Samurai Shodown

What happens when you get a pretty well-established company with too much money and japanese roots? You get Samurai Shodown, a samurai fighter from SNK, the (At that time) leader of all fighter games in Japan.


First off, its pretty obvious this game was not meant to grace the US doorstep. First off, it parodies the word S-H-O-W-D-O-W-N with S-H-O-D-O-W-N, an play at the word Shogun. Second off, it features Samurai, who really arent that popular in the chain of "Cool Asian Steryotypes" in America. Third off, its a pretty good embarassment of SNKs other wonderful fighter games.

It wouldnt suprise me too much if this game was built on the King of Fighters engine for the SNES. It feels a lot like your traditional fighter, believe it or not, just with Samurai overtones.

One big issue I noticed with this game is simple:


Last time I checked, San Francisco, nor the whole US of A, produce Samurai, or even Ninjas, in such a basis. I'm pretty sure that when you go to San Francisco, you're not going to find a dock where lone Samurai can battle it out where sailors are going to cheer them on. In fact, I wouldnt be suprised if we could all share an American laugh at the funny asians running around with swords while everyone there except them is packing 9mms or higher. We're America, thats what we do.


Now to the actual game. Suprisingly, this isnt such a hard game to swallow, it actually feels a lot like KoF (suprise suprise...). The game also feels a little bit like Guilty Gear in the sense that the 2D people seem to be able to hop, skip, and jump higher and more powerfully than normal humans. They also can catch fire:


Overall, I give this game 2 stars. If you're lost in the desert of Fighter Games and desperately need your 2D fix, I wouldnt go against picking this game up for cheap. Of course, thats saying you're really begging for a fighter game with such wonderful translations:

That might just explain the "Catch on Fire" thing.

2 star(s) out of 5

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