Customer Reviews

Samurai Shodown Sen

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

Unless you are a really, REALLY serious hardcore fan of samurai shodown, stay the hell away from this game. If you will not heed these words, at the very least, rent it first.

SNK Playmore had great ambitions for this game. They took their most beloved franchise and gave it a 3D makeover, online play, and tried to make it as much as Soul Calibur as possible. Unfortunately, things went horribly wrong. There are only 2 things going right for this game: the graphics and the sound. Each character is recreated flawlessly in 3D and their familiar sounds are also done very well. That the game has that many characters does not hurt either.

Unfortunately, everything else about the game is just terrible. Many of the characters in the game are brand-new, generic run-of-the-mill filler characters which play surprisingly similar to each other and to characters in other 3D fighters. The controls, practically the most important component of all fighting games, feel clunky and unresponsive. It seems as if the characters struggle to move around in the environment, and getting out of the way of an incoming attack is mission impossible. As always, the boss characters in this and practically all SNK Playmore games are cheap and unforgiving.

Devoid of any kind of back story or endings, the game almost feels as if the characters were thrown in the game like you would throw ingredients in a stir fry: whatever is available, put it in there. There are no character bios, no ending cut scenes, no character intros, nothing. Aside from a survival mode, there isn't really anything to keep you interested once you beat the arcade mode. And online? Try finding someone to actually battle against!

Overall, the report card grade for this game would be a D. Only the graphics and the sound are good, while everything else is crap. If you want to try this game, rent it. If you want to buy this game, I recommend you don't!!

Just got the game last week!

Impressions - It's a decent fighting game. You got a nice roster of 24 characters (many familiar Sam Shodown faces make their return) + 2 unlockables (Big Boss and Boss before Big Boss) and the usual variety of SNK (lol) fighting modes.

Combat seems to be both good and bad. Simple enough for anyone to get into and I don't see anything horribly unbalanced except for the second to last boss who uses a gun (when everyone is using swords you can obviously see the disadvantage here) but that's typical SNK cheap fashion for you. It's bad in the sense it doesn't entirely feel like a Sam Shodown game and more of a Tekken/Soul Calibur hybrid. Also, the heavy slash does do a stupid amount of damage yet at the same time leaves you wide open which I believe is pretty fair. Also, for some reason the standard throw in the game is the exact same for every single character in the game. That's not to say Hanzo doesn't have his own unique throws, because he does and they are pretty cool.

The single player consist of - A Story mode where you go through 7 fights including your everyday Big Boss, you get a explanation of what each character is going through via text and a Japanese voice over for that text.

Practice (Where you practice your moves of course!)

VS (Play against the CPU or your fortunate friend sitting next to you, or perhaps unfortunate?)

Survival (Keep doing till you lose. I believe theres an achievement for beating 23 people or more without dying.)

Online is pretty basic. For some reason theres a Party Chat option yet I believe the matches are only 1v1 with no group fighting (though I could be wrong, need more friends with the game to test this!). Theres Player Match and Ranked Match - and I don't see a option to choose the stage background, as it seems random. In Player Match you can select the boss characters but not in Ranked Match.

The best part about online? Theres no lag, at least from the six matches I played. However, there are very few people playing this game. I REPEAT - THERES NO LAG!

My wager? Well It's a 3d version of Sam Shodown, and doesn't exactly 100% feel like the old 2d games. I think It's worth a somewhat low amount if your into fighting games, but don't pay full price unless you think this is going to be rare or really have a love for SNK fighting games.

Overall Rating so far - 2 out of 5 stars at It's current price (3 stars for fun). Once it drops a bit or if it released at $30 or $40 I might have been inclined to give it 3 stars on a overall scale. Pick it up when It gets cheaper!

Compared to KOF12 this is still a better game thanks to lag free online competition and a much larger roster, along with slightly more single player options and an actual story for each character.

I had high hopes for Samurai Shodown Sen when I picked it up, took it home, and started running it on my XBox360.

The presentation overall is smooth, if not a bit simplified in most aspects. And surprisingly, the music adds the right tension and atmosphere for the stages, while the graphics are somewhat last-gen looking; and yet, the character models and backgrounds...still look respectably sharp from those attempts. The character selection is nice and large, with diverse fighting styles and personalities. A good handful of retro choices and a generous helping of newcomers makes this a more notable Samurai Shodown in the interesting character lineup.

The online functions great, but lacks a community, which is sad considering how well the game's mechanics and online functionality are balanced and consistent. Looking beneath the presentation, the gameplay is a more move/combo-oriented style, much like hardcore fighting games of the past. The combat is a lot of fun: with diverse combo and counter lists, decapitations and desperation strikes; some of them even act as a few little tricks for dramatic effect (so it definitely has enough flexibility, and requires practice to master the combat system).

The story mode doesn't offer much excitement unfortunately, but makes for a good way to pass the time while waiting for matches online. A few of the plotlines are interesting, but the narration is a real rough translation sometimes. This game includes survival mode, and pretty difficult achievements, but plenty of gameplay hours if you enjoy the fighting system and character selection.

With an online community, this would be a great pickup. Although, it did just come out a short time before this review, so maybe that will take time to change.

Otherwise, have some friends to play with in versus mode, and you have a recommended title for old-school Samurai Shodown fans.

This game is terrible. I thought it was almost impossible to make a fighting game I didn't like... then this happened. The graphics are bad, and the character animations are stilted and their joints don't seem to connect right. There is no flow to battle with the way these robots move. Sound is unremarkable and uninspiring. Where this game incites true rage, however, is the gameplay. It controls terribly. Have you ever had a TV remote with a dying battery that would only work half the time? Welcome to SSS, even with fresh batteries. The addition of really lame finishing moves does not hide the fact that it stinks. The gore in every fight is a gimmick that doesn't provide any kind of satisfaction like the occasional SLASH from the originals. I really do regret buying this and I should have stuck with the arcade/Neo Geo versions.

Excellent Item,very fun game. I like it so much. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 words!!!

Brings back memories of the Samurai Showdown series with brand new characters and HD that makes the game intense with new slice and dice attacks it is a must own!

Little hard but fun, I'm a big fan of this game and i remaind old times, it's a little diferent of the older versions

When I saw this game for only 9.99 at Best Buy. I thought to myself, "Oh gosh! That's a steal! I have to get the game!"
When I got home, I was excited to play one of my very favorite SNK fighting games. It wasn't long until I realized this game wasn't even worth 99 cents. They changed ALL the gameplay.

They tried to make some hybrid born of Soul Calibur + Mortal Kombat. The mix didn't work. The graphics, music/sounds and everything are fine.

The only thing I can't stand is the gameplay. I was expecting to play Samurai Shodown, not a cheap quality version mix of Mortal Kombat + Soul Calibur. As soon as I saw heads flying off and blood squirting out of dead bodies, it just killed it for me.

I would much rather play Mortal Kombat or Soul Calibur itself. (This game sucks in contrast to Mortal Kombat & Soul Calibur, but it has most similarities from both titles in terms of some game play.)

Don't waste your money on this title. Just go to the PSN or XBL markets and download the Samurai Shodown classics available. This latest title is a piece of #*$&.

Did I mention you can win a fight in just three hits of the RB button? I'm very disappointed and have learned my lesson from listening to other customer reviews. I should have listened. Everyone else should too.

Trust the customer reviews on this game.

For those unaware, this game was originally released at the $60 price point in April 2010. Here it is, just under 6 months later, and the MSRP is now $20. Game prices drop all the time, yes, but I would say a 67% drop is pretty drastic for a game.

And there is a VERY good reason for this drop.

The game, in a word, is poor.

Music is obnoxious, annoying and adds nothing but aggravation to a match. Music is repetitive and boring.

Graphics, for a game released in 2010, are pretty lame. You should expect more detail in your graphics. There are 24 characters in the game (plus unlockable boss characters) but every one of them has lost the character, attitude and the pizazz they had in the previous entries and just don't look good at all. Backgrounds are forgettable at best.

Gameplay. Gone are the standard special moves you may be accustomed to performing. Yes, some characters still have special moves, but over all the game is defined more by actual battle and strategy instead of who can pump out the most fireballs. This wouldn't be bad if not for the fact that input from the controller, to me, felt stilted and slow and battles, instead of feeling frantic or exciting are slow, boring and lacking in every aspect. Controller response should make me feel like my character is doing what I want, when I want. Not so with this game. It feels like every input is slightly slower than it should be.

None of the game modes are particularly fun. On-line play is OK, except no one is playing the game. Not surprising given how boring it is!


If you want a great 3D version of Samurai Shodown/Spirits, look for the Hyper Neo Geo 64 arcade games (Samurai Shodown/Spirits 64 and Samuari Shodown 64-2). You'll have to track down physical machines for this as emus don't emulate the HNG64 properly yet. They may not look nicer than Sen, but they are far superior in game play, playability and most importantly, fun.


Until this game is $1, leave it on Amazon's virtual shelf.

Honestly SNK!!! WHY! Every other Samurai Showdown was amazing and then BAM this title literally makes me wanna croak.... lol but seriously the same thing happened when they made King of fighters in 3d OMG disaster. SNK stick to 2d and nothing else to many times you guys have failed us in 3d.