When it comes to talking about weapons-based 1v1 fighting games, you can’t hardly finish a sentence without bringing up SNK’s legendary Samurai Shodown series. In my youth, the series represented this unobtainable awesomeness found at arcades that I couldn’t bring home since I didn’t have a Neo-Geo console. In due time, that all changed of course, and over time we also saw SNK give the series some fresh air with re-releases on various platforms. In 2019, the franchise got a total reboot with the release of the plainly named Samurai Shodown, which took the series onto modern consoles after a decade of being on hiatus. Fast forward to just a few weeks ago, and the game has been tweaked and re-released for XSX and PS5.
For players who had previously bought the game on Xbox, you can now enjoy Samurai Shodown and your previous DLC purchases at no cost. The biggest difference is support for 120 frames per second (fps) for those with setups that support it. Being an owner of a Sony TV capable of 120Hz, it was cool to be able to play at this framerate. That said, not being a frame rate enthusiast, I can’t say I noticed a significant difference in the experience, though I will say it was very smooth. The ten second load times between battles (not rounds, but when you’re actually changing locations and enemies) felt a tad bit long, but it wasn’t enough to detract from the experience.
Samurai Shodown doesn’t have a whole lot to offer in as far as modes of play and other paths to depth. There is a Story mode, which I spent most of my time in, that allows players to run through the story of a dark, demonic affliction descending upon Japan that you must “cut out” of the final boss character who has been overrun with this darkness. The stories are presented in comic-book like slides with (Japanese) voiceovers and English subtitles by default, which suited me just fine being a fan of Asian cinema. The story is serviceable, and helps to give some explanation to the plot the player is stepping through, but ultimately it was the different character endings, complete with their own art and voiceovers, that were the more interesting element. Since the first time he was playable in previous Samurai Shodown games, I enjoyed using the ninja of the bunch, Hanzo, as my go-to character. There are several other characters that looked really compelling, but, upon trying to use some of them (like Wan Fu) I was informed that these were to be bought separately in the Microsoft Store, unless you purchase the Special Edition of the game that includes at least some of the ten or so playable characters (or owned them previously).
For those that aren’t familiar with the series, this is a weapons-based 1v1 fighter, although you can actually get your weapon knocked out of your hand at times which is pretty cool (and you can pick it up again). This is one of those fighters that button-mashing and being very aggressive tends to work well — against the CPU on the default difficulty of 3/5, I was able to blow through the whole story mode (about ten fights) in less than thirty minutes when skipping cutscenes. Buttons include X for light attacks, Y for Medium, B for Heavy, A for Kick, and then the shoulder buttons provide some combination of these that have your character grabbing and changing spots with their foe, activating their special power, or similar. Hanzo’s kick, by the way, is often too high to hit opponents — I can’t tell you how many times I stood right in front of an opponent, pressed A to kick, only to have Hanzo kick way too high to have any effect at all; kind of a silly oversight but it basically meant I could only use low kick/sweep attacks or only kick when I was right on top of the enemy (this obviously doesn’t apply to the screen-giant Earthquake). Blocking, as in many Japanese fighters, is down by pressing the d-pad or analog stick in the opposite direction of the oncoming attack. I think it was Mortal Kombat in 1992 that first introduced a dedicated block button, and to this day I’m still on the fence about which ‘block’ control input I like better.
Anyhow, your attacks vary based on what you’re doing with the d-pad, be it pressing down for a low attack or jumping, or holding away. With practice and study, you’ll begin to find the best ways to position yourself to counter your foes by blocking or getting away from their attacks and countering with precision. One move that really helped me a lot in both offense and defense was to double tap the d-pad either towards or away from the opponent, perfect for making a quick escape or a quick attack, and one obviously often plays right into the other. One thing to note — every character plays similarly to one another in that there are no special moves or scripted command sequences to memorize. I like that about Samurai Shodown as well, this is a game that you could become very skilled at without having to spend too awfully long practicing and memorizing button sequences. The button-mashing/overly aggressive approach will only get you so far, I should note, as once you begin to play online, more serious players will be able to parry and counter ruthlessly.
Local and online play as well as practice and a Time Attack and Survival modes, but honestly, these latter modes don’t hold my attention anymore, regardless of what fighting game we’re talking about. A potentially interesting mode called Dojo is supposed to help players fight themselves to see their weaknesses and tendencies, but I honestly didn’t put enough time into this mode to really make a sound judgment on it, and I’m not really planning to put enough time into Samurai Shodown to get masterful at it. The little bit of online play I tried ran really smoothly by the way, which is obviously critical in any fighting game, especially one that rewards good defense and precise timing like this one.
As far as presentation, the cel-shaded look is nice, but there just isn’t as much detail as some other fighters. So while it’s a good-looking, smooth-playing game, it feels a tad bit underwhelming and a little too ‘smoothed over’ compared to something more visually stunning like Ultimate Mortal Kombat 11. Still, it’s a commendable style that seems to fit what the game is going for in terms of atmosphere. I liked the option to disable the blood and dismemberment, both of which felt forced and not very well done. The blood spurts are over the top and the dismemberment is cheesy, I don’t think the game benefits at all from having this kind of content included. Aurally, the voice-acting and sounds were solid, the soundtrack had a good blend of down-tempo tunes and some upbeat ones that reminded me of King of Fighters.
In sum, Samurai Shodown is back and the release for the Xbox Series X does very well for itself. Though a little scant on content compared to some others in the genre, this is still a great game for fans of the franchise or the genre.
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