SNK was unstoppable in the 90’s, with their fighting games such as Fatal Fury, Art of Fighting and more. They also created several great beat em ups such as Sengoku, and were intending to create a new one starring monsters when the direction changed and became a fighting game. More changes later, the game had become the first Samurai Shodown game and history was made. Decades later, the series is still going strong with new entries, and SNK has released the Samurai Shodown Neo Geo Collection to celebrate the original games. This collection contains the games on the Neo Geo, meaning 1 through V plus revisions, but not 6 or the 64 entries. The revisions include V Special and the never before released V Perfect.
I will only briefly touch on each game, as there is more to the collection I want to speak of. The games are some of the best 2D fighters and helped introduce weapons based fighting games to the masses. The first two games in particular have a refinement that has aged extremely well, while III and IV were more experimental, adding in new ideas like different versions of the characters in the form of Burst and Slash styles, ad different control scheme layouts. The first two games were a matter of getting the basics down, then refining them, while II and IV were about expanding to new ideas with better visuals and gameplay mechanics. This is not to say all the games play alike mind you, but that the games fall into groups.
Samurai Shodown had a brilliant introduction to the series, with its weapon based combat while II managed to build on that as I said, but to be more specific SNK rebuilt the game from the ground up for the sequel and in the process of refining the overall gameplay, added more responsive control and more moves that included the use of the POW meter as a super special move meter. You could now do moved that could now break weapons and force your enemy to fight unarmed for some time. It was a brilliant way to expand and made the games stand out more.
The next two games were more experimental, and as stated III added two distinct modes for each character. But this was just the start as the game received a new darker visual aesthetic and the tone of the game changed with the humor now being downplayed to go along with this new darker and edgier mood. In addition to the Slash and Burst modes, the attack layouts changed to give three weapon attacks and two kick instead of the usual two weapon attacks and two kick attacks. The parry system was also redone and now required a lot more strategy to pull off. IV had some interesting changes of its own, such as removing aerial blocking entirely and adding the “CD combo” was added, where you would press the C and D buttons together, to trigger an attack that you would follow up with a button tap sequence. What people may remember the most are the addition of the finishing moves that were akin to the fatalities of Mortal Kombat. The series had finishing moves in the first III games, but IV was where the series really stepped things up with finishers and laid the groundwork for what came next.
The we have the V series which served as the culmination of the games to that point. Containing the inventiveness of I, the polish of II, and the experimental nature of III and some of the gameplay tweaks as well as the unique ways to end the match from IV. Fatality moves were much more, notable in V Special and the game was perfectly balanced. The POW bar mechanics gained a new addition with Overkill Moves. If done right, Overkill Moves will instantly end the match but required the rage mode to be activated among other requirements, While II, II and IV all have different degrees of technical balance, V Special was where the series managed to get balance done right. V Perfect was considered a lost game for some time, and added to the refinements further. But what is more notable is the addition of more story elements in this revision, that ended up taking away from the game to some extent.
The Neo Geo Collection contains online modes where you can play ranked or casual matches, among other options, and I wish I was able to say good things about this. Sadly I was unable to get matches a lot of the time and when I did, half the matches were unplayable due to lag. The Switch version of the game also has some issues as it lacks a much touted new the new feature of HD Zoom where no resolution information would be lost when scaling out. This is not to say the collection is all bad though, as when it comes to local play, I had a blast playing it with others. I also loved the museum mode which had a treasure trove of concept art, background information and more about the series, and is a must view for any Samurai Shodown fan. You can experience the classic music as well here, as well as promotional art for the various games. In addition, there are a variety of screen options for when playing the game, and screen filters to replicate either an arcade look, a CRT look or no filter at all. The screen options include different borders or a variety of aspect ratios to choose from.
Overall, I would cautiously recommend the collection as the good does outweigh the bad, especially with the addition of V Perfect. If the netcode could be patched, which is something SNK has done for their retro releases with online play, then I would wholeheartedly recommend this. The product is good, but some of the roughness does get in the way.
Disclaimer: A review key was provided
Reviewed on Nintendo Switch. The game is also available on Steam, Epic Store, Xbox, and PlayStation.
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