It's the 90s where Capcom kick started the fighting game genre with Street Fighter II and SNK wanted to try and get their own set of fighting games to feed on Street Fighter II's success. SNK had Fatal Fury, Art of Fighting and World Heroes but none of those could compare to what Street Fighter II or Midway's Mortal Kombat had offered. SNK did eventually find a true place in the fighting game craze with Samurai Shodown which did something new for the time. It was a fighting game that introduced weapon based combat where all of the characters had a weapons based fighting style. Usually when it came to weapon based fighting games most players remember the Soul Calibur franchise that took weapon based combat into 3D but Samurai Shodown was the first fighting game franchise to introduce weapons based combat in a fighting game and it was one that worked magnificently.
There are 12 fighters to pick from in the game which range from Haohmaru who travels around to sharpen his fighting skills, Nakoruru an Ainu who vows to protect mother nature, Charlotte a noble fencer, Hanzo who fights to save his son Shinzo, Earthquake who's after the world's treasures and Genan who strives to be more evil cause someone has to have that kind of motivation. Each of the fighters have their own backgrounds and stories that is explained a bit during their endings when you finish the game as one of them and many of them are pretty good. The storyline itself isn't something really worth talking about to be honest, it mainly involves someone named Shiro Tokisada Amakusa who has been resurrected and is trying to take over the world by resurrecting a demon named Ambrosia who brought him back to life through a pact or something while everyone else goes back to fighting each other before the final showdown with Amakusa himself. What does kill the seriousness of the storyline is the writing where some of the fighters have some cringe worthy character quotes that are on levels with the original Resident Evil with lines like “Will I get some of your Estate?” or “No I'm not related to that guy in Fatal Fury.” It's not entirely poor story telling by any means but really everyone doesn't play fighting games for story they play for the fighting system that Samurai Shodown delivers on.
Each of the characters have their own different weapon fighting style from katanas, spears, rapier and a Fujiyama which is like a blade on a chain or something. The 4 buttons are used for a Low Slash or Mid Slash as well as a Low Kick and Mid Kick, blocking by moving backwards from your opponent as he/she is attacking you, grabbing and throwing. As with other fighting games you have special moves that are performed by pressing the required button combination inputs to use them such as a quarter circle forward and then press A or B buttons to a simple special move. Now Street Fighter II was a six button fighter and the Neo Geo only has 4 buttons and there is no way that they could compete with Street Fighter in the buttons department right? Well you are wrong. The designers came up with a clever idea of performing a High Slash by pressing both A & B buttons together and C & D buttons together for a High Kick attack and this control scheme works brilliantly well. Introduced from SNK's other game Art of Fighting the camera zooms in and out depending on where the fighters are on the map which allows you not only get a full view of the action from far away from close when characters engage but also allows for more spacing which can be used for strategy when fighting. Weapons can also be temporally lost during a fight as well which also gives the fighting system much depth. Sometimes characters engage in a clash with both fighters are trying to push back the opponent. Whoever button mashes the button the fastest successfully knocks back the opponent and also disarms the opponent. When disarmed you relay only on punches and kicks but can also block weapon attacks effectively but you can pick your weapon back up easily.
One of the features that Mortal Kombat was known for was the blood and the fatalities and Samurai Shodown has its own blood and fatality system. When characters get hit blood is displayed and when the last hit is stuck a character either gets sliced in half or vast amounts of blood pours out and then the defeated character falls down before their remains are carried off by the referees in the victory screen which is a fantastic touch.
The fighting engine is really impressive, the controls are fairly simple to pick up and play and learn about each of the character's fighting style and how to use them takes a fair time to master. It is all about making quick and well executed powerful strikes on your opponent rather then fast paced combos and it is incredibly satisfying. You have a POW meter that builds up as you take damage during the fight when it gets to full it temporally increases your attack strength for a few seconds which can help to get you the fighting edge you need. Also you have a delivery man who appears in the background to either provide coins for extra points, chicken to replenish your fighters health or bomb which damage the fighters who step into it.
Samurai Shodown's presentation is top notch stuff, it looks fantastic with incredible the sprite work and animation, the backgrounds are excellent and watching trees and barrels get cut down when you hit them with your sword is just incredibly badass even to this day. The soundtrack uses traditional Japanese instruments from the 18th century like Shakuhachi and Shamisen and it is very well composed and fits the game really well.
The real issue with the game is that the game is best experienced with another human player, if you are playing the one player game you go through the ladder of opponents to fight against, occasionally you will get a minigame to play where you got to chop down the straw targets in a time limit and then you face more opponents before eventually facing the game's final boss. The AI like in these SNK fighting games can be fairly challenging, they don't start out too bad which allows you to get used to the combat and the controls but once you get 3 or 4 fights in and the AI gets more aggressive, constantly countering your moves and killing you easily. It goes from AI that can be taking down without that much of a fuss to fights where you are getting slaughtered all of the time forcing you to try and exploit the AI so that you can beat them. It's nowhere near as bad as the AI in Mortal Kombat II but still it can get annoying in later fights where you can't do much to the AI if you are constantly dying so much even on lower difficulties which does make the game sometimes cheap. The final boss is also fairly challenging as well teleporting all over the place and doing whatever to counter your moves before you can do anything to him.
The versus mode is where Samurai Shodown shines where you and a friend can see who is better at the game and it is really fun playing along locally with a mate who could be more experienced at the game than you are.
So the question is that do I recommend the game to anyone and that is a straight up easy answer. Yes, yes you should play it. I do however recommend playing mainly the uncensored arcade versions which has everything as how it should be with more modern options on the PS4, XBox One and Nintendo Switch as they have it under the Arcade Classic Archives name. The Super NES, 3DO and Gameboy versions are decent ports in their own way but do not match the original arcade quality due to hardware limitations and also has censorship which tones down the violence which back in the day it was understandable. Getting your hands on the proper arcade experience outside of owning the actual Neo Geo hardware is easy thanks to more modern console options which emulate the game perfectly and the Arcade Classics Archive versions on PS4, Switch and XBox One allow you to play either the Japanese and English versions or you can buy the recently released Samurai Shodown Neo Geo Collection which has all of the Neo Geo released titles including the first game and also the unreleased title. The sequel Samurai Shodown II is great as well but as time went on the later games got rushed out and lacked polish which started to kill the series off.
If you want a one-on-one fighting game that breaks away from the Street Fighter knock offs and a fighting game series that did its own thing to stand up to other fighting games then Samurai Shodown is highly recommended and it is easily one of the best fighting games on the Neo-Geo.
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Game Score: 8.9/10
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Game Title: Samurai Shodown
Platform: Neo-Geo
Developer: SNK
Genre: Fighting Game
Age Rating: PEGI: 12+
Release Date: 7th July 1993
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The Good Points:
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Characters that wield weapons and also some have animal sidekicks
Excellent fighting system that is simple to pick up but yet challenging to master
Brilliant graphics and soundtrack
Watching barrels and and trees fall apart from a swing of a sword is badass
The Bad Points:
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Very aggressive AI that gets cheap and constantly counter moves over and over
Character quotes that make you want to cringe
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Reviewed by: Anthony Hayball (AQWBlaZer91)
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