Samurai Shodown

SNK’s Samurai Shodown fighting game series is one of the game series that I have loved the most since childhood, having tried most of its parts, and I consider this series to be one of the symbols of the “arts” at the level of designs and Drawings with his classic parts. I have always considered it one of the most beautiful video games with what it presented during that time. Of great creativity on a technical and artistic level at the time, and when I found out that SNK was going to revive this series, there was a great mix of emotions between excitement for its return and great fear of what we were getting become. It is not easy to return a title of this magnificence to the current generation, and after all this absence in a way that satisfies old fans and at the same time satisfies… The desires of the new generation of players and fans of fighting games. Has SNK managed to deliver a distinctive experience that satisfies all parties? Today we will find out about it by reviewing the game.

The Gameplay and Design

The Samurai Shodown game, in its original version, is a two-dimensional fighting game that relies more on the use of swords and the correct timing of punches and kicks than it is a fighting game where you memorize lists of consecutive blows (combos). must in order to win. What has changed in this version is the relaunch of the basket, which has become three-dimensional in the graphics but with a side view. Similar to the classic games, I won’t hide from you that I still miss those amazing hand-drawn graphics that the original series presented, but this robot remains faithful to the old Japanese era with its designs, stages and characters, which is especially true given the use of the Unreal Engine 4 development engine in the game and the development budget allocated for it is something very special does not seem to be very high in the game.

The Play Style

So let’s talk about the play style that this robot offers. Well, this game is a side scrolling fighting game and it offers us 3 buttons for sword strikes between strong, medium and weak and there is a button for kicking. Despite the difference in the strength of sword strikes, you need to develop a good strategy to use them. For example, sword strikes. The strong power has a great impact on the opponent and is often decisive in fights, but at the same time if it is blocked or avoided by the opponent, you will be in trouble because the opponent will have a few seconds in which you cannot move your character, and he can hit you however he wants, and here you You have to distribute between the possible uses of punches so that you don’t find yourself in this situation. I have already mentioned that this game is not based on a sequential strike or combination system and focuses heavily on timing and strategy when fighting for victory Unlike the usual fighting games of this type. Here you have to balance between attack and defense until you get the Find the gap that allows you to win.

New in this part is the super strike. This blow can only be struck once during combat and consumes about three-quarters of your opponent’s power. Therefore, you need to be very careful about the best time to use it. because it won’t come back to you if you use it at the wrong time and don’t hit the opponent with it. To make it happen, you first need to stock up a lot. Its energy is affected by the extent to which you take hits and the extent to which you deliver strikes. Then you have to activate it by pressing the back shoulder button and then, with the same button and at the right time, deliver this blow, which is considered very crucial and makes the moments of its activation very exciting between you and your opponent, between expecting his great speed and determining the best time to execute it in front of you, where the background color of the stage changes immediately when you activate it and you have a few seconds to deliver the blow, and this is where the excitement and anticipation begins between the two parties .

The Characters and Diversity

As with any fighting game, characters’ abilities vary between balanced characters, fast characters, and characters with long-range weapons, and you have to choose what suits your play style. This series is famous for presenting a nice variety of characters in terms of design and gameplay style. This part is a robot that includes new characters as well as most of the classic characters from the original series. This is our first time seeing it and we can say that the development team has done a great job with the diversity here. The number of 16 characters, each with their own unique style, is an excellent thing in current fighting games. In fact, every time you play this game with a different character, you will feel a very big difference in playing style, and you will have to relearn how to play best with that character. As examples of character diversity, you will see characters carrying an animal to aid them in battle, such as a dog or a hawk. There are huge characters the size of the screen, and there is one character who uses a large number of swords, which adds great diversity to the list of characters and gameplay style.

The Technical Aspect

Let’s talk about the technical aspect of the game. The game uses cel-shaded graphics to almost simulate the hand-drawn graphics of the original game. Well, there are some differences in the graphics level of the game. Some of the characters are excellently designed, others not so well. The same applies to the backgrounds of the stages, which are sometimes beautiful and even boring. With it we observe the movement of the grass with the reflection of the sun at sunset, while others are lifeless. In fact, I missed a lot of that referee who appeared in the original game and created an atmosphere of excitement with his many movements in the background, and also with the man who throws some tools at us during the fight increases the energy, and those simple touches were nice to look at. In this game, which does not exist, we also notice the effect of blood on the characters as the fights become more intense, as well as the change in character color at the end energy approaches, as was the case in the original series.

The Audio Experience

On the audio level, this game presents itself excellently, with melodies inspired by Japanese folk music, as was the case in the original series, to the wonderful ending music, as well as the voices of the characters, although the game sometimes makes you feel like the production costs were not very high, but the development team did an excellent job with what they had here in the presentation. Overall the game was very good. “I didn’t particularly like the opening of the game.” There are only a few cinematic viewings limited to the story. Overall, this game is considered very good on a technical level and certainly the best production from SNK since its return to the gaming market in the past period after a long absence.

The Game’s Content and Modes

The game’s content and the game modes offered are somewhat limited. This game is a reboot of the original game, and perhaps what was excellent back then isn’t enough for the current generation of players. I fully realize that back in the day we paid hundreds of dollars to get SNK games with this meager content on the NeoGeo device, but now things have changed, especially since the story phase for all characters is like that of the narrative and the only difference is the end of the story for each character with some animations that tell us what happened to the character after the events ended. In addition, there are the training phase, the network challenge phase and other phases that are very limited in options and therefore If you are a fan of single player games, this game will be a bit limited if you are not familiar with the system of this content, that we had in the old game generations.