The Samurai Shodown series has been around since 1993. And I'm fairly certain that the last game I played was the original. I've certainly been more than a casual SNK since the early 90s. But the Samurai Shodown series never really grabbed me. I was always more of a King Of The Fighters guys personally.
Of course SNK has had a long and rocky history themselves. In the 90s they were the cutting edge. The MVS was a technological marvel in the arcades. I can remember plopping many quarters into various Fatal Fury, Art Of Fighting, and yes, Samurai Shodown games back then and being blown away at the presentation. And the AES was the stuff of legend on the playground. In sixth grade, I can remember it being something to lust after. It was a console that everyone talked about, but nobody could actually afford. I always thought the original Samurai Shodown looked cool. But I never loved it. It was definitely a showpiece in the arcades. But when I finally played a home port of it (Sega CD), I wasn't really impressed. And I can't even exactly say why. In fairness, I've never been entirely keen on weapons based fighting games. I mean, the Soul Calibur series is fine, I guess. But I can't say I've really delved much deeper into the sub-genre. To me, Street Fighter II was the major entrypoint into fighting games. And I guess as such, I've always been drawn to games that build off that template. So The King Of Fighters makes perfect sense. But Samurai Shodown felt weird. But back to SNK. As a publisher and developer, SNK was riding high through the 90s. And then the millennium hit and things went astray. Even though they were delivering some amazing home ports on new hardware (namely Dreamcast and PS2), bankruptcy hit in 2001. Things got messy, Sammy got involved, and then the company was relaunched as SNK Playmore. I don't know what the general consensus was of this era, but to me it seemed pretty solid. Playmore focused on putting out lots of legacy collections of older SNK games, making them highly affordable. And eventually we even got some cool new games like The King Of The Fighters XIII, which was legitimately incredible. Then things got weird. In 2012, Playmore released the Neo Geo X, which was sort of like SNK's take on the Switch (but five years before the Switch). It was a handheld that played cartridge collections of old SNK games. The handheld even had a clicky analog stick like on the Neo Geo Pocket. And it could be docked and played on a TV using replica NG arcade sticks. The problem was that the hardware was straight up awful. I actually bought one of the NGX arcade sticks to use via USB on other hardware and sold it after one use. It was that disappointing. Things got quiet after that until another 2015 acquisition. This third iteration of SNK (no longer Playmore) finally released a new game in 2016's The King Of The Fighters XIV, which got pretty good reviews. They followed that up with SNK Heroines: Tag Team Franzy in 2018 and it was fairly terrible in execution. And a year later they delivered a reboot of Samurai Shodown to much acclaim. Unlike The King Of The Fighters XII and XIII, all of these new games used a new engine and visual style. It's best described as polygonal 2D. Which sounds bad, as it probably brings up memories of things like Castlevania: Mirror Of Fate. But honestly, it looks good. Given all the weird history, I can't help but root for SNK and want to see what these new games are like. I mean, sadly I even pre-ordered SNK Heroines because I hoped it would be a worthy sequel to SNK Gals Fighters. It wasn't, but I was still glad I gave it a shot because I wanted to vote with my wallet as they say for new SNK games instead of a steady stream of re-releases. Yes, the legacy of SNK is important. But I want to continue to see new games in these series. And it looks like that's happening given that we've now been teased with a Garou sequel in the future. So I've said, I'm more a fan of SNK than of Samurai Shodown itself. But I do appreciate the small-ish roster in Samurai Shodown 2019. The base game has just sixteen characters to choose from. I like that. Don't get me wrong, the huge rosters of games like the KOF Ultimate Match games can be fun. But there's something sort of simple and perfect about the slim rosters of games like Garou: Mark Of The Wolves that just screams 'balance.' Nakoruru is probably my go to here. And that makes sense. Outside of this series, she's appeared in The King Of The Fighters 2002, Capcom Vs SNK 2, Neo Geo Battle Coliseum and other games that I've enjoyed. So she's familiar to me. Charlotte is kind of badass to me, although her fencing style feels like a weird juxtaposition against so many samurai. And then Hanzo Hattori is cool, because ninjas are cool. Though he's got much more weight to him than someone like Nakoruru who's so light and fast and more my style. There are also several seasons of new characters to add to the game, some of which are guests from other series. This is interesting because yeah, you get Last Blade cameos. But you also get guests from Ubisoft games and Arc System Works games. It's pretty weird. I haven't bought any of those additions, nor do I see myself doing so because I'm just not into this game enough to do so. But I like that SNK is doing this. Especially the Arc Systems stuff, because in many ways, Arc Systems feels like a more punk rock version of SNK. Also of note here is the blood. My god, the blood. It's not Mortal Kombat levels of gore, but it is more realistic and less campy which kind of makes it feel more extreme. There's something really unsettling about seeing your fighter drenched in blood after a victory that feels equally awesome and gross. But I mean, these fighters are literally hitting each other with swords. Of course things would get visceral. Matches in Samurai Shodown are short. But also very tense and strategic. Even though it's not quite the reality, hitting someone with a sword makes you feel like a fight could be over before it even starts. Depending on the range of the weapon, though, some matches seem like they end in seconds because some big hits can chew through HP really quickly. Because of that, fights are played out in a less fast and aggressive cadence that I'm used to. It almost turns into a more calculated ballet bloodbath. And I appreciate that, even if I'm not good at it. With unlimited continues, anyone can run through the story mode rather quickly. Of course any good fighting game is made to be played against human opponents. I'm just not nearly versed in this game enough to even attempt such things. All these years later, the Samurai Shodown is much like the original game it's named after. It's great to look at and it's well made and it's well balanced. It's also designed for patient and strategic gameplay better suited for high end fighting gamers. And I just happen to be a lower end fighting gamer.
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