Uploaded June 2025 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago
Playthrough with Shigen. The Last Blade was released in 1997 and is the first in a short-lived series. It’s a weapons based fighter that plays very differently to Samurai Shodown, and to me it’s far more enjoyable to play. Characters can choose between power and speed modes, letting you either do more damage or chain together bigger combos depending on what your play style is. The other main feature is the attack deflector -by pressing the D button with the right timing you can deflect certain attacks.
The CPU isn’t that bad, I guess, at least compared to a lot of other Neo Geo games. With Shigen you can get beat most opponents with this simple combo: jumping B, standing forward+C. There are a few problematic opponents who don’t fall for it as well like Okina, but most of the time it works. Shigen is very slow to move, be prepared to jump around a lot if you want to stay close to your opponent.
This game has two bosses. You have to be careful with Musashi because if you jump towards him he usually uses his cross slash attack which has huge range. Once he’s low on health he tends to use his super move a lot, if you block it all you can counter with a throw. Kagami can be beaten in both forms with the combo mentioned earlier, but you need to be careful with the timing.
Like Samurai Shodown IV, this game’s intro sequence was left untranslated for the English version.
Playthrough with Shigen. The Last Blade was released in 1997 and is the first in a short-lived series. It’s a weapons based fighter that plays very differently to Samurai Shodown, and to me it’s far more enjoyable to play. Characters can choose between power and speed modes, letting you either do more damage or chain together bigger combos depending on what your play style is. The other main feature is the attack deflector -by pressing the D button with the right timing you can deflect certain attacks.
The CPU isn’t that bad, I guess, at least compared to a lot of other Neo Geo games. With Shigen you can get beat most opponents with this simple combo: jumping B, standing forward+C. There are a few problematic opponents who don’t fall for it as well like Okina, but most of the time it works. Shigen is very slow to move, be prepared to jump around a lot if you want to stay close to your opponent.
This game has two bosses. You have to be careful with Musashi because if you jump towards him he usually uses his cross slash attack which has huge range. Once he’s low on health he tends to use his super move a lot, if you block it all you can counter with a throw. Kagami can be beaten in both forms with the combo mentioned earlier, but you need to be careful with the timing.
Like Samurai Shodown IV, this game’s intro sequence was left untranslated for the English version.
