Samurai Shodown Reviews
Check out Samurai Shodown Review Scores from trusted Critics below. With 22 reviews on CriticDB, Samurai Shodown has a score of:
An excellent fighting game fine-tuned for tense, thrilling bouts. While the fighting is always fun, its feature set is slim, with only a handful of modes that don't stray far from the core gameplay. If you're looking for a fight, you've found a good one, but don't expect a big story mode or much side content.
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Samurai Shodown is a good fighting game. It really is. But with the Switch version’s framerate issues, long loading times, and blurry visuals stacking on top of the existing lack of content and modes, however, its cost is a large pill to swallow. If you’ve got money to burn you’ll certainly get some joy out of it, but with fighters like Under Night In-Birth Exe: Late[cl-r] now available on Switch, it could be better spent elsewhere.
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If you have access to other consoles, or if you aren’t interested in playing Samurai Shodown on the go, the Switch version of the game might not be the best way to experience the game. However, it’s still fundamentally the same great combat, so if you’re willing to make some visual and performance compromises, you’ll find a solid fighter here.
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Think of the greatest rivalries back from your childhood. Coke versus Pepsi. Tupac versus Biggie. Nickelodeon versus Cartoon Network. Blur versus Oasis. In the realm of Japanese fighting games, the big rivalry was between Capcom and SNK. On one side, you had the ten billion iterations of Street Fighter, plus Darksiders and Rival Schools. On the other side, you had The King of Fighters, Fatal Fury, as well as Samurai Shodown.
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SNK has revived its sword-swinging fighting series, Samurai Shodown. Does it live up to its predecessors? Here's our review...
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Above all, Samurai Shodown proves that SNK still has its fighting spirit. King of Fighters XIV wasn’t an accident and it seems like any future games won’t be, either. Now we just need to get Capcom back on track.
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After years in meditative hibernation, this once-lost Shogun warrior has reemerged to do battle with old nemeses Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat, and to take a few arms home with it in the process.
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More than just a successful reboot of a forgotten franchise, this is one of the most unique and entertaining new fighting games of recent years.
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The fighting game scene is probably the hardest video game genre to break into. It’s crowded for one- Street Fighter is forever a mainstay, and Mortal Kombat (and the similar Injustice series) came out of nowhere to become the premier series. Then you’ve got Super Smash Bros, not to mention Soul Calibur, Killer Instinct, and Tekken. Unless you’ve got a great new gimmick, it’s an uphill battle to establish yourself as a worthy series. It’s hard to succeed with style alone. But damn if Samurai Shodown doesn’t just have that much style.
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Samurai Shodown showcases the highs and lows of the fighting genre as a whole. At its best, it’s a powerful lesson in learning and reacting to another player, as victory doesn’t require you to learn jargon or memorize long combos. But it flounders without that other human player, hindered by a scant single-player offering and a decent-but-basic approach to online play.
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You wouldn’t think Samurai Shodown would be a thematic title for a game. It makes sense that developer SNK came up with the name in the early 90s: they dropped the W in “showdown”, for goshsakes. ‘How descriptive a title could it be?’, I naively thought before starting this review. What I came to realise is that this is not a game with superfluous bells and whistles. There are no forgettable gimmicks to pad out your time, to keep you away from the action. This is a game about a show...
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Back during PAX East 2019, I said I was more excited for Samurai Shodown than any other fighting game this year. I am happy SNK brought their A-game with the newest iteration in this long-running series. Samurai Shodown is one of the best and most unique fighting games this generation, hands down. It may not be brimming with varied content, but the gameplay alone will keep you wanting more.
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Samurai Shodown’s signature deliberate pace is perfectly captured in this entry, though the small roster and lack of options somewhat hinder its replayability.
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Despite inconsistent visual presentation and some barebones modes, Samurai Showdown shines as both a unique fighter and a resurrection of a classic series.
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Despite some shortcomings, Samurai Shodown doesn't disappoint. Its slow pace belies a depth that rivals any fighting game, while still providing an experience unlike almost any other. If the stunning visuals don’t leave you breathless, then the unrelenting tension felt during combat certainly will.
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Two masters of the sword stand face to face in a field, blades unsheathed and eyes unblinking. A blood red moon hangs in the air, and the silence is deadly. The tension is palpable, and as you feel that bead of sweat slowly trickle down the side of your head, you decide to make your move. With one quick step, you go for the killing blow, only for your sword to hit nothing but air. Your opponent reads you like a book, backing away with a single, precisely timed hop, and now you're wide open. One press of the circle...
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Samurai Shodown is a strong entry into the sea of fighters, showing a lot of love for the original series, while also being able to appeal to newcomers. A few niggles aside, people are going to be playing Sam Show for a long time. EVO just got more exciting to watch!
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Hardcore fans of the series and the pro players will likely love Samurai Shodown. This game is gonna be great to watch and I suspect it will thrive in the FGC tournament scene. Unfortunately that while the fighting game part of it is great, the rest is a really barebones package that most likely won't hold the attention of others for an extended period of time.
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Samurai Shodown is a throwback to arcade fighters and the series' first entry in a decade. It is solid without a lot of frills.
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And that’s what it all comes back to with Samurai Shodown. You should own this game in some format – there’s no doubt about that. It’s a classic fighting design that’s just as venerable as the original Street Fighter 2, and it hasn’t lost any of its fun factor in the past 15 years. The question is just one of personal preference for you, then. If you’re not much of an old-school Neo Geo fan, then you could justifiably get away with only owning this and maybe the original Metal Slug in VC form, and not bothering with any of...
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With Fatal Fury, SNK proved it could compete with Capcom, but with Samurai Showdown it showed it had the talent to surpass its rival. Fans still argue over which game is better – this or Street Fighter 2 – but one thing is for sure, any self-respecting Wii owner should really own both.
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