Samurai Shodown

captpain · Post by **captpain** » Mon Jun 22, 2009 8:16 am

Is anyone here a fan of this game? I was just introduced to it recently and I wound up playing it with some friends for several hours tonight. Great game, if you ask me... I really dig the powerful hits and use of weapons.

jpj · Post by **jpj** » Mon Jun 22, 2009 9:16 am

it's shodown

Stan · Post by **Stan** » Mon Jun 22, 2009 9:16 am

Great game, very different compared to general fighters. I used to play it a lot along with Samurai Shodown 2 on my Neo Geo CD during the 90s.

Ka0tiK · Post by **Ka0tiK** » Mon Jun 22, 2009 9:48 am

Great game. They have quite a few sequels that followed since, but I've only played SS 1-3. Does anybody recommended the last few installments?

I'd like to see a new SS with KOFXII visuals.

CMoon · Post by **CMoon** » Mon Jun 22, 2009 1:05 pm

IV is very good and the last SS by the 'original' SNK. My understanding is the following games are by the same people who would go on to make Arcana Hearts. Don't know if that is a recommendation or not.

For most fans, 2 is considered the best of the lot.

it290 · Post by **it290** » Mon Jun 22, 2009 1:22 pm

II, IV, and V/Zero Special are the standouts for me in terms of gameplay. VI/Tenka is fun to play for the roster but the gameplay isn't as refined as V Special in my opinion. II and V Special are definitely the ones to play for some intense 2p matches.

They're all worth playing, though. Even III, which is often overlooked, is worth checking out for its idiosyncrasies and brilliant atmosphere.

Acid King · Post by **Acid King** » Mon Jun 22, 2009 3:12 pm

My favorite fighting game series. My favorite is IV. I was just thinking earlier that I have to get Anthology for PS2.

Leandro · Post by **Leandro** » Mon Jun 22, 2009 4:46 pm

I like it as much as the Street Fighter series, and IMO Galapagos Team was the best thing SNK had

SS III is great, love the back infinites, Upper Grade Bust Ukyo and the lush graphics, which got downgraded in the sequels. I like all I - IV Samurai games, played all four to death. I'm not into SSV and onwards, though SSV Special is a great versus game... Never played Tenka and the 3d games

escadrille · Post by **escadrille** » Mon Jun 22, 2009 4:51 pm

Really like this series. Particularly IV, which has the best graphics and most fighters of the original SNK titles. I'm not really familiar with any of the later sequels.

For most fans, 2 is considered the best of the lot.

This. People who are much better than me at fighting games claim that it's the most balanced.

Ganelon · Post by **Ganelon** » Mon Jun 22, 2009 11:51 pm

Pretty much none of them are supposedly competitively feasible, but yeah, they're fun and the earliest Samurai Shodown games were probably as close to mainstream as SNK's fighters ever got in the west. I'm not a fan of the more complex systems used in SSIV and afterwards though.

antron · Post by **antron** » Mon Jun 22, 2009 11:55 pm

how do they compare to the Last Blade's

it290 · Post by **it290** » Tue Jun 23, 2009 12:02 am

Eh? Sam Sho II has pretty good balance (with the exception of Ukyo). It still gets some competitive play. Also, when the players aren't extremely high level, the high level of damage in this game tends to even the playing field quite a bit.

V/Zero Special isn't too bad in that respect, either. It has a few broken things but in general is my favorite entry in the series to play 2p.

edit - oh, and SS vs. LB is kind of like apples and oranges. They both have swords, but otherwise are completely different. I will say that both LB games are more fun to play against the CPU, especially the first one. The AI is just better (SS AI tends to be either weak or cheap), and LB is a lot more combo-centric. Both series are amongst the best weapon-based fighters ever developed.

Lordstar · Post by **Lordstar** » Tue Jun 23, 2009 12:42 am

ok from what i hear of the MVS ones 1 is too old, 2 is great (I agree) , three the rounds are shorter becuase the dammage is higher, four is more like sam sho 2. Five has lots of characters but special has the bosses and fatalities like in some of the previous games.

not really played six its has different styles of play for each character so you can have modes where you play more like a Samsho2 or a samsho3 and so on. again never played it though much just the odd go in JP

A_Civilian · Post by **A_Civilian** » Tue Jun 23, 2009 1:45 am

The thing with VI is it's a legacy summarizer game. Nearly every character (STILL not including Shiki and Asuras...even though they made some NEW folks for this one!), and you can choose your play-style according to which of the previous games you're familiar with (ex. Rage mode being most like I, Shin mode like II, etc.).

Oh, and no blood for some reason.

Worth getting if you wanted to see nearly everyone and everything in one game (but get it with the Anthology, not the standalone).

it290 · Post by **it290** » Tue Jun 23, 2009 3:52 am

Lordstar wrote:ok from what i hear of the MVS ones 1 is too old, 2 is great (I agree) , three the rounds are shorter becuase the dammage is higher, four is more like sam sho 2. Five has lots of characters but special has the bosses and fatalities like in some of the previous games.

Eh? Nah, IV is nothing like II -- they're pretty much total opposites as the system was revamped (not necessarily for the better) in III. IV is the most combo-heavy game in the series and its moves are generally pretty weak (for a SS game). Still a very fun game, but nothing like II, which is all about psychology, timing, and setups. It's pretty much the SFA3 to SSII's Champion Edition.

Cthulhu · Post by **Cthulhu** » Tue Jun 23, 2009 6:35 am

I'll agree that to me SS 1 was great for its time but isn't really much fun anymore. 2 was (and still is) a great game. I thought 3 was junk and 4 was only marginally better. 5 was heading back into good territory but it seemed kind of lackluster compared to its contemporaries.

As for the lesser-known titles in the series, both of the Neo 64 games were terrible and the PS1 3D title was just as bad, if not worse. The RPG is kinda cool but moves -really- slowly.

Then all of a sudden VI came along and was great. It was awesome to see a series that I adored at first come back with a strong title after so many years. And yes, just buy the anthology version (as mentioned earlier), otherwise you're wasting perfectly good money. Not that either version is expensive anymore (as far as I know at least), but still.

nem · Post by **nem** » Tue Jun 23, 2009 6:46 am

Samurai Shodown II is stupidly awesome. Even 15 years later, it's still one of the more accessible fighters out there.

Skykid · Post by **Skykid** » Tue Jun 23, 2009 10:07 am

nem wrote:Samurai Shodown II is stupidly awesome. Even 15 years later, it's still one of the more accessible fighters out there.

2 is my favourite too - so much style.

Lordstar · Post by **Lordstar** » Tue Jun 23, 2009 10:51 am

it290 wrote:
Lordstar wrote:ok from what i hear of the MVS ones 1 is too old, 2 is great (I agree) , three the rounds are shorter becuase the dammage is higher, four is more like sam sho 2. Five has lots of characters but special has the bosses and fatalities like in some of the previous games.
Eh? Nah, IV is nothing like II -- they're pretty much total opposites as the system was revamped (not necessarily for the better) in III. IV is the most combo-heavy game in the series and its moves are generally pretty weak (for a SS game). Still a very fun game, but nothing like II, which is all about psychology, timing, and setups. It's pretty much the SFA3 to SSII's Champion Edition.

sorry , in my opinion 4 feels like 2 over 3. I play but im not that in to it to be playing mind games lol. I only play my mate localy and becuase we play each other all the time we know what were going to do. Boring most of the time but makes for some intresting matches specialy when were both just standing there waiting for one of us to make the first move

That happens in a lot of your games not just SamSho

cham cham is in Sam sho2 And I adore using here great keep away punish character which I dont usually play like this but for some reason I just clicked with her. I use Genjuro too ad ocasionaly some others.

Stan · Post by **Stan** » Tue Jun 23, 2009 12:30 pm

How good is that anthology release in terms of graphics, sound, controls etc.?

it290 · Post by **it290** » Tue Jun 23, 2009 1:55 pm

It's not low-res, but other than that it's fine. There is some loading in the later titles, but nothing too bad. Worth every penny.

captpain · Post by **captpain** » Tue Jun 23, 2009 1:57 pm

I've got to add another button to my stick to play it, but I'd definitely be up for some SS2 on 2dfighter.net....

CIT · Post by **CIT** » Tue Jun 23, 2009 9:25 pm

I love this series. SSII is great but my personal favorites are III and IV.

SS2 for Hyper Neo Geo 64 is really cool as well.

Lordstar · Post by **Lordstar** » Wed Jun 24, 2009 12:21 am

CIT wrote:I love this series. SSII is great but my personal favorites are III and IV.

SS2 for Hyper Neo Geo 64 is really cool as well.

never got a chance to play SS64

kernow · Post by **kernow** » Wed Jun 24, 2009 2:56 am

Hyper64 + 3 game bundles are really cheap on ebay uk right now, like £40 or so, all brand new.

I still can't be bothered though, I own 1-4 on MVS and had them on homecart once, but I can't be arsed with 5,5s,or 6 either. They seem like totally different games to me.

Great series though, I kinda prefer 1/2 to the rest.

Check out last blade too if you haven't already, because both are awesome.

Alec · Post by **Alec** » Wed Jun 24, 2009 3:13 am

yeah.

i love samurai 123 to death.

Strider77 · Post by **Strider77** » Wed Jun 24, 2009 10:08 am

I hated 6....... HATED it.

I like 2,3,4 and 5 special

Skykid · Post by **Skykid** » Wed Jun 24, 2009 10:11 am

it290 wrote: It's pretty much the SFA3 to SSII's Champion Edition.

Just for the record, SFA3 is inferior to SFA2. (Thread derail!

)

it290 · Post by **it290** » Wed Jun 24, 2009 1:35 pm

^^ Agreed. I was thinking more of how v-ism combos in SFA3 parallel those 14-hit chains in SS4 in terms of importance to gameplay.

Skykid · Post by **Skykid** » Wed Jun 24, 2009 1:45 pm

it290 wrote:^^ Agreed. I was thinking more of how v-ism combos in SFA3 parallel those 14-hit chains in SS4 in terms of importance to gameplay.

I know, I could see the reference

It's always fun telling people why SFA3 is lame though.