It’s been 16 years since the original weapon-based fighter made its way onto the scene. Samurai Shodown is finally getting a visual overhaul. But is it for better or worse?
Samurai Shodown (aka Samurai Spirits) is one of the best weapon-based fighters of all time. While it’s not as acclaimed as Street Fighter or Tekken, Samurai Shodown brought weapons into the ring of fighters first.
The upcoming installment looks very promising with it’s flourished cast of new characters and Xbox Live support, but taking a 2D fighter into the 3rd dimension is incredibly risky. Mortal Kombat: Deception, for example… just plain sucked. On the other hand, Street Fighter IV and King of Fighters XII turned out pretty well.
Samurai Shodown: Edge of Destiny is set to hit stores December 10th in Japan. Hopefully, we’ll see it’s American release sometime in Q1 2010.
Watching that trailer made me think that this installment could be successful due to the fact that the animations aren’t slowed down to show weapon flare (Soul Calibur) and the essential “jiggle” of DOA. It reminded me of my nostalgic Playstation days of bloody roar II and the closest counterpart that I can think of: Battle Arena Toshiden 3. I hope this rocks.
SF4 and KoF XII aren’t true 3D games, just 2D fighters with 3D backgrounds. Also, saying “KoF XII turned out well” is kind of an iffy statement. I’ve heard some good things, but ultimately the lack of features and terrible netplay have made it essentially a joke in the fighting game community. Since this is also being developed by SNK, I’m more than a little bit skeptical.