Samurai Shodown 5 Special beta test report

[ubersaurus]

All I can say is WOW. They seemed to have made some changes to this game, definitely for the better it looks. Here we go:

4 new playable characters.Zankuro, Amakusa, Gaoh, and MIZUKI :eek 2: The old poppy code no longer works, but I'm bettin the Woof-Kitty is still playable.

Mina gained a command throw, probably to help with her abysmal close range game.

Hanzo/Galford's SPD got beefed up with some good range.

Rera's moves have been slowed down.

Kusaregedo's moves were slowed down for whatever reason, most notably his C moves. Command grab is still a pain to get off.

Yoshitora was toned down considerably. His moves are slower in general, and not quite as good (although his super is still quick to recover). In general though, nothing does as much damage as it did in 5, for every character.

On enlightenment mode, the guage now only extends as far as halfway through your life bar, and once you do go into enlightenment(with BCD, instead of the SS5 motion), the meter runs out alot faster. Ouch. For a subsystem that wasn't really that bad, it got hoed.

When you do a rage explosion, there's a new move you can do.

Aesthetically the game is much improved. Several new stages (notably the boss stages from other SS's, although there's more), the bars and meters and what not all look much nicer, there's a new character select screen, and new character artwork. You can see the select screen here http://www.t3.rim.or.jp/~y-ukon/ss9/index.html. In general I've heard the game just looks "cleaner", and to be honest, from the screens I saw, most people were mistaking this for an atomiswave game LOL

[Shady Smurf]

Sounds good can't wait to play it ^^

[Ze_ro]

4 new playable characters.Zankuro, Amakusa, Gaoh, and MIZUKI :eek 2:

You mean Mizuki, the female boss from SS2? Was she in any of the other SS games?

Sounds like changes for the better (although I really don't think Mina needed anything new)... but I still would have liked it if they brought back some of the other stuff from SS4 (slash/bust characters, grade selection, side switch and so on).

And they're going to provide an engrish translation for the story this time, right?

--Zero

[Ed Oscuro]

Would somebody explain this Enlightenment business? I thought that wasn't seen in a Samurai Shodown game until V, and that it started with The Last Blade. In the context of "historical" Neo Geo fighters, of course. :)

[ubersaurus]

Enlightenment is a new subsystem in Sam Sho 5. Basically, during the match, you can "charge" your enlightenment threshold, which is this area on your lifebar that turns orange and active, once you lose a round. This is done by basically transferring meter on your rage guage. Once you've lost a round, as I said, it becomes active, and once your life gets into that section, it turns blue, and using a special motion, you enter "enlightenment mode". During this time, everything slows down except your character. This opens up some very cool juggle possibilities, though if your opponent is grounded, it's a little harder to land. So you can do stuff like stand AB, stand B, Stand AB, stand B, Issen (a painful attack you can do in enlightenment or rage explosion mode). What's interesting to note is that you really get no time for enlightenment unless you seriously build up your threshold. Some characters are no good with it, either due to the nature of their moves, or the fact they just get raged too fast (like Enja). Other's like Yunfei build meter slowly, and thus are alot better to use in enlightenment mode. Others, like Shizumaru, are effective with or without it (Shizu can even combo into it from a standing AB slash). Although it sounds like it would break the game on paper, in practice it doesn't-mainly because the slightest hit, blocked or not, will knock you out of it. There's entire strategies on beating enlightenment, like baiting it, rage explosioning, and then whacking your opponent with a quick attack, enlightenment yourself, or just waiting it out.

Mina sucks horrible in the first SS5 game. Once you've learned how to get past her, she's so easy to beat it's not even funny. here's a clue-one fierce slash, runaway. Giving her something to do up close is something she NEEDS.

[buttasuperb]

Sounds cool. I hope they release this one on the cheap.

With some of the news coming out in the last couple days, it seems as if this may be the last MVS game.

[ubersaurus]

If this and MOTW2 happen to be the last two mvs games, that'd be a hell of a way to go out. If you take one of the best neo geo games, and weaken the top character in it to balance it out, you've got yourself a true classic.

Quick rant here though-I'm sick and tired of SS5 not getting any respect, at all. NO ONE even thinks about the game. Even snk fanboys won't talk about it. I don't know why. It's a good game. This guy tried arguing with me a while back at the arcade, saying the game was broken as hell, only to go on to admit that he never played it and didn't know shit about samurai shodown, just assumed that it was broke because of Mina. Mina, one of the worst characters in the game, yet is the newbie killer. I think between her and the recycled visuals, people just assume that it's SS4 all over again. And that's retarded. Equally retarded is how the game got passed right over for KOF 2k3, a game that everyone can agree is broken (duolon's crouching B into kill you combo), yet, just because of the virtue that it's KOF, people go to it and claim it's the messiah of SNK fighters. It's so goddamn frustrating, especially for people who want to see SNK fighters get a scene going, that when the actual good games come along, no one wants to give em a chance.

Hopefully that'll change with Special, but I don't know. At least that guy at the 'cade said special sounded alot more playable with the changes made. Maybe it'll draw in some new folks.

go fierceslash.com :rocker:

[buttasuperb]

there's a couple reasons why it gets no respect

any game made after snk died automatically sucks. retarded, i know.

it's rehashed sprites. which is stupid because the sprites are already great, and it's all about the gameplay anyways. i mean, people bitch about iori's face being different in newer kofs. wtf :hmm:

there's no english story. who cares, it's a fighting game.

there's no fatalities. fatalities are cool and all, but who really cares

as for me, i love ss5. best neo geo game since ms3, and my favorite game released last year along with crimson skies.

[Ze_ro]

I think I still prefer SS4 over SS5... but I'll definitely have to try out SS5 Special. The added characters, backgrounds, and an english storyline would very likely put it over the top.

I never much cared for the KOF games myself... Samurai Shodown has always been my favorite NeoGeo fighting franchise (Well, I used to like World Heroes for some reason, but that was before SS even came out).

The less "elite" SS5 is though, the cheaper it'll be... I hope...

--Zero

[Sotenga]

I was sure that I wasn't alone in thinking that Yoshitora was overpowered. No one's fierce slash should hit five times and take off about a third of the lifebar. :eek 2:

Yes, SSV is underrated. I don't approve of the general populace thinking of it as a rehash from SSIII and SSIV, just because the sprites and backgrounds are similar. It definitely feels like an all-new game to me, and a damn good one at that. Endings in the American version would have been nice, but story isn't relevant.

And now, I await SSV Special here. You know, before I even knew Mizuki was going to be in this, I was thinking, "Heh, it would be cool if Mizuki was in this. The bosses of I, II, and III/IV come together... that would be nice." Then I found out she's going to be in this, and OMFG was all that I could think about. LOL

[ubersaurus]

What really put Yoshitora over the top was his semi-infinite. The timing on it was very harsh, and you had to be in pretty deep to get any good damage out of it, but the threat was enough to make any match against him very defensive. That just happened to work to his advantage, giving him enough breathing room to build up enlightenment, so that he could go into it, land all 6 specials, and run the last round with the 7th one. Sounds bad on paper, but it really isn't much worse then Ukyo's dominance in SS2.

I've noticed that about fanboys and new snk games...whining that MS4 and 5 sucked, and KOF 2k1-2k3 sucked. Maybe MS4 and 5 weren't as good as 3, but they were cool.

[Sotenga]

I've noticed that about fanboys and new snk games...whining that MS4 and 5 sucked, and KOF 2k1-2k3 sucked. Maybe MS4 and 5 weren't as good as 3, but they were cool.

Bah to them, I say. I think KoF2003 is one of the greatest KoF's in a while... I might even go out and say that it's growing to be my favorite in the series! And MS4 was cool, even though 3 is still the best, IMO. And having recently played MS5, I can say that it's better than 4, meaning that it kicks ass. So what if it's not the same SNK? They're still going strong, at least I think so. :)

That was a bit off-topic... back on topic, it would have ruled if this game would also include (and maybe this is asking for a bit much) Earthquake, Gen-An, Sieger, Wan-Fu, Cham Cham, Nicotine, and Kuroko! Or maybe some SS64 crossovers would do, like with Asra, Shiki, and Taizan... yes, that would be great. Eh, maybe in SS6. ;)

[buttasuperb]

Another Samurai Shodown is planned for the Atomiswave. woot

[Fatghost28]

I'm hoping that SamSho5 Special comes to Xbox Live this year.

[buttasuperb]

I'm hoping that SamSho5 Special comes to Xbox Live this year.

You and me both.

How about a double pack with both SS5 and SS5 special.

That would be too sweet.

[ubersaurus]

If Duolon wasn't in KOF 2k3, it'd be a fantastic game. But simply put, he beats everyone in the game. Kill a character, hurt another one, runaway. If you have Malin on your team it's even easier-no one can run away as good as Malin.

The only character I"d really like to see in ss5special thats not already in there is Shiki, just by the virtue that they made her a really nice sprite for SvC. I mean, older characters gotta get redrawn, but not her-she's already set.

If S5 Special gets a scene started up for it, and gets popular, who knows-maybe it'll show up at MWC2k5 :D

[Ze_ro]

Earthquake is in SVC Chaos as well. SVC Chaos seems to have a different "feel" to it's graphics though, so I'm not sure how well it would work to just transplant the sprites like that.

But then, Capcom stuffed Morrigan's crusty old Darkstalkers sprite into Capcom Vs. SNK, and I was the only one who complained it seems.

--Zero

[ubersaurus]

Well, SvC went for a more photorealistic approach then SS does, but if they can make Genjuro's sprite work, I don't see why Shiki's wouldn't the other way around.

Ironically, one time a while back I made a morrigan color edit in cvs2 that looked like normal morrigan, except, she looked like she actually FIT. No clear outlines or anything...it was awesome.