Review By

Brad Gallaway

I used to be a fan of the original Samurai Shodown and its sequel, the even-better Samurai Shodown 2, but I never spent any time with the games that came after. I knew there had been a few more entries, but for one reason or another I hadn't got around to them. When I heard that we had Samurai Shodown V up for review, I jumped at the chance. My initial reaction? Wow… the years have not been kind to this series at all.

I like fighting games in all their variations, and there's nothing better than a well-crafted, finely polished 2D fighter going fast and furious. Samurai Shodown V is not that game. Starring approximately twenty-six characters in total, this nasty scrapper may have a large amount of variety for players to choose from, but that's about all it has. It's been a long time since I played a game as offensively obnoxious as this one, and it didn't take long before I was ready to chuck this disc out the window and take some blood pressure medication afterwards.

For starters, the graphics and presentation are terrible. Now, I don't usually place a heavy emphasis on visuals, but I'm going to have to make an exception in Samurai Shodown V's case. The sickeningly jerky animation is unacceptable with huge gaps in motion sequences that make it look like it came straight out of the early 90s—though it was created in 2003. The backgrounds are pathetically underdone, and the colors and effects miss the mark. The goofy dialogue during intermissions visually resembles something out of a second-grader's "practicing capital letters" homework, written in stereotypical Engrish, to boot. Allegedly, this game is an extremely faithful port of the arcade version, but you know what? I don't care. Quite frankly, it looks like cat food and should have been touched up and refinished because its current state is embarrassing.

Samurai Shodown V is also as hard on the ears as it is on the eyes. Many characters have highly annoying shrieks and yells, and the general "shouting Kabuki actor" samples in combination with the jangling, twangy Japanese music got old in the first few minutes. I get that some players might see this caterwauling as "classic" and I also understand that there are artistic choices in trying to tie the audio in with the whole samurai theme, but again… I don't care. It's just rotten. I couldn't take it, and turned the sound completely off because it was literally unbearable. I've played hundreds of games and been fine with an entire spectrum of soundtrack and sound effect choices, but this is one that belongs in the garbage.

As far as the gameplay, I remember being quite addicted to this series back in the day. I played a pretty mean Ukyo Tachibana, and I wasn't half bad fencing with Charlotte, either. Sitting down with V, I was struck by how unacceptably horrible the hit detection was, and that the character balancing is even worse. Some of my attacks would whiff completely through my enemy, leaving me open for highly damaging counterattacks. Certain opponents would smack me down round after round until I found the cheapest, most dishonorable way of taking them down (and yeah, I'm looking at you, Sankuro…) Is this mess supposed to be enjoyable? Many of the characters felt severely underpowered compared to others, and making sure that the playing field was level wasn't even an afterthought—a cardinal sin for fighters.

Samurai Shodown V offers online head-to-head play via Microsoft's Live service, but both times I tried to search for a match, there were no opponents to be found. I can't say I'm surprised; this game is so weak and poorly constructed that I can't imagine playing it online with real people would make it any better. Frankly, spending time examining V was the most unpleasant session time I've logged in a while. Samurai Shodown may have had some clout in the past, but right now it's like a diseased, shuddering relic that needs to be put out of its misery.