Samurai Shodown
Reviewed by Dyson Turner
Samurai Shodown has got to be one of the coolest fighting
games for genesis. This took a great arcade game, which was
a flop for SNES I might add, into a near perfect arcade
import minus a few options. The most important feature that
made everyone drool was the fact that these characters were
so large. In the arcade Samurai Shodown used Scaling which
is a technique that makes the characters look far when
they're the whole screens apart, and close when they get
next to each other. The SNES version stayed looking far
apart and this one stayed with the close perspective. Plus
the fact when this was created Nintendo was still using
their family policy with less violence in video games. So
there's didn't have any blood but this one did plus the two
cool arcade fatalities. My first impression of this game was
a good one I liked the size of the characters all the moves
that were available, and the almost great sounds. Even
though the sounds and music could have been better this was
still a nice try to bring the arcade to the home system like
the Genesis.
Graphics 9.0/10
The graphics on this game are great. They really show the
Genesis's true power, and are only rivaled by some later
SNES fighters. The backgrounds that were in the game were
top notch and truly some of the best I seen in a long time,
most of them had a lot of action in them. Like the snow
stage, when you seen the men back they're rooting for the
fight and the birds and animals running around. The
character sizes were all nice and large, without any
noticeable signs of slowdown. The game moved pretty quickly,
but not too quick all the matches had a good speed to them.
The fatalities yeah the only two fatalities were both gory
and they were done pretty good. The first one was getting
stabbed, the other one you got your head chopped off. It
wasn't overly gory like Mortal Kombat, but it was gory
enough to look realistic. The blood in this game did show
and it was prevalent but it didn't come out like showers
like the arcade version did. For the most part though the
graphics in this game did an outstanding job, and were
really beyond my expectations.
Sound 8.5/10
The music in this game was pretty good, and it did a good
job throughout the entire game. I particularly like the
themes on all the Japanese character stages it really
sounded like Feudal Japanese music. The opening music was
pretty good too, and when I think about it reminds me of the
music I heard in Tenchu. The sound effects in this game did
a pretty good job, and really sounded like swords and
weapons clashing with one another. Some of the songs however
didn't quite live up to there arcade counterparts, and it
could have been better. I really didn't have too many
problems with the music but it was kind of drowned out with
the sounds in this game, and many didn't notice this while
playing it. The Sound effects though sounded just like they
did in the arcades with out any noticeable difference. For
the most part this game had outstanding music and sound. The
music and sound inside of this game went very well with the
graphics, which produced an overall good game.
Game Play 9.0/10
This game was for 1 or 2 players. It was a fighting game so
you had your as usual 2 out of 3 matches, and you proceeded
on to fight a different character. Pretty standard stuff
here, you had your usual story mode and vs. mode. You also
had a tournament mode, which was a lot of fun. You had 11
selectable characters, earthquake, the big cheap guy from
the arcade was unelectable. I'm glad too, he was cheating
anyway, to make up for this they include Amakusa the end
boss as a selectable character in 2 player mode. Almost all
the arcade 2 in 1 combos street fighter like combos were
here, and in full effect. Some combos however didn't make
the conversion, but don't threat all the good ones that were
abused were here. That's the only problem I really found
with this game, was the fact that there wasn't enough modes
to play in this game was just too standard, and that
contributed to its less popularity on Genesis. I think with
more modes and more stuff to do this game would have been
dynamite. The difficulty is adjustable, but for the most
part on any level the falls for the same stuff.
There wasn't any save or password feature.
Overall 8.0/10
Despite the few flaws this was still a good game in my
opinion, it was a lot better than a lot of Genesis games out
there, and one of the most comprehensible ones for Genesis.
It was pretty well rounded, and a lot of fun. The fun factor
was pretty high on this one no one could deny the fact that
if you had a bunch of friends over that the tournament mode
was some of the most fun you could have with this game. The
story mode was worth to see with every character but it
wasn't mandatory, you should at least see it with all the
cool characters though. The replay value was particularly
high as well, as usual with fighting games like this one;
you could always replay this countless time and come up with
a very fun game to play. This was one of the only fighting
games out there had a lot of replay value, this one was
always fun to pick up again and again. If you played the
arcade version of this fine game I highly suggest this one
over the SNES version it just sums up better than that one
did, and this one is more complete in my opinion.
OR
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