The series is basically 3 series of 2 games and an anthology, if you don’t count the 3d games.
SS1&2 are a series, 3&4 are a series, 5&5SP are a series, and 6 is the anthology.
That Haohmaru SS1 stage has the best fighter music of all time. So intense, and even more so because you knew one of the characters was going to die at the end of the round.
I wish I knew what the decision making was going into the later games in the series, because they really screwed it up and lost me as a fan. After MK2, this was the first fighter I ever really got good at, saved up my quarters for, and pedaled my bike two miles to the arcade just to play a couple of matches.
It may be a rumor, but I heard that SS1 was actually conceived by part of the creative staff behind the original SF2. Supposedly they left because they didn’t agree with the marketing of the game or endless expansions. It’s kind of ironic considering SS’s eventual fate.
Even if that’s not true, the game is obviously inspired by SF2. It may not have all of the refinement of the SF series, but it had cooler characters and way more style. SS2 did everything better and made the game more unique. Still one of my favorites.
SS3 was probably the best in the series though. The bold new art style kicked ass. The darker tone was unique for fighters of the day - I give SNK lots of credit for getting rid of its sillier characters and maturing the series like that. The Chivalry/Treachery system made the game deeper. Most of all, the new controls really took advantage of the game’s biggest draw: the emphasis on timing and lack of reliance on combos.
The philosophy behind the first 2 Shodowns I absolutely love.
The second pair, looked amazing. I’m surprised to see somebody say they think 3 is the best, people usually consider it the worst. I’d agree it’s probably heavily underrated.
Removing slash/bust was one of the things that just really annoyed me with SS5. It was a cool, interesting mechanic, and taking it out to replace it with lame/ugly versions of the characters was just sad (especially Purple Haohmaru and whateverthenamesofbustkazekiandsogetsuwere)
I just bought Anthology today after amassing a lot of wins at Civil War in SSV SP. I didn’t know about the censorship story!
Aka they change too much shit. SS3 and 4 had way to many 100% combos for my taste. Samurai Showdown 2 had it’s share too but they were less practical.
Deaths are in there but only in VS, or at least that’s how it is for part 1 and 2. Don’t know about 5 and 6. 5 turned me away with lazy graphics and ugly or uninspired character designs, except for the boss. 6 was all that and worse, and the backgrounds are some of the worst ever. It may be a good game but it’s not Samurai Shodown to me.
I like sequels that are ballsy enough to get rid of characters. The main thing this game had going for it was atmosphere. Graphics and overall presentation was better than anything else in 2D. If 3 had just gotten updated and tweaked it would have been better, but I actually don’t even mind the airlocks. The series is (or was) about tricking your opponent into making a mistake. Genjuro had the best of these special moves, but anyone could do a punishing hard attack. That’s why I liked this better than Alpha, which was the other game in my local arcade: Alpha is about forcing your opponent to open up through combos and then having the hand speed to pull off your super. SS3 had so many options for punishment but the best one was always a hard slash, which felt so satisfying to pull off and actually made the Weapons more than just a gimmick.
I think SNK needs to get it’s KOF franchise stabilized again before it can focus on Samurai Shodown or any of its other franchises.
And yeah, GGPO would help immensely if they went back to X360 Live or PSN…
oh god, I meant UNDERRATED not overrated. Let me go fix that.
But that is how the make their money lol. That and releasing online games with shit netplay and never doing anything to fix it.
Didn’t they just succeed with KoF XIII? Why not go back to the original SNK hits next?
They made eight Fatal Fury games from 92-99 (if you count the SPECIAL editions and Garou), and they were all solid, at least. I say go balls out and make Garou 2. I like KoF, I’ve spent a lot of time over the years playing KoF, and I want there to be more, but 1v1 is still the best type of game for growing your brand.
I don’t know if I’d want to see another Samurai Shodown. I didn’t play those games because they were like other fighters with different characters. They were different in a lot of key areas. I think Capcom actually did a better job with Haohmaru in CvS2, both graphically and gameplay-wise, than SS6 did with any of the characters. That’s a real shame.
Only time any of the SS series got hyped around my town…
was at the local Tilt when we snagged SS4.
Long story short, people were crowded around the little-ass SNK machine, and thus it went:
Player 1: Haohmaru
Player 2: Genjuro
Every time, it did not matter who the hell the other guys were, everyone chose “easy grade” and just chopped the living shit out of each other. People didn’t know what the hell some were doing, but it was hype.
No game has ever matched the feel of a Samurai Shodown AB slash. Only thing even halfway there is a Death Fist.
Didn’t play much of 5. Just found this:
[media=youtube]tA9FmpXgHtY[/media]
just like Last Blade, they are special moves, not fatalities like the dumb MK ones. they are very well directed and voice acted though with atmospheric music and sfx. this makes them even more tense and disturbing than any MK fatality. still, not my cup of tea in a SS game.
The suicides were more interesting than the kills, that’s a mechanic to reboot. "throw the round for full meter starting next round
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I don’t see what those fatalities added to the game. Only Hanzo’s actually made it look better than the super as it was. Seppuku as a fight mechanic just didn’t make any damn sense.
What?
I agree that V SP should be at Evo though.
It was clever, and the animations were hilarious.
Especially Effing Rim trying to do her super and dropping the ice block on her head.
No they were dumb and out of place. 3 did it better with a ‘desperation’ background for every stage and 4 sort of tried, but it was better when the game wasn’t about fatalities as much as that it included death at the end of the round.
And little-girl Rimururu? What they didn’t do it bad enough the first time? This is another problem I had with the way the game went. The art direction was all over the map. SS1 and 2 were obviously very obviously anime/video games with a lot of the designs, but even though it got silly at points, the art was still colorful, fun to look at, and most of all, it flowed together.
Then in part 3 they made a good change that was more than an improvement - they didn’t make the last game obsolete or try to one-up it at every turn. I hate all of these conglomeration/dream match fighters because it’s just a substitute for quality or innovation (excepting well done VS games and updated editions of a game like SSF4). Even KoF had the balls to remove popular characters to change up the teams every now and then (remember Tizoc?).
SS4 and especially 5 took the new art style - which was, I guess you could say, parchment-like - and just shat all over it. If Haohmaru and company look less friendly and a little bit more grown-up, why did Charlotte (the first non-cheesecake, womanly fighting game character) become your typical animu-fap teenage looking girl? Same for Earthquake and Caffeine being taken out because of their silliness only to be replaced by magic ninjas and some really godawful shit in 5.
They were going two different directions at once, and not just graphically. Counters and timing-oriented gameplay, with few rush-down tactics (a universally activated running slash and a few risky special moves) were suddenly competing for priority with this kind of crap:
[media=youtube]wuAEQ7av2C4[/media]
Oh yeah, the game was about “Amakusa’s Revenge.” That’s funny I thought Amakusa’s revenge was the whole point of the first game, and then his redemption was in part 2 but fuck it let’s just recycle the story along with SS3’s boss - who admittedly had a cool setup, but it was still a lame idea for a company that had no qualms about killing off Geese, Rugal, and probably some others
I guess all of the good ideas were reserved for Last Blade, but my arcade didn’t stock that. Actually I don’t think anybody’s did.
well I mentioned Rim because it was soo satisfying to see the bitch die. She might actually be my least favorite fighting game character ever (altho I guess SNK likes her for some reason).
What’s going on with the lifebars in that clip? They keep going up and down and up and down… training mode? (annoyingly I went to the actual youtube page, and its massively MASSIVELY lacking in any kind of actual useful information)
5 was the worst looking of the games (they got some manga artist to do the new character designs and they’re just Godawful. Especially Enja and Suija. Evil Haohmaru is just hilariously lazy), and 3 was probably the best looking of the games, the art in that one was just… great.
We had a Last Blade (1) at the Southcenter Silver Coin (in Seattle), I feel lucky I got to play it in the arcade ><