Alright, I was wondering if anyone on this site can give me any real, solid info on the ins and outs of this game. Any info, at all would be greatly appreciated: character guides and strategy, general strategy, etc. Feel free to discuss anything pertaining to Samurai Shodown, in general, here.
Don’t treat it like a fighting game. Treat it like a swordfight where you can only take so many hits. This means you’re really going to be relying on mobility more than anything.The rest is practice.
Have fun.
Thanks, man. More specifically, though, I was wondering how I should properly use a character like Hoahmaru, or Genjuro, what their strengths and weaknesses are, character match-ups, etc. Really, if there was a resource like the strategy guides on this site, that’s what I’d be most interested in.
Been forever since I played this, in a nutshell it’s broken but fun. The first thing to learn about any samsho is how throws and jumping/backdash works. First, you can grab from a run which you probably already know. You can also never be thrown after landing from a jump. You can either jump again (must be timed…if you hold up, you stay grounded for pretty long before jumping again), or you can buffer a back dash and avoid the throw. For 4 in particular, you can also use the close f+AB dodge in close. So yeah, even if you jump, attack early, then land, you can always avoid a throw. This is really important because A. throws are crazy in 4 and B. your opponent will whiff a hard slash and for most it means you can punish them for free after you re-jump and make it whiff. Anyway…
Uh other important things…C+D does the chain combo (I forget what they are actually called). The universal one is C+D, then hold f and do AA BB CC ABCCCCC. When you complete it, your character gets rage (more damage, able to super, one special gets powered up). The only other way to get rage is to take damage like K groove in cvs2, so this is really big. It’s especially good with some characters, because some of the specials that get powered up are retarded. Hanzo’s fireball, Sogetsu’s pillar (slash mode), Charlotte’s stab (bust mode), Nakoruru’s slide (slash mode) to name some major ones. The ones with multiple hits are really annoying because this game doesn’t have absolute guard and if you ever let go you take the full damage from a lot of these moves lol. You can also cancel the 12th his of the chain combo into any special, but you won’t get rage.
At any time you can go into rage with ABC. The less life you have, the more time you get to use either ABC or BCD in rage mode. ABC is this auto combo thing, which can be extended for 3 part total by hitting ABC. It uses 1/3rd the bar each time, and you can cancel this into super at any time, even if you are you used the last of the bar. BCD is the issen, and does about 40-60% depending on how little hp you have. It’s guaranteed off throw, so a common tactic is to activate then try to grab or air hard slash the opponent a million times as they try to avoid your grab.
For Haoh his best mode is bust, because of his rdp+K (and to a lesser extent, dp+K) in combos and the ability to combo his super off a back grab. Slash Haoh is ok too though, he’s got the overhead (rdp+S?). His basic gameplay is to throw a gazillion qcf+A tornado’s and jump ©. Jump C is really hard to anti-air or air-to air, you have to either dp it or totally commit, respectively. You can whiff cancel, so whiff cancel st.A into tornado is good to change the timing. If one hits, you can time a meaty big down attack (u+S) guaranteed. Far B (medium slash) is a good poke, and up close d+K is good to make them freeze up so you can run up and grab. You can actually get his chain combo of a front throw by walking up a little bit, then doing it sort of slow. Off a back grab, you can do running A, then link his super. Any time you get the chain combo, you can cancel the 12th hit into rdp+K, u+S (big down attack), it does a lot. Against some chars (I know vs. Gaira for sure), you can do 12 hit chain, rdp+K, dp+A, small down attack. Anytime you back throw someone into the corner, you can do basically whatever like the 12 hit chain into dp+K, then link off it for easy infinites. He can infinite Gaira and Kyoshiro midscreen with back throw -> instant jump C, land, close B xx dp+K I think? Then jump C again, etc. Maybe works on Tamtam too, I can’t remember.
Genjuro is pretty different between Slash and Bust, they are both good, I think most players like his bust version including myself. Down B is a great poke, and his A dp is super fast and invincible. If his overhead (B+C) his crouching, dp+A -> small down attack is guaranteed. Slash genjuro has the original berserker slash with qcf+slash. Get the distance right on whatever strength and you can make it pretty ambiguous. Bust genjuro is mostly based around his projectile, with if you hold the button, will bounce off on block and come back down as an overhead (original anji butterfly). Use that with a lot of down B. Running K is a nice move, and guarantees a big down attack I think. d/f+K is also cancelable into big down attack as well? Or maybe that’s only in 5 I can’t remember. Anyway it won’t come out on block so it’s a basic OS. Off front throw, easy combo is just qcf+S x3. Off back, you can running B, down C, then small down attack. Or you can just do running B over and over which is an infinite. He can also infinite in the corner using his fireball but the timing i pretty strict. I think it’s just 12 hit chain combo xx fireball, 12 hit chain repeat. It’s kind of weird to get the fireball to combo from the 12 hit, you have to cancel real early. That also reminds me, the combo counter in this game is hella fucked up so never trust it. Anyway this thread is like 5 months old so I’ll stop here. cheers
Hey, thanks for all the info, cygnus! I’m amazed somebody replied to this thread, at all.
Genjuro (slash) is way better in part 3. 3 is my favorite in the series because it has so much more atmosphere and because it really plays more like a sword fight. The characters they left in fit with the tone of the game, so it’s hard to be upset at the characters they lost from 2, which is still a good game in a different way. That’s probably why I didn’t like 4 as much: They introduced too many crazy moves and brought back characters that didn’t have a place, plus the gameplay is ‘faster’ but the over the top combos are not what the system was about. 4 was fun to play, but its problems just got worse in 5 and 6 to the point where I really wonder what the hell they were thinking.
One thing I always liked about the series was the Izuna Drops that the two ninja characters can do. I probably picked up a lot of bad habits jumping around the screen from this game.