Samurai Shodown is back, baby, and it's back in style! While I've always enjoyed the series, I never considered myself a fan. As a matter of fact, I always preferred SNK's other Samurai game, The Last Blade(When are we getting a physical release of both games? SNK, get on it!) but I think I might be changing my mind any time now, since this game is pretty darn brilliant.
I'll get my complaints out of the way first, starting with the poor character roster. There's a scant 16 playable characters. We get 10 out of the 12 characters from Samurai Shodown 1, because pandering, 3 newcommers(Darli Dagger is alright, Ruxieng is the dumb 'ditzy big breasted animu waifu' stereotype and Karasu, which might be my new favorite) as well as a few choice picks from the rest of the games: Shiki, from 64(Brilliant pick, even if her in-game reason for being present is incredibly dumb), Genjuro from II and Yoshitora from V. It's missing a lot of fan-favorites, including MY favorite Kazuki. You can get the season pass for free for a few days which will turn the game into a physical/digital hybrid with four extra characters: Basara from III, Wan-Fu from I, Kazuki(THANK GOD) from IV and Rimururu from III. The roster leaves a lot to be desired, sadly, but at least all 16 characters are very different from each other: There's no filler here. Although that might change once Rimururu makes it in.... My other gripe comes in the form of loading times, they are a bit longer than they I would've liked, making for a lot of dead time whenever you play.
Now then, I'm not one to judge games solely on graphics, but by the gods is Samurai Shodown pretty. Everything in the game is extra colorful, and character models are incredibly detailed with beautiful animations to compliment this new oily, inky style they went for. As a matter of fact, everything has a slight parchment-like texture applied to it, making it look like a Ukiyoe painting. Super moves makes the texture more notorious for added style. I can't stress this enough, this game is gorgeous. It might not have the most realistic looking character models or environments, but they went for style and they knocked it out of the park.
But let me tell you WHY Samurai Shodown is SO darn good, because it's not just its incredible graphics, but its gameplay. Samurai Shodown is unlike most fighting games, while there is a combo counter here, combos are not the norm but the exception: This game is about landing precise attacks when you see an opening. This means that matches can go by very quickly, if you land slow-but-strong attacks, or very slowly if both opponents can't find an opening. It's not a game for everyone, and that's fine.
Complimenting its simple design its got equally simple game mechanics. You have lots of them, for instance, for defensive options you've got: Blocking/Just-Blocking, Deflecting, Parrying and disarming. All those actions are fairly simple to pull off: Tap backwards to block(Tap just as you get hit for a quicker just-block), perform a just-block and press quarter-circle-forward+LS+MS to deflect. Press LS+MS to dodge on the spot or Quarter-circle-forward+LS+MS before getting hit to disarm your enemy. Every mechanic is very easy to pull off, and you've got tools if you want to predict an attack or if you want to react to one. For attacks you have 3 Slashes(Weak, Medium, Strong) and a kick, special moves, a one-time use super-special move, a rage-explosion as well as a rage-super move that disarms your enemy. Plenty of those will give you options in how you want to manage your Rage gauge. This means that this is a feature-rich game, with just the right amount of mechanics and tools for anyone to pick up the game fairly quickly and master it at their own pace.
Samurai Shodown(2019) is the fighting game I didn't know I wanted. It managed to bring the series into the present day with a high degree of success. A more robust character roster as well as more extras(Like unlockable color palettes) could've made this great game into an even better one, so it'll be interesting to see how it develops as more characters get released. Not that I want to encourage DLC, but what can I do? On the other hand, I can't wait to get this game on Switch and take it out with me anytime, anywhere.
8.5 out of 10
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