Samurai Shodown

"Twelve Angry Samurais"

Samurai Shodown is probably an arcade game that you may remember very well. It graced many a game room and pizza parlor in my time at least. Until I started going crazy on collecting games for the Super Nintendo it was only very recently that I discovered that Samurai Shodown had also successfully been transferred to the SNES. Samurai Shodown is unlike any other fighting game of its time not because of the use of swords and wicked looking characters, but that it brings a certain style of game play along with it in which you have the fighting techniques of Street Fighter along with the violent aspects of Killer Instinct and Mortal Kombat to boot. Of course the SNES version of Samurai Shodown is toned down even more so than the Mortal Kombat series, but the other unique factors to throw in about Samurai Shodown as it ran on the arcade was that this was not a game set in contemporary times and the game focused more on strategy than unleashing combos.

Story

Of course fighting games have no real meaning to them beyond the small plots of the characters you can play as and why they are fighting each other. SNK takes a bit from the Mortal Kombat series but places the time period back into the 18th or 19th century when an evildoer somehow manages to take over the world and causes chaos and panic all over the globe. It is up to the warriors to not only take care of this bad boy but also solve whatever internal conflict possesses them. Is this a new concept? No. Does it make sense? Not really. Does it matter when this is still an awesome fighting game? Absolutely not!

Game Play

It is very likely most of you will remember the arcade version of Samurai Shodown. With intense violence, fast paced action, and a camera that zooms in and out you got plenty of bang for your broken bucks. Unfortunately, Samurai Shodown for the SNES is not at all the game you played at the arcade due largely in part to the censorship and toned down violence of the game. You still get to choose from the twelve unique characters in the game and the controls will respond adequately, but you can tell that this game misses a lot of the excitement that the arcade version had. There were fatalities in the arcade version that were censored out and the camera is permanently set in its zoomed out mode so the characters all look like midgets including those that are twice the size of other characters. Also, even though this game has Samurai in the title does not necessarily mean that the characters all wield swords. Some of the other fighters use different types of swords or they use different weapons that have some kind of pointy end. One guy even has a dog to help him out. Fighting focuses on being able to get in your hard hits and everything builds up to a special "POW" move that you can perform. Matches go rather quickly and sometimes it is hard to tell who is hitting who.

Some of the upsides to the game play though is a sore attempt at doing the classic arcade style with a time challenge mode. In this way you get to face all of the twelve fighters in single matches and you have three minutes to earn the highest score you can get so this adds well to the replayability. You also get a two player mode to challenge friends and kid brother alike with. The good thing about Shodown though is that the characters are all unique and no two feel the same way when you play as them. Each have special moves and names that I can't even pronounce much less try to spell out and this adds to the quality of the originality of the game as well as the classy style.

Sound/Graphics

The music is specially rendered to fit the classy, stylized feel of the game with traditional Japanese music. There is not much variety per se, but it does what it needs and is quite memorable. The graphics fall in line with that of the Street Fighter games with the simple 2-D fighters with detailed arena backgrounds featuring moving scenery and crowds in simple motions. The announcer is especially interesting and sounds like a Japanese gameshow host, but the after match text certainly suffers from the same smack talk as the early Street Fighter games did. Your character will be very repetitive in repeating the same cheesy line he delivered to the last defeated opponent. The zoomed out camera also not only takes away from the game play, but minimizes the fighters to a quarter size on the screen so knowing that the camera used to have a zoom in feature it does take away from the quality of the graphics as you cannot see the fighters very well when the action gets intense.

Final Recommendation

Short and to the point Samurai Shodown is a great slice and dice fighting game that makes a dumbed-down, but still fun to play game on the SNES. Personally I would refer you to the arcade version of this game as it had a very popular run out in the world, but Samurai Shodown for the SNES is still an okay purchase if you are looking to stir your nostalgia. Don't expect too much from this game if you are not familiar with the arcade version because you probably will be disappointed with what you get. This was a very popular and underrated arcade game and if you already own the Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat games for the SNES then you will definitely be good to add this game to your collection.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 11/11/08

Game Release: Samurai Shodown (US, November 1994)