Samurai Shodown

"The best console version of SS outside of Neo Geo"

This game has gotten a bad rap and I'm not exactly sure why. I think people must be comparing it to the arcade and Neo Geo versions, in which case it is going to fall short, due to the hardware limitations of the SNES. However, the SNES Samurai Shodown is still better than the Sega Genesis version, and it's better than most of what the Sony Playstation has to offer. If you want Samurai Shodown at home, and you don't have a Neo Geo (or Sega Saturn), this is the game to get.

Graphics:

Okay, the SNES obviously can't handle the scaling (zooming in and out) that the arcade did, so that was removed. The game programmers therefore HAD to make the characters a bit smaller; there wouldn't be room to maneuver if it were zoomed in ALL the time. There are some frames missing, and some ending poses and such were left out, but for the most part, none of this effects game play at all. The sprites aren't terribly grainy, especially for a SNES game, and it has very vibrant colors and great detail. It blows the Sega version out of the water in this area (actually, in just about every area but blood). This version lacks the blood-spurting fatalities the arcade had, because of Nintendo's censoring policies at the time. There ARE blood spurts during gameplay though, when characters get hit with a sword. It looks fine, it just doesn't have the gory deaths. Explosions, special moves, and flashy attacks all look very good for a fighting game, with style out the wazoo.

Sound:

Anyone who criticizes the sound in this game is crazy. It has stereo surround, which is nearly unheard of in a SNES fighting game. The music has a great japanese feel to it, the fighting sounds are right on, and the voices are VERY similar to the arcade. A-OK.

Game Play:

The game play for the SNES version of this game is nearly identical to the arcade, but with extra buttons available for hard slash (instead of having to press two buttons simultaneously), it's actually EASIER to play than the arcade. All the special moves are really easy to pull off, unlike some Street Fighter games that are a pain. It seems like if you input anything even close to the right move, it just knows what you are doing and performs the move for you. It's the easiest game I've played for inputing special moves; and it doesn't do them on accident, either. The regular attacks all work great, with great hit detection. this is arcade-perfect.

Conclusion:

Unlike the Sega version, this game has passable graphics, tight control, and outstanding gameplay. The ONLY downside to this is the censoring, and a few missing frames of animation. If you don't have one of the consoles with arcade-perfect ports of Samurai Shodown (which wouldn't be surprising, since they are all pretty rare consoles that went under), this is the game to get. At the price it can be found for now days, you can't pass up this game.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 10/16/01, Updated 10/16/01