One of the greatest fighting games ever.

Samurai Shodown II was a sequel that brought back all of the first game's original playable characters but rebalanced them and added four new playable characters in the Teutonic knight Neinhalt Sieger, the homicidal ronin Genjuro Kibagami, the weird old monk Caffeine Nicotine, and the spunky young beast-girl Cham Cham. Apparently, the same character designer responsible for Samurai Shodown also worked on Japanese anime and actually contributed to the popular Ninja Scroll movie. This is why you may see more than a passing resemblance between the game's characters and the movie's characters.

Samurai Shodown II's graphics were pretty darn impressive for the time.

Samurai Shodown II also featured a number of cameos and references to previous games by developer SNK. For instance, there was a flyby of martial artist Kim Kaphwan in one background stage, and the many special attacks used by Kuroko, the fight judge, included many damaging attacks that were mostly borrowed from the repertoire of characters from SNK's Art of Fighting and Fatal Fury series. Kuroko himself remains one of the most memorable hidden secrets in fighting game history. This is not only because it was shocking to see a character who was normally part of the scenery leap out and challenge you, but it was shocking that he was so frighteningly strong that he'd practically send the toughest Samurai Shodown II veterans running from the arcade cabinet in tears. Kuroko was actually selectable in versus play on home systems, but thankfully, he wasn't available for play on most public arcade setups.

Special thanks to The Killer List of Video Games for the screenshots.

English wasn't Cham Cham's strong suit, but she meant well.

Fighting games, which traditionally let you choose to play as one character and then let you challenge another character in a one-on-one duel, ruled arcades all over the world throughout the 1990s, particularly since they let players take on all comers of different skill levels in a contest of strategy and hand-eye coordination. So it was important for fighting games to be "balanced." That is, it was important for all characters to be identical in strength so that no specific player would have an unfair, unavoidable advantage. This is why Samurai Shodown II would have been doomed as a fighting game if it hadn't been such a remarkable game otherwise.

As its name suggests, Samurai Shodown II was a fighting game sequel that brought back many characters from the first game--nearly all of whom were swashbuckling swordsmen and cunning ninjas. It was also rather problematic in terms of character balance. At the very top of the heap was Ukyo Tachibana, the lightning-fast iaido-style sword master whose damaging special attacks, tricky change-ups, and minimal recovery time (which practically allowed him to attack continuously without fear of reprisal) put him head and shoulders above the rest of the game's roster. Clearly, other characters, like Charlotte the épée-wielding French fencer, were more powerful than weaker characters, like Nakoruru, the kind-hearted Ainu naturalist. But guess what? No one cared. In fact, no one was even thinking about any of that once a game was on, as they were too busy waiting in line for their turns to play.

It's true that Samurai Shodown II was a bit rougher around the edges than its predecessor, but that turned out to be a good thing in the long run. The original game featured intense sword battles, but it also had some embarrassing bugs and some bizarre hit detection that was mostly cleaned up in the sequel. Samurai Shodown II was a slightly faster game with a much more fluid and dynamic pace, yet because each character wielded a powerful weapon of some kind, it still featured highly damaging attacks that could turn the tide of battle in an instant. In a contest between two good players of roughly equal skill, there was never a dull moment. And when there was no competition, Samurai Shodown II's computer-controlled opponents actually offered a good challenge. This was especially true of the game's final boss character, Mizuki Rashoujin--a possessed priestess who, unlike most fighting game boss characters at the time, actually fought fairly and could be dispatched by a skilled player without having to resort to cheap tricks. Mizuki was also the first female boss character in any fighting game, thus making Samurai Shodown II a progressive game in addition to its other qualities.

A boatload of extra features helped give the game real character. For instance, part of why Samurai Shodown II seemed to have a more-fluid pace than the original game was because it had new movement options, like the ability to double-tap your joystick to make your character roll forward or backward along the ground. You could also press the B and C buttons to quickly hop away from your opponents, or you could double-tap your joystick down to duck an incoming blow, thus setting yourself up for a counterattack. If you were feeling lucky, you could try to briefly stun an attacking opponent by blocking his or her blow at the very last second.

While you weren't fighting, you could use not one but two different taunts, choose from multiple win poses, and even execute a "doll move." By using a unique combination of joystick movements and button presses, you could briefly change your character into a stuffed doll version of him or her, which proffered the ultimate insult to an unskilled opponent. However, it could just be seen as one of the many ways of goofing off in the game. Samurai Shodown II clearly had a goofy sense of humor--from the H.R. Giger-style alien stewing in a cauldron in one background stage to the fact that Nicotine's chronic halitosis was actually a part of his arsenal. This humor wasn't always intentional, as the US version of the game was imperfectly translated from Japanese to English, which often presented hilarious results.

While Samurai Shodown II's cast looked a bit rough around the edges in action, they were all characterized superbly by top-notch voice actors. Furthermore, it's probably safe to say that not all of the game's characters were intended to be completely serious, like Caffeine Nicotine, the diminutive monk, or Cham Cham, the spunky kid sister of the fallen warrior Tam Tam, for example. Several characters also had hidden special attacks, like the ninjas' ability to become invisible. Additionally, the game had a few other secrets that were completely over-the-top, like the hidden boss character Kuroko. Kuroko was a fight judge (and a ridiculously powerful foe) who leaped onscreen to challenge you if you satisfied a very strict, very arbitrary-seeming set of conditions. No other fighting game we can think of has combined such dynamic gameplay with as much personality and charm as Samurai Shodown II. It's easily one of the greatest games of all time

The original Samurai Shodown is the game that turned me from being a NeoGeo hater (since I initially thought the Fatal Fury and Art of Fighting games were just shamelessly trying to copy my beloved Street Fighter II's success) into a lifelong fan. I was incredibly excited about the sequel but was very anxious about whether it'd live up to the original's standards--and did it ever. I remember, literally, the first moment that I stepped into my local arcade and saw the game there. I was elated and must have poured hundreds of hours (and dollars) into the game afterward. It was time and money well spent. To this day, Samurai Shodown II's cast of characters remains my favorite--of all the fighting games I've ever played.