035PREVIEW
the tit-for-tat weapon-based brawling that gets the
nostalgia gears grinding; heavy hits land in a three-
step delayed stuttering fashion to emphasise these
sword swipes and hurled chain-hooks are doing
enormous damage.
“We’ve put a lot of work into getting the hits very
clean and heavy,” says art director Nobuyuki Kuroki,
who worked on the original arcade game.
The faithfulness to the original ’93 fighter means
the game initially takes some getting used to, as
some characters can demolish your health meter in
two or three well-timed hits. This one-hit, high-
damage setup ensures this reboot, like the original,
plays like no other fighting game.REAL BOUT
Rounds often begin with you wanting to launch
flurries of combos, but as your health is chopped off,
both you and your opponent break away and enter
a samurai stare-down state where no-one wants
to attack. Knowing you’re potentially always one
counter or heavy hit away from losing a bout lends
Samurai Shodown a rare, anxiety-baiting quality. This
can be tempered by using the new Lightning Blade,
a one-time attack that depletes around two-thirds
of a character’s health. It’s a move of last resort, and
can be blocked or side-stepped on u; a lifeline that
should be used sparingly.
Other than this SNK isn’t adding too
many new features to Samurai Shodown,
instead relying heavily on the game’s
backbone of combos, counters, and special
attacks to appeal to new and old sword-
hands alike. There’s an element of strategy
to when and how you use the Rage Gauge,
which builds as you land hits, and enables
access to more powerful attacks. But it’s
the core returning ideas that still stand out;
disarming opponents with timed counters,
deflecting strikes, side-stepping into
combos, grapples that set up opponents for
a brutal flurry... Samurai Shodown 2019 is
sharpening the blades it has, not forging a
whole new set.AI’LL BE BACK
That’s not to say the game doesn’t lack ambition
to modernise the series. Alongside the Story mode,
which offers each of the 16 characters a unique path
to the final boss, and Practice, online Battle, and
Gallery modes, Samurai Shodown has the secretive
Dojo mode in its locker. This AI-based mode
will create a ghost character from data collected
on how you play, which can then be uploaded for
other players to battle. SNK is teasing an Iron Man
tournament that will challenge you to defeat 100
ghost characters. [Sounds terrifying – Ed]
There’s certainly a lot of love being put into
Samurai Shodown, but it’s also clear there are
limitations for a studio that can’t match the scale
of, for example, Capcom. The team of 50 is doing a
stellar job of bringing Nakoruru, Galford, Genjuro,
and the cast back but this isn’t, visually, as slick as
Street Fighter V, even if it does play comparatively
on par with Ryu and the gang. That’s not to say
SNK isn’t thinking big, with producer Yasuyuki Oda
aiming for eSports accreditation. Neither should any
visual shortfalls distract from how well SNK has
bottled the magic of the ’93 original and reworked it
into, potentially, one of 2019’s best brawlers.FACTRICK
There will be 16 characters
in total at launch, including
threefightersbrand-new
tothisreboot.1.FIGHTPACKProducer Yasuyuki Oda says
he’d love to bring classic
SNKandCapcomcharacters
tothegameasDLC.2.HEROHITSSome of the developers
of the original Samurai
Shodown have returned to
work on this PS4 reboot.3.OLDHANDSAbove Who’s a good boy then? Galford’s pet husky Poppy can be commanded
to attack, or she just jumps for joy as her master lands the killer blows.
Above A Lightning Blade attack begins with this flurry for VFX,
time to prepare your side-step and counter it or lose.
Above While there’s plenty of blood, Samurai Shodown doesn’t
indulge in the red stuff and go full Mortal Kombat.
“YOU AND YOUR
OPPONENT BREAK
AWAY AND ENTER
A SAMURAI STARE-
DOWN STATE.”