My Eyes May Be Blue, But They Know Samurai Spirits!

Samurai Shodown (Samurai Spirits)

     I want to say Samurai Shodown was SNK's most popular series. People who've never touched Fatal Fury or KOF have at least heard of it, probably played it, may or may not have been pleased with it.

     The story, as far as I can decipher from the back of the OAV and scattered summaries online, involves the evil sorcerer Amakusa trying to seize control of Japan by glowing and wearing too much makeup. To combat him, several legendary samurai/ninja/other armed people set out to defeat him. Oh yeah, and some of them came back from the dead, and there's a little green hunchback with the same surname as Mai from Fatal Fury, which stirs up all kinds of unpleasant thoughts. Among the heroes: an adaption of the Japanese folk hero Ukyo, presented here as a blue-haired bishounen type with tuberculosis; Nakoruru, who is some sort of spiritual guardian of nature; Hanzo, another pseudohistorial figure and possibly the main trigger of the wave of ninja that flood every fighting game; and Haohmaru, and impossibly buff, hard-drinking samurai who seems to be a combination of any number of legendary samurai. Haohmaru is supposed to be the hero, and is sort of presented as a sort of randy, sword-slinging Terry Bogard. It's revealed, sort of, in badly-rewritten cutscenes, that Amakusa is actually in the employ of "The Dark Guy," which leaves the ending wide open for a sequel.

     There are more, of course, who may or may not fit into a broader, epic storyline the SS series is supposed to be telling. I never really explored the background story behind Samurai Shodown much. I guess that kind of cuts into the informative value of this article, versus the King of Fighters universe that I have an almost unhealthy knowledge of. But as unique and stylish as the character designs may be, I simply can't get behind half the cast. And get around the historical and cultural evidence behind the existence of Galford, the "San Francisco Ninja."

     The original Samurai Shodown brought a lot of innovation to the arcade... table. It was the first fairly succesful fighting game to incorporate weapon fighting, and was probably the first fighter SNK produced with an on-screen bar used for performing supers. It also introduced us to a puzzling, stylized mispelling. Why no first 'w' in Showdown? Did they just not double check the needless American name change? Is omitting the 'w' a similar device for generating false uniqueness as turning 's' into 'z?' Regardless, SS1 runs on an engine not dissimilar to KOF '94. Which isn't horribly shocking, as it was released in 1993.

     The graphics are nice. There are a lot of little touches in the background, especially Charlotte Colde's stage. Although why you get sidetracked to France on a journey to save Japan is beyond me. (There are other suitably out of place stages in Arizona and San Francisco.)

     There's not much else to say about the first game in terms of innovations in play beyond that. What really sets Samurai Shodown apart from other games is the sheer quirkiness on parade, ranging from classic 'SNK-glish' to the fact that a character whose meter is fully charged turns red. But all in all, it's a solid game, and loads more fun than the inital installments of Fatal Fury or Art of Fighting.

     Some other little goofy things to mention before moving along: Haohmaru fights Mai Shiranui in cameo in one of the endings (somehow), all of the blood is recolored white in the US/console release as usual (which has the unfortunate effect of making it look like wounds are spewing copious amounts of uh... fluid,) and the OAV strangely enough, has recolored blood. Go figure.

Samurai Shodown II

     Regarded by many as the best of the series, I must respectfully disagree. It does however have some characters who achieved pockets of popularity, only to never resurface again, presumably because some people in high places hate us. Let's see, there was an old man with the Ranma-like moniker of Caffeine Nicotine; Cham-cham, the annoying little sister of the also rather annoying Tam-Tam from the first game, and Sieger, a German warlord-type with a primitive cyborg arm and a predictably loose grip on the reigns of language. "GIVE YOU MY KNOCK FOR JUSTICE!" Oh yeah, and Haohmaru picks up a buff yet still femme rival type guy named Genjuro. He throws giant hanafuda cards with cherry blossoms on them. Oh, fear!

     Amakusa comes back. Yeah. And he seems to be up to his old tricks, but is actually only a pawn in a grander plot to levitate various things and spin them around in ceremonial fashion.

Samurai Shodown III

     This is probably my pick as my favorite Samurai Shodown. The combat system has been retooled, more geared towards swordfighting than the previous games which were pretty much street fighting with weapons. Each sword strike knocks off huge chunks of health, so the focus of the game becomes more geared toward avoiding damage than combo-ing people into oblivion. All the characters were redrawn as well. This was probably done to go with the 'alignment' system put in place. Each character is given two versions of themselves, each with different moves- the 'good' version being dubbed 'slash' and the evil one 'bust.' (Apparently in the euro version, Slash& Bust became Chivalry & Treachery. Nice. WHY CAN'T WE HAVE NICE THINGS?) In some cases, the change is pretty subtle, in others, very obvious (Evil Nakoruru has a nasty looking wolf at her side instead of her hawk, Mamahaha, Evil Galford fights without Poppy.) There are also three grades available to offer yet another layer of customization, with beginner offering 5 autoguards (for the whole game!) and the Expert grade disabling blocking entirely in favor of a permanently full super meter. Or something like that.

     Since this is the third installment, there's some sort of unspoken obligation on the part of the programmers to make a couple new characters who are way too young to be fighting like this. In this case, Nakoruru's kid sister Rimururu who fights with a dagger and the Ice Crystal from Final Fantasy, and Shizumaru Hisame, an umbrella-wielding little boy fighting for revenge against yadda yadda. Oh yeah, there's also an insane guy named Basara with a wildly impractical weapon, because the little green guy with the Edward Scissorhands glove hadn't shown up and by Jove, every fighting game needs at least one character whose mental health is in question. The hulking Gaira, disciple of Nicotine, rounds out the cast.

     Amakusa comes back again. Yayyyyy. It's probably worth pointing out this and Metal Slug are the only SNK series where the villain has a Dr. Wily-like level of persistence, though Rugal Bernstein comes damn close.

Samurai Shodown IV: Amakusa's Revenge

     If I really need to elucidate the big plot twist behind this one, then you must not speak subtitle. In that case: Amakusa comes back one more time, and has more nasty levitating rituals up his sleeve. Not to mention yet more insufferably cheap ranged attacks. However, a (maybe the) Dark Guy Zankuro shows up and cuts him in half, putting an end to his reign of terror and challenging you to an astoundingly cheap swordfight.

     SS4 features brighter, more cartoony artwork than the last, and the whole honorable combat thing is pushed in to the hilt, so to speak. Yes, now you can commit ritual suicide with Honorable Death moves. (Although Shizumaru's 'honrable death' move is to run the heck away.) You might be wondering if there's some reason you'd do such a thing which is to start the next round with a full super meter. There are also attacks to hit the enemy on the ground, and the addition of a genuine combo system is nice. The basic combo slash is executed by pushing B+C together for an instant 3-4-hit deal, which you can lead into or follow up with other moves. Slash and Bust characters are back, and there's a sort of attempt to show more rivalry between characters: In the beginning, as they prepare to enter the wasteland and challenge Amakusa, another fighter shows up and talks to them. Beat the game within the time limit you're assigned (which varies with how many match points the machine is set for, among other things) and you'll face the rival character after the final boss to get the 'good' ending. Although, to be honest, the only character I've finished the game with have been Rimururu and Kazuki.

     Speaking of whom, the two geuinely new fighters in this game are Kazuki and Sougetsu, who fit nicely into the 'fire guy' and 'water guy' stereotypes, and happen to both be brothers and memebers of the same assassin guilg. Except, hot-tempered Kazuki wants to quit, and cool Sougetsu thinks he should respect family tradition, honor the guild, so on. Tam-Tam comes back as well; at least he's given his amatuer singing career. Chika-boom. Babalooooh.

     If I haven't alluded to the fact before, now's the time to point out that Samurai Shodown has got to be the SNK game with the worst dialogue. On the one hand, they make a conscious effort to make the dialogue seem traditional, on the other, characters are prone to bust out some of the most hysterical jabber ever. "Prepare to die, you crazy funster!" intones Amakusa in the first game. It definitely adds to the comic value of the game, but detracts the hell out of the plot when the mumbling turns to topics such as Amakusa's superior(s) and tries to tell legends such as:

"Long, long ago, there once was a man who try to make his skill ultimate. Because of his bloody life, it's no accident that he became involved in the troubles."

     Of course, I probably shouldn't complain too much about it. It's not like this is an RPG.

Samurai Spirits: The RPG

     ...is, on the other hand. Unfortunately, it's apparently Japan-only, and as such, I'm not going into it.

Samurai Shodown 64

     Slightly more successful than Fatal Fury: Wild Ambition, this game introduced some new gameplay options, and the character of Shiki. But, since I never played any N64 fighting games, actually, I'm not going into this one either. Or the sequel.

The Last Blade(sidebar by Jake)

The Last Blade. An ancient weapon of unfathomable power used by the gods to push back the emerging concept of 'death' before the twilight of humanity and seal it behind Hell's Gate. At least, that would give the name a little more meaning than the current (nothing) one. In all actuality, it's refreshing that The Last Blade series has any story whatsoever, but it would be great if the title made a little more sense.

The Last Blade is yet another very underrated SNK fighting game,
something of a bastard son between Fatal Fury and Samurai Shodown. It's got the faster pacing of the more recent Fatal Fury games, and the
swordfighting... something of the SS games. That's not to say it's not on
another level entirely, but I had to make some sort of reference so the
masses (aside from the five people in the States who actually bought the
game) could understand. As great as it all probably doesn't sound, it boils
down to being just another gauntlet of enemies leading up to the impossibly
difficult SNK boss. The characters are all scrawny, world-weary teenage
SAMURAI (I would call them top-class kendo students if not for the element attacks and deflections and all), fighting against destiny and- ya know what? Maybe a story synopsis would be a little more appropriate.

The story is something along the lines of this - This story is of
Hell's Gate, which is basically the gate between Earth and hell... or the
living and the dead world. In Last Blade 1, Kagami went to the effort
(apparently) of opening up Hell's Gate, and some nasty things occurred...
Onwards we progress as Kagami was defeated and the maddening power that he had gotten from Hell apparently decided to leave him. So now we rejoin our cast of characters (and a lot of new ones) as they finally realize, "Oh damn, nobody's sealed Hell's Gate!" This blunder of a mistake must have been Kaede's fault! Anyway, the only way to seal this gate (of which many critters of evilness, including Setsuna and the de facto undead guy have come out) is to bring together the power of the four gods and the "Sealing Maiden", and that will seal the gate. Whew, no problem right? Well they'll have to battle to get there first, and don't forget those dirty Extra characters, like Amano, all are in the game too and are gonna get in the way of the story, as usual. Oh well.

While the story may actually look like it has some potential, as with most fighting games, it really doesn't matter. You'll just end up picking
whoever looks cool and wins the most. In terms of cool, this game has it in spades. The characters are all very unique (well, except Washizuka and Kojiro, but eh), each with their own fighting style (some of which make me wonder how someone this incompetent is going to seal the gate to the underworld) and three different fighting modes. That's right, three. Each has their own unique costume colors as well. As can probably be discerned from their names (Power, Speed, and the secret EX), each also affects the character's play style. Power and speed are pretty well-defined by themselves, but the fun EX mode (with the best alternate colors) is a little different. Power gives you hard hits with slim to no ability to combo, speed gives you combos with slim to no power, and EX gives you power and speed with a bigger damage modifier (to yourself). Being the gung-ho type, I prefer EX, if for nothing than those cool colors. Dammit, the colors.

The fighting system is pretty standard SNK fare. You have your weak slash, your heavy slash, a kick (which you can use to kick your opponent across the screen and bounce them off the wall, amongst other things), and the deflection, which knocks the opponent off guard and gives you a big opening for comboage. There are also the typical crazy special attacks, like Akari's (she's the crazy hyper priestess girl) Teleporter, where she falls into the ground and gets spat out by a statue. Try her out. There are also the Desperation and Super Desparation supers, which work basically the same as every other SNK/Capcom fighter that involves supers and a flashing red bar. There's also the combo special, something I've never actually figured out, but if you have a full super meter and a flashing life bar you can initiate a big combo super that turns the background to a starfield and flashes your character blue. It's a pretty sweet attack and well worth the effort and a visit to a movelist.

Now that the technicalities are out of the way, it's safe to say this game is one of those that never got noticed because it's got nothing big going for it. It's not really the type of game that can be marketed very well, with its cast of non-outlandish, non-scantily clad characters. The thing it really has going for it is lots of coolness. I haven't found too many people that enjoy playing it for more than a few rounds (one time it was the music, another time it was my mass ownage), [-ed; I concede suckage at Last Blade. However, I wiped the floor with ya in King of Fighters] but if you like something different than the super-fast beat 'em up styles of modern games, be sure to check it out. If I can't convince you with my sub-par explanation, I've got one more word for you: Musashi. That is all.

KOF-related notes...

None, really. Samurai Shodown follows its own continuity. Kazuki isn't a long-lost Kusanagi, but it is remotely possible Gen-an is a distant ancestor of Mai. Yeah right.

Nakoruru appears as Yuri's Another Striker in KOF 2000. Kaede (from Last Blade) is Ryo's.

Strangely enough though, Ukyo's deceased love was named Kaede. ...huh.