GAMES I REGRET PARTING WITH: Samurai Shodown

In lieu of a copy of Street Fighter II or any of the Mortal Kombats, I had other fighting games in my collection to play on my first console, that lovable Super Nintendo currently sitting in my closet, dusty and yellow, but all the way functional, such as Killer Instinct, Shaq Fu, and Samurai Shodown. I probably have a few things to say about that first title and many, many words to write about how I got Shaq Fu–trust me, it’s more interesting than the game itself–but today, it’s all about twelve of the fiercest warriors of the late 18th century engaging in duels to the death as a dark power rises over Japan.

Yup, Samurai Shodown. It originally made its debut on the Neo Geo, but then got ported to a bunch of different consoles, which is how I ended up with a copy of it on the SNES. The SNES version is evidently a bit different than other ports, but I’m only learning this after the fact, years later, as I assumed everything I was seeing then as I jumped and slashed was how it all truly was; for example, the SNES version removed scaling, keeping the character sprites small and constant for an entire fight instead of zooming in and out of the action. Also, similar to Mortal Kombat, there’s no blood on Nintendo’s console when it comes to cutting people up with swords.

Samurai Shodown is known for being either the first or one of the first fighting games to focus on weapon-based combat–I’d later fall hard for this concept with Soul Blade on the PlayStation 1–and having a style based around late 18th century Japanese culture, such as calligraphy and musical instruments. A couple other standout elements from Samurai Shodown are camera zoom effects, randomly-dropped items like food for healing and bombs for damage, destructible environments, and the Rage Meter, which builds up over time upon receiving damage, allowing the fighter to become momentarily more powerful.

Here’s the thing. I haven’t played Samurai Shodown in a good, long while. The SNES cart left my hands probably at that time I gathered a bunch of them together to trade in at Toys “R” Us for some kind of lump discount off the forthcoming PlayStation 1. I do not remember every character and fighting stance and weapon type. That said, there’s Galford, the San Fransisco swordsman I couldn’t get enough of, and here’s why–side puppy. Named Poppy. She’s a beast, literally, and Galford can perform a special move to send her after opponents to maul them like a good puppy doggy. I mostly mained Galford, but I do remember using Hanzo and Jubei a bunch. Everybody else is a blur.

I never got to play any further releases in the Samurai Shodown franchise, nor did I really get into any later SNK fighting games. I think I tried The King of Fighters XIII once and found it bewildering. All in all, I’m a Tekken man, born and bred, as I can’t get enough of throws and countering and cool slow motion replays. It’s what I was raised on, and I’m only mentioning it now so that you’ll be prepared when you see another GAMES I REGRET PARTING WITH for the original Tekken. Don’t worry, I still have Tekken 2. I’m not completely without reservations.

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GAMES I REGRET PARTING WITH is a regular feature here at Grinding Down where I reminisce about videogames I either sold or traded in when I was young and dumb. To read up on other games I parted with, follow the tag.

Round one, fight–I mean, mash those buttons!

After getting some snazzy new haircuts on Black Friday, Tara and I headed over to GameStop to see if they had any crazy-as-crazy-gets deals. Well, they didn’t…just their usual “buy two used games, get one used game free” thing, and we’d been talking a bit about trying to find more two-player games for the Xbox 360 since it’s usually just me playing solo stuff like Fallout: New Vegas while she looks on earnestly. We browsed, I got hit on by an employee who was very impressed with my authentic Ravenclaw scarf, and then we left the store with three games in tow: Sonic’s Ultimate Game Collection, Street Fighter IV, and Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies.

Sonic’s UGC actually doesn’t have as many two-player games in it, but there’s a few good ones, such as all Sonic 2, Golden Axe, and all iterations of Streets of Rage. We played a bunch and got all nostalgic over the graphics and gameplay. Tara wanted a copy of DQIX for herself since each cartridge only has one save slot, and I was nowhere near ready to delete mine and make space; guess she’s seen me enjoying it a lot for over 85 logged hours now and suspects she’ll have a good time, too. Spoiler: she will! She’s gonna make me her priest character.

But we mostly decided on a new fighting game, as those are really easy to pick up and play together. I’m a big Tekken fan, much more than Street Fighter, but alas that series is still stuck on the PlayStation 3. We were not left with many other choices, and so we picked Street Fighter IV, not even bothering to “upgrade” to Super Street Fighter IV for like $10 more. Extra stages, colors, and characters are not that exciting in the end.

Early impressions of the game are that…well, it’s basically the same ol’ Street Fighter II we’ve all come to know and love, just with flashy graphics, some new moves, and really horrible cutscenes. I try to do special moves and cool throws, and Tara button-mashes her way to victory. We’re an amazing mix, and it’s a lot of fun–I’m looking forward to unlocking more characters though. To do that, however, one has to beat the Arcade mode with specific characters. That’s easy enough when you set the fights to Easiest difficulty, one round, and 30 seconds on the clock. Easy peasy…until Seth, that is. He’s the final boss, a sort of Dr. Manhattan wannabe with everyone’s special moves, and the spike in difficulty from him and the fight before is mountainous. Sometimes he clobbers me in a perfect round, and other times I can get a few hits in. My best strategy is to spam ranged attacks (like fireballs) and keep my distance. Which is why it is astounding to me that I was able to unlock this Achievement two difficulty levels higher:

Arcade Rat (20G): Clear Arcade Mode with 1 character on Medium or higher difficulty.

Not sure about a lot of the remaining Achievements. A lot involve grinding fights online. Hmm…

Oh, and we’re absolutely terrified of Rufus, but that’s an entire post in itself.