Uploaded November 2024 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago
Playthrough with Haohmaru. Released in 1993, Samurai Shodown, known as Samurai Spirits in Japan, marked the start of another flagship SNK fighting game series, which is still getting sequels to this day. It was also one of the most popular fighting games on the Neo Geo, and in the USA in particular it was really the first SNK fighter to rival the likes of Street Fighter II and Mortal Kombat in terms of popularity.
There are 12 selectable characters in total, and each character has their own weapon. Every character has a range of weapon attacks, kicks and special moves. You can lose your weapon, if this happens you'll get to use punches instead of weapon attacks.
This game introduces the POW gauge. By taking damage during a round, the gauge gradually fills up. Once it's completely full your character will do more damage for a brief amount of time, at which point the gauge will deplete. Another gameplay mechanic is Hikyaku, the guy who runs across the screen throwing items as he goes. He can throw health items, points items or bombs.
Samurai Shodown was a big hit in the arcades, and was something most Neo Geo owners wanted. But when the AES cartridge was released outside of Japan, fans were shocked to see that it was censored! Due to SNK being wary about the controversy caused by Mortal Kombat, they decided to make a few changes to Samurai Shodown's AES USA release. There are two main differences: firstly, the blood color was changed from red to white. Secondly, you can no longer cut your opponent in half in the winning round of a fight. This caused a great deal of controversary at the time:
groups.google.com/g/alt.games.sf2/c/IRciZ3M0uFE?pli=1
(Warning: if you thought gamers only recently became a bunch of degenerates, read some of that thread. We’ve always been like that.)
As popular as Samurai Shodown is, I personally have never liked it. It just doesn't click with me, although the high difficulty level doesn't help at all. One thing I really don't like about the game are the controls, as it's basically a 6 button fighter on a 4 button system. You have to press the A and B buttons together to get the heavy slash, and the C and D buttons together for a heavy kick. When you're making a weapons based fighting game, are all the kick buttons really necessary? And you can often end up getting the wrong move because you have to press the buttons together on the same frame to get the stronger attacks to come out.
Speaking of the difficulty: this game is way too hard, which is another reason I don’t like it. The CPU cheats a lot and is extremely aggressive right from the start, such as seen here where Earthquake throws me three times in a row. The CPU does too much damage whilst not taking nearly enough, that round where Hanzo killed me with like two throws made me want to smash my controller. Amakusa threw me once in round one and that did over 30% damage. The CPU in general just blocks everything way too much, making fights tedious.
The collision detection in this game is also a mess. There are often times where you swing your weapon and it clearly hits the opponent, but it just passes right through them and they don’t react, instead they just get a free cheap hit in on you. I think that’s the part of the game I hate the most and none of these things get improved for the sequel.
The final boss fight is one of the weirdest I’ve ever encountered in a fighting game. Amakusa is extremely annoying most of the time, teleporting around all over the place. But with Haohmaru (maybe this works with other characters, I haven’t checked), if you just stand there, Amakusa doesn’t do much other than walk towards you. At which point you can throw him. Then just keep doing this. I’m not certain if this is a foolproof strat or not. My original plan for round 2 of the Amakusa fight was to try and trap him in the corner and hit him with jumping heavy slashes, but I just thought I’d give the wait and throw strat a shot and it worked. Perfectly, even. Although I’m certain I got lucky with it, as in round 1 he did get a throw in on me using the same strat.
Playthrough with Haohmaru. Released in 1993, Samurai Shodown, known as Samurai Spirits in Japan, marked the start of another flagship SNK fighting game series, which is still getting sequels to this day. It was also one of the most popular fighting games on the Neo Geo, and in the USA in particular it was really the first SNK fighter to rival the likes of Street Fighter II and Mortal Kombat in terms of popularity.
There are 12 selectable characters in total, and each character has their own weapon. Every character has a range of weapon attacks, kicks and special moves. You can lose your weapon, if this happens you'll get to use punches instead of weapon attacks.
This game introduces the POW gauge. By taking damage during a round, the gauge gradually fills up. Once it's completely full your character will do more damage for a brief amount of time, at which point the gauge will deplete. Another gameplay mechanic is Hikyaku, the guy who runs across the screen throwing items as he goes. He can throw health items, points items or bombs.
Samurai Shodown was a big hit in the arcades, and was something most Neo Geo owners wanted. But when the AES cartridge was released outside of Japan, fans were shocked to see that it was censored! Due to SNK being wary about the controversy caused by Mortal Kombat, they decided to make a few changes to Samurai Shodown's AES USA release. There are two main differences: firstly, the blood color was changed from red to white. Secondly, you can no longer cut your opponent in half in the winning round of a fight. This caused a great deal of controversary at the time:
groups.google.com/g/alt.games.sf2/c/IRciZ3M0uFE?pli=1
(Warning: if you thought gamers only recently became a bunch of degenerates, read some of that thread. We’ve always been like that.)
As popular as Samurai Shodown is, I personally have never liked it. It just doesn't click with me, although the high difficulty level doesn't help at all. One thing I really don't like about the game are the controls, as it's basically a 6 button fighter on a 4 button system. You have to press the A and B buttons together to get the heavy slash, and the C and D buttons together for a heavy kick. When you're making a weapons based fighting game, are all the kick buttons really necessary? And you can often end up getting the wrong move because you have to press the buttons together on the same frame to get the stronger attacks to come out.
Speaking of the difficulty: this game is way too hard, which is another reason I don’t like it. The CPU cheats a lot and is extremely aggressive right from the start, such as seen here where Earthquake throws me three times in a row. The CPU does too much damage whilst not taking nearly enough, that round where Hanzo killed me with like two throws made me want to smash my controller. Amakusa threw me once in round one and that did over 30% damage. The CPU in general just blocks everything way too much, making fights tedious.
The collision detection in this game is also a mess. There are often times where you swing your weapon and it clearly hits the opponent, but it just passes right through them and they don’t react, instead they just get a free cheap hit in on you. I think that’s the part of the game I hate the most and none of these things get improved for the sequel.
The final boss fight is one of the weirdest I’ve ever encountered in a fighting game. Amakusa is extremely annoying most of the time, teleporting around all over the place. But with Haohmaru (maybe this works with other characters, I haven’t checked), if you just stand there, Amakusa doesn’t do much other than walk towards you. At which point you can throw him. Then just keep doing this. I’m not certain if this is a foolproof strat or not. My original plan for round 2 of the Amakusa fight was to try and trap him in the corner and hit him with jumping heavy slashes, but I just thought I’d give the wait and throw strat a shot and it worked. Perfectly, even. Although I’m certain I got lucky with it, as in round 1 he did get a throw in on me using the same strat.
