beautiful, and colorful characters and settings alongside a really easy to grasp fighting system make it a perfect starter for anyone who has a casual interest. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate has so many characters and a platform-action design that is fun for anyone, but the mechanics of that game take a lot of time to learn. I think players of that underestimate the difficulty some people have with recovery when getting knocked off stage specifically. Samurai Shodown is so damn simple and man, everyone knows you don’t want to get hit with a sword! Hard slashes hurt in this game and you can really feel every blow, just like the original I played in an arcade way back in 1993. I remember when I first saw it… the glowing background from the fire pit on Gen-an’s stage (who is missing from this roster, btw) and the quiet, barely there music… it was a sight and sound to behold, incredibly unique for its time. When the swords clashed and the hits came, the original put me over the edge toward Neo Geo ownership.

There’s a taut desperation in every match of Samurai Shodown. I think it comes from the graphic and sound design as much as the swordplay and it’s unique in the fighting game genre. It’s been there from the beginning of the series and this 2019 edition seems to have it in spades.