As I’ve said before, we are in a new era of fighting games. This is not a bad thing as many of them are taking lessons from the past and are taking a more “back-to-basics” methodology. Samurai Shodown takes this way of thinking and drives it home in a pure, bloody, technical fashion.
I’m going to come right out and say this: Samurai Shodown is NOT new player friendly. There’s a tutorial that gives players a rundown of the specific attributes in Samurai Shodown, but do not go into it thinking to find hand-holding auto-combos like in games like DragonBall FighterZ or Killer Instinct. Samurai Shodown borrows a page out of Mortal Kombat 11’s playbook and focuses more on timing and single move hits that deliver massive damage.
For those curious about Samurai Shodown I do recommend picking it up, just be warned this game feels like it’s made for people who want to work on a deeper level of timing and counter hits. Players of the same skill level will easily have a fun time messing around and seeing what works, but technical players will easily outshine everyone else.
Visually, Samurai Shodown is beautiful with an art style that looks like it’s fresh off a painting, using visual ink strokes. Characters and lighting look gorgeous and the levels look like something out of old martial arts films. The action sequences for certain attacks and combos are incredibly detailed and vibrant, down to the literal gory details. The weapon action strokes especially shine against the backdrop of the game.
There are a handful of offline and online modes but they are pretty sparse. At the time of this review, there were no online opponents to be found so I can’t tell you about the netcode. What I can tell you about are the different online modes. Aside from Casual and Ranked they have what is known as Ghosts. Samurai Shodown will track how one plays specific characters and gathers that data to create a Ghost to fight online. It’s a unique idea and the more time with a certain character, the more the ghost will act like its player. There’s even a mode where one can fight up to 100 Ghosts–if one can make it that far.
There is a general story that is basically the same for all of the characters. They have the same prologue and mid-story cutscenes, but each character will have their own unique ending. It feels very much like fighting games of old where players had to beat the same characters in the same order with everyone to see their ending.
I would have liked to have seen specific character tutorials in the game. Players will get an overall gameplay tutorial but will need to spend a lot of time in the practice mode learning whatever character they choose to main. Unlike other current fighting games, there aren’t any specific character tutorials, which definitely makes the learning curve for Samurai Shodown a bit harder than other games out right now.
Between the gorgeous visuals and wonderful sound design, Samurai Shodown is one of the best looking games of 2019, and one of the best all-around fighting games in recent history. Every match feels epic and the score that accompanies the entire game feels like an old samurai movie.
Samurai Shodown is a back-to-basics fighting game that will reward players who take the time to learn all the nuances of this weapon-wielding fighter. With a launch roster of 16, and more on the way, expect amazing variance online and in the casual scene.
For more information on Samurai Shodown, check out the official website. A digital copy for the Xbox One was provided for the purpose of review.
