Seventeen characters initially join the fray in this iteration (12 in 1993), with series veterans such as Haohmaru, Tam Tam and Wan-Fu reprising their roles in full 3D. The total cast now includes new characters such as Darli Dagger, Yashamaru Kurama, and Wu-Ruixiang, as well as Hisame Shizumaru brought back and added for free. Clicking into these modes triggers a rather lengthy loading screen which, for a 10gb game loading off of the internal flash memory, simply should not take this long, but once you're finally in there, the game opens up and you can begin to learn the ropes and drill down into discovering your favourite fighter's destiny. Thankfully you can simply hit "Cancel" and forget about it until you do want to play online, which I would actually recommend too, but I would never shove popups down your throat to enforce this ethos. Virtually all of these options ask you to purchase a paid membership to Nintendo to enhance your gaming experience.
Reading from left to right, in the XMB styled menu screen, you are presented with a link to the eShop, Options menu for altering a multitude of configurations including display and sound, Practice mode for tutorials, Online mode for online Vs play, Story mode, Dojo asynchronous online battle (more on this later), Battle mode for offline VS, Database and Gallery modes. Samurai Shodown 2019 is the first mainline entry since 2008's Samurai Shodown Sen on Xbox 360, which in turn was the fourth 3D entry in the SS saga, making this edition only the fifth 3D outing for the fighters in the now 19-strong Shodown series. Boiled down to its base elements, SS encompasses warriors from Japan "and beyond the oceans" battling to investigate and vanquish the great evil force of trapped soul Shizuka Gozen. This entry has been cited as a reboot to the series setting it around 1787, however, this edition is set one year before the events of the original 1993 game, including events up to those of 2003's Samurai Shodown V, during the Tenmei era of Japanese history.
This was annoying, to say the least, and it reminded me of better days, a time when you didn't need to download DLC, updates, or pay to play online. Firing it up, I was met with an immediate nag to invest in the online pass to get the best experience, online play, and more. After their 11 year break from making these games, I was excited.
SNK know how to polish a game, and they know how to finesse the entire package into one incredible experience.
I remember thinking that it looked like a strange mash-up of Street Fighter 2 but with weapons. A more violent game, a more tactical game.įast forward 27 years and here I am with Samurai Shodown (2019) running on my Nintendo Switch, glistening in portability, and ever so arcade-perfect feeling. I was lucky to play it on the NeoGeo as no one I knew actually owned one, but my local games store used to get all the latest imports and have them running for all to gawp at. My first taste of Samurai Shodown was sometime in the late '90s I would say, just before the N64 dropped and after Killer Instinct's sexy black cartridge was glued into my SNES.
Samurai Shodown appeared sometime after I had decimated Street Fighter 2 and all of its hacky Rainbow and Blackbelt bootlegs in my area (I had even delved into and mastered Mortal Kombat 2, memorising all the Fatalities). I wanted to master the art, know the move sets, and conquer all. I used to spend my pocket money trying to figure out moves, combos and techniques to best my friends, who usually resorted to button mashing. One of my all-time faves was Street Fighter 2. Where I grew up in the early '90s we had arcades halls to visit, cabinets in takeaway shops, and consoles in every household.