Samurai Shodown V: What's the Big Deal?

[ManekiNeko]

I heard Buttasuperb sing this game's praises on another section of the forum. I just have to scratch my head and wonder why, because it looks just like the last two Samurai Shodown games, even borrowing some of the backgrounds from Sam Sho 4. What specifically makes this game stand out from the dozens of other fighting games available on the Neo-Geo? What justifies it as a nominee for game of the year? Please convince me somehow that Samurai Shodown V is more than just another run-of-the-mill Neo-Geo fighting game.

JR

[Sotenga]

Well, I would defend it... but I just found out something about SSV. Something that I CANNOT forgive SNKP for. The Video Game Museum told me about this... no, it can't be. Apparently, the game has these beautiful intermissions, dialogues between the characters like in SS4, and wonderfully-crafted endings. And now, the cold slap in the groin...

They cut ALL that from the U.S. version.

And I thought it was perfect... they'd better fix this gaping hole for the PS2 release, or I'm going to be ultra-pissed. Case number 20X6 where America, one of the greatest video game consumers on the planet, is undeservingly shafted on the true greatness of video games. Shit.

I've played the game, and I'm going to play it again, but there is NO way I can believe that it will ever be greater than SSII. At least, not unless I play a foreign version.

[Ze_ro]

They cut ALL that from the U.S. version.

*sigh*... between that and the censoring on KOF, I really don't understand what they're doing with the North American market. That really sucks.

Samurai Showdown has been one of my favorite fighting franchises... although I never much cared for part 3, I absolutely loved all the others (Well, I'm only played the NeoGeo ones, so I don't know about SS 64 or RPG, or the NGPC versions).

--Zero

[Half Japanese]

Chalk it up to SNK not having a damn bit of business sense. Sure, they make great games, but you might as well hire a bus full of retards to run the corporate office. You'd probably get the same results, except the 'tards would work for Skittles.

[buttasuperb]

I'm playing a fighting game. Story really does not matter to me, gameplay does. Sure in Samurai Shodown, it's a little more interesting, but it's always been horrible engrish anyways. Good for a laugh once or twice, then that's about it. I just play in Japanese mode (unibios is awesome, but that's another topic) so I still get to see the cut scenes and stuff. The artwork and presentation of the story mode is awesome and pleasing to the eye, so I don't care about not being able to read it. It's all about the style of the game.

These are the differences between US and JPN mode.

-In US mode you just go fight to fight, no story, no cutscenes, no ending. In JPN mode you get some dialogue before your first fight, a small amount of dialogue in between each fight, and an ending. You also get some extra dialogue when you face mid bosses, for example when you get to Sankuro, (1st midboss) Yumeji (2nd midboss) jumps on screen and attacks who you were gonna face. You get some dialogue, then Sankuro jumps in shaking his fist talkin trash (Sankuro a funny character ), and you fight him in whatever background you were supposed to fight the original character. In US mode when you get to Sankuro you fight in the same background everytime. Yumeji has the same background everytime in both US and JPN.

-When you fight the final boss Gaoh, there is a little difference between US and JPN. The way the fight against Gaoh goes is, until you win one round, he stays his normal self, and is very beatable. Once you win a round, he starts the next round transformed, and you can't hit him, you have to evade until his pow meter goes down. For the rest of the match, when the pow fills up, he transforms again. In JPN mode, after you win a round, the background changes, and you get different music. Quite badass music too. In US mode, you get the same background and music throughout the whole fight.

Oh, and it now says Victory instead of Victoly, which kinda sucks, but when you look at the big picture, it really doesn't matter and you don't notice it.

On to gameplay, the bread and butta of this game.

First off, I'm a Neo Geo fanboy, more specifically a Samurai Shodown fanboy, so I love all the games in the series. (2D at least) That said, all the games aren't perfect, and I have no problem saying that. In SS3, I think the damage is too high, in SS4 I hate the stupid CD dial a combos. Still both fantastic games. SS5 keeps the great gameplay in the SS series, and loses the bad stuff. Has more of a SS2 style gameplay, just modernized a bit. Remember is SS1 and 2 how it's A+B = fierce slash, and in SS3 and 4, C was fierce slash, and there was only one kick button. Well in SS5, it's back to A is weak, B is medium, and A+B is fierce. There is still only one kick button which is C, and D does a bunch of different things.

Forward and D is a hop forward or past the opponent. You can use this to catch an opponent off guard, by hitting C mid hop to grab your opponent push them away, and hit a slash to cut them.

Down-forward and D is a roll forward, Down-backward and D is a roll backward. Good to evade, or move quickly.

Down and D ducks, yes even under projectiles. Kinda tough to be quick enough to use it, but still is useful.

Back and D is a hop straight up, which would evade a low attack, even harder to use effectively, than ducking.

This control setup to me is fantastic, with the A+B slash back, and kick only having one button is fine since kick is not that big of a part of this game. Having the D button just to do special manuevers makes everything more flexible.

Gone are the CD combos which as I said earlier, is damn cool with me, and in is the enlightenment mode, which adds a whole new element to how you can go about your battle.

Near the end of each life bar, there is a little arrow above it. In the round in which you would lose the match, once your life goes below that, the gauge turns blue and you can enter enlightenment mode, using qcb+CD. Once in enlightenment mode, your oppononent goes into slow motion until the arrow goes to the end of the life bar. Also you can press BCD to do a very quick unblockable slash and dash forward, does pretty good damage, and is bloody as hell. Now from reading that, you may think that something like that could break this game, but it isn't like that at all.

First of all, the arrow is not far out on the life bar at all to start out, so you could easily die before you would even have a chance to use enlightenment mode at all. If you are able to use enlightenment mode when the arrow is at default, it lasts maybe 2 seconds tops. During a fight you can hold down D to meditate, which will use your pow meter and put the arrow slowly further out so you would have more time to use enlightenment mode. When your pow meter is full, you cannot meditate. Makes sense, right. Now you wouldn't be able to meditate any time you want, so you could more easily use enlightenment mode, because you meditate at the wrong time, and your opponent has a free slash at you.

What even adds more to that, is that certain characters respond differently in regards to elightenment mode. Certain characters like Kazuki and Genjuro get pissed off real easily, so you don't have much time to meditate before the pow fills up, so using enlightenment mode with them is tougher. Other characters are more calm, giving you time to meditate.

There are no real big combos in the game (outside some supers) it is mostly 2 in 1's. Which I like, you have to be quick and 2 in 1 on a counter, to get better damage.

The new characters in this game are well done, and Yoshitora is perhaps the baddest ass character to emerge in a long time. He carries something like 7 swords, has loads of specials, a decent super, and tons of style. If you land each of his specials within a match (not just a round) you will have access to a 7th special which is basically a 2nd super. Yoshitora busts out the much longer sword swings it at the ground, and a giant wave goes accross the screen for lots of hits and good damage. The cool thing is, if you try the move without having landed all 6 other specials, he will reach for the sword, but can't access it. Shows Yuki put a little of their own detail in the game.

Kusaregedou is the big ass character, his voice is quite hilarious, and is a pretty good fighter. Sometimes you can notice missing frames in his animation, but I'd think that's due to the fact that he's a big bastard.

Yunfei is the crouching tiger hidden dragon type, he can fly around all over the place, I'd assume a good Yunfei player could play some good mind games and would be tough to get to. I haven't got into playing as him that much yet.

Mina is the bow and arrow chick, she has great range but does little damage. She can be annoying as hell playing against the CPU, so I don't pick her often, hehe.

Enja and Suija and the SS64 versions of Kazuki and Sogetsu. They have different sprites, and do not have a weapon. Enja's stance is cool, breathing smoke looking all pissed off. They share some of the moves of their regular counterparts, but also have different ones, and different supers.

Rasetsumaru, is evil Haohmaru, and looks pretty cool. He has a move where he cuts himself and does about 25% damage, but gets full pow immediately in return. Which can be useful because he has a great super.

In terms of graphics, yea they reuse the SS3/4 sprites and backgrounds, but those already look fantastic to me despite being 7 years old, so I don't care about new sprites. Keep in mind this is still on MVS, so I don't see how much better you will make the game look, without sacrificing characters, for better animation. When SNK at some point (hopefully) moves on to new hardware, that's when we'll see new sprites (probably hi res) and better animation. The new characters are well designed and fit right into the game. And the new background are fantastic for the most part as well, I especially like Yoshitora's stage, which has a big ass window in the background showing the sun setting on the mountains. Good stuff.

Music is tops as usual, using alot of SS3/4 tunes, but adding some new stuff which is fantastic too, especially that track in Gaoh's stage.

heh, probably more words in this post than my last 2000 combined.

[Sotenga]

Wow... such detail.

When I did play the game, I was thoroughly impressed with the graphics and the gameplay. They didn't change too much to make it a completely different game. The sound was also great, even though the volume isn't turned up that high in an arcade. And you're right, Butta: It's not about the story. It's never about the story. While it's a nice touch and all, it's not required to make an excellent game. I'm a shoot-em-up freak, but a good load of shmups are basically devoid of storyline, and whatever text is there is usually horribly butchered. I can overlook that. I guess I can overlook this too. And the next time I go back to that market, I'm going to convert $20 of my bank account into quarters!

And Outrun doesn't have much of a story either...

[Ze_ro]

In JPN mode, after you win a round, the background changes, and you get different music. Quite badass music too. In US mode, you get the same background and music throughout the whole fight.

That's strange that they change such mundane things between the two versions. I mean, I can understand losing the cutscenes because they're either too cheap or unskilled (at translating) to convert them to english, but I don't understand why they would go out of their way to change the game in such minor ways otherwise. Oh well...

You're right that the gameplay itself is what's important, but I still like to see a storyline to the game... everyone always complains that fighting games are all the same, and having a nice storyline that is actually presented throughout the game goes a long way to differentiating this game from all the other fighting games out there.

Somehow, the terrible translations in previous games almost made it even more mysterious and intriguing...

--Zero

[Griking]

Chalk it up to SNK not having a damn bit of business sense. Sure, they make great games, but you might as well hire a bus full of retards to run the corporate office. You'd probably get the same results, except the 'tards would work for Skittles.

The reason that they do it is because they can and people will still run out and pay for it. What incentive do they have NOT to get lazy with US ports? If you really want them to hear you then don't buy it, otherwise you just encourage this kind of action.

[RetroYoungen]

I don't ever get to play any version other than SSV nowadays (no arcade near me has any other versions, just the rest of the SNKvCC versions), so I have to say I love SSV. Always loved the Showdown, now I can play it in an arcade again and on my NGPC.

Damn butta, do you get to do that for a living? Quite impressive I must admit.

[ManekiNeko]

That's EXACTLY the kind of detail I was looking for, Butta. Thanks.
Now I'm looking forward to playing the game, but I'm still not convinced that it's more deserving of a Best Game of the Year award than Ratchet and Clank: Going Commando. It's got dozens of weapons, crisp graphics, enjoyable gameplay, tons of enemies to blast, and a hilarious storyline that takes you by surprise with its every plot twist.

JR

[ubersaurus]

SSV is good for a damn good reason..

Graphically it is basicalyl the same as the last two Sam Shos. Musically, I don't think its as good as 3, but still has great music. Sound effects are pretty badass. But the heart of the game is in the gameplay.

Sam Sho 3 suffered from insane damage, and 4 suffered from simple combos that did lots of damage. 5 has neither. Although infinites were staples of 3 and 4, few of the ones in 5 are very easily set up against anyone watching out for em. The new characters have very unique playstyles, from the Crouching Tiger-esque Yunfei, who flies about the screen, to Yoshitora(aka sonofabitch), who's multihitting moves, coupled with his hidden 7th special, are a force to be reckoned with, to Kuseregedo, who's fighting style is simply something one must see.

5 also has enlightenment. Although it seems like something that would break the game, I can tell you firsthand that unless you know when to do it, and what to do with it, it's all but worthless. If you do know what you're doing, then like a custom combo in SF, you can use it to stage a hell of a good comeback. Quite frankly, I'd take enlightenment, and issen mode, and all that, to GGXX's 500 subsystems.

The game is simply put, very well done. It has the sort of replay and competitive value other neo geo fighters that have come out recently just lack. Matrimelee is fun, but competitive? SvC is decent, but it sure as hell isn't good with other people. To be honest, SSV is one of the best put together neo geo fighters as far as the whole system goes, even with its few flaws. I think the only ones that can compete are KOF 98, SS2, MOTW, and Fatal Fury Special. Samurai Shodown V, mark my words, will become one of those neo geo fighters that down the line, EVERYONE will want a copy of. Because it is just THAT GOOD.