Samurai Spirits: Amakusa Kourin

"One of the best fighters that SNK has made"

GAMEPLAY--- Samurai Spirits IV is a 2-D, weapons based fighter. Using your slash and Kick buttons you fight your way to victory. Ther are some things that were taken out of SS III and there are some new things to the series. No longer are bombs or food thrown out into the ring. To recover life you pound on the buttons when you are on the ground. Much to my dismay, the air blocking feature was removed from the arsenal. Also you can no longer charge your POW meter manually. You must either take a beating or dish out a CD combo. CD combos are new to the series. It consists of starting a combo with the heavy slash and kick butons and following it with a string of button presses which makes some wild looking combos. Also new is the combo counter. The 'slash' and 'bust' personalities still remain. Also new are honourable deaths and fatalities. It's kind of rewarding to kill yourself and not let the other player have the satisfaction of killing you. Also there is a time limit that each character has to make it to the end. If you go over the time you don't see the ending.

STORY--- This is a fighting game so each character has their own reasons for victory. It's fun to make up your own stories and see the outcome. At least then no one can tell you that you aren't being very creative as you play your games.

AUDIO--- The audio in this game is amazing. The sounds effects are crystal clear and the voices aren't muffled at all. As with other SS games, the music isn't overly memorable but, it dosent scream at you to press the mute button on the television.

VIDEO--- The graphics in this game are astounding. Everything is drawn exceptionally well with very fitting color schemes. The amount of animation in this game is overwhelming. With the use of the 1 meg RAM cart the developers were able to animate everything very smoothly. No longer does everyone have their own backgrouds. All the backgrounds are places visited on your way to the final destination point.

REPLAYABILITY--- With so many characters and two versions of each character ther is so much to learn. Personally, there is no character that I don't like to use. I have played this game so much that I don't even remember how to change games in the system. this game will keep you busy for months.

OPINIONS--- I love this game even more than SS III. There is an option for english, Thanks SNK! The only problem that I have with the game is that there is slowdown whenn there is too much going on the screen. It mainly happens when you have two big characters or a big character and a character that has a companion. The slowdown dosent detract from the game that much but, I felt the need to address it.

BUY or RENT--- If you like the SS series then buy it. If not then I would save your money. From the reaction I get from my friends, either you love it or you hate it.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 11/01/99, Updated 09/03/02