SAMURAI SHODOWN
Original Release: SNK, 1993, Arcade/Neo Geo
Other Releases: 3D0/Genesis/SNES/Game Boy/Game Gear (1994), Neo Geo CD (1994), FM Towns (1995), Wii (2007), PSP (in SNK Arcade Classics Vol. 1, 2008), PS3 (2010), PS4 (2016), Switch/XBox One (2017), PC (2018), Android/iOS (2022)
The first really big weapons-based fighter in the genre, SNK's romp through the Edo period began development life as a beat-em-up but switched to a fighting game after onboarding some former Capcom programmers
Samurai Shodown (Arcade, SNK, 1993)
Where to Buy: eBay
How to Emulate: Arcade Emulation Guide
Review by: C. M0use
My eyes may be blue, but I know a samurai's spirits! ... ehh whatever. Here's a Street Fighter clone from SNK that actually went significantly in a new direction. It's a weapons-based fighter starring characters sort of based on quasi-historical figures. Haohmaru is Musashi ... Ukyo is his rival Sasaki Kojiro ... Jubei is Yagyu Jubei ... I guess Gen-An is based on Tengu myths and Kyoshiro is Sgt. Kabukiman. There's actually a pretty good FAQ over at GameFAQs exploring the origins of all the characters, which I'll toss into the Links section down below.
It's a pretty great game, but unfortunately it falls into the same problem area that King of Fighters '94 and several other early SNK games do ... it's very good, but it has a sequel that basically does everything that it did and then improves on it even more. The only difference here is that they dropped Tam Tam from the second game. So unless you have a bundle of Wii points to blow or you really dig Tam Tam, it's probably better to have fun with some other stuff for now and wait for the sequel to be released ... once you have Samurai Shodown 2 you'll probably never play this one again.
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