Samurai Shodown Sen US release - March 30
- Thread starter mmsadda
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The idea that Bill Gates has ever even HEARD of Samurai Shodown, much less gives a shit about it, is one of the funniest things I've seen anyone post here in a while.
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Okay, so I just played through w/Haohmaru.
This game has everything EXCEPT gameplay going for it, IMO.
The graphics and animation are fine, the textures are better than I expected, the roster is fucking wacky as hell. Cowboys and indians and vikings? What the fuck? This is insane and goofy and a fun roster, IMO.
Backgrounds are cool if lacking in any real depth. The music is very good, IMO. The voices are perfectly fine, and it's all in Japanese. Playing in English just means an English announcer and Engllish text on the screen.
The game controls poorly, IMO. And the combos aren't that interesting or fun and sometimes rely on neutral pauses between motions (which I've never liked.). The special maneuvers are cool to watch and have a lot of 'energy' in them, however. The animations are very 'strong' but the characters move slowly.
Defense is high/middle/low, which fits a 3D theme but isn't really my bag. You can circle around your opponent too. Haven't done enough 'practice' with the game to see if there is a quick sidestep.
The story is 'whatever', and except for two or three cutscenes plays out as text on the screen. Definitely the most underproduced part of the aesthetics.
All in all, I'm not disappointed I bought it and it's got some cool samurai aesthetics to it (along with some other crazy shit), but its gameplay feels ten years old by 3D fighter standards. From what I remembers of Warriors' Rage, it feels like the next iteration of that series.
My .02
This game has everything EXCEPT gameplay going for it, IMO.
The graphics and animation are fine, the textures are better than I expected, the roster is fucking wacky as hell. Cowboys and indians and vikings? What the fuck? This is insane and goofy and a fun roster, IMO.
Backgrounds are cool if lacking in any real depth. The music is very good, IMO. The voices are perfectly fine, and it's all in Japanese. Playing in English just means an English announcer and Engllish text on the screen.
The game controls poorly, IMO. And the combos aren't that interesting or fun and sometimes rely on neutral pauses between motions (which I've never liked.). The special maneuvers are cool to watch and have a lot of 'energy' in them, however. The animations are very 'strong' but the characters move slowly.
Defense is high/middle/low, which fits a 3D theme but isn't really my bag. You can circle around your opponent too. Haven't done enough 'practice' with the game to see if there is a quick sidestep.
The story is 'whatever', and except for two or three cutscenes plays out as text on the screen. Definitely the most underproduced part of the aesthetics.
All in all, I'm not disappointed I bought it and it's got some cool samurai aesthetics to it (along with some other crazy shit), but its gameplay feels ten years old by 3D fighter standards. From what I remembers of Warriors' Rage, it feels like the next iteration of that series.
My .02
evasyar
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Hmmm....
I do not quite understand why K2 could have went the 2D plane like Capcom did with Streetfighter IV or Super Streetfighter IV. It would have worked much better and retained the control/charge motion scheme instead of trying to clone Soulcalibur.
Except for the graphics of the models and the backgrounds, which btw are quite subpar compared to SCIV (that has been out for almost 2 years) but an upgrade to the HNG64 versions; seems like it regressed in game play compared to Samuraispirits 64 or Samuraispirits 64 II.
Well it is not worth the $50 price tag, maybe half of that. Yeah it feels dated this game.
I guess Street Fighter IV just raised the bar way to high for the likes of K2 to keep up. K2 should maybe stick to their Tenchu series (even with that effort is questionable now much less trying a Soulcalibur-clone off the Samuraispirits series).
Street Fighter IV spoiled us, that and Tekken 6.
sigh...The fan in me died a little bit with this game.
I do not quite understand why K2 could have went the 2D plane like Capcom did with Streetfighter IV or Super Streetfighter IV. It would have worked much better and retained the control/charge motion scheme instead of trying to clone Soulcalibur.
Except for the graphics of the models and the backgrounds, which btw are quite subpar compared to SCIV (that has been out for almost 2 years) but an upgrade to the HNG64 versions; seems like it regressed in game play compared to Samuraispirits 64 or Samuraispirits 64 II.
Well it is not worth the $50 price tag, maybe half of that. Yeah it feels dated this game.
I guess Street Fighter IV just raised the bar way to high for the likes of K2 to keep up. K2 should maybe stick to their Tenchu series (even with that effort is questionable now much less trying a Soulcalibur-clone off the Samuraispirits series).
Street Fighter IV spoiled us, that and Tekken 6.
sigh...The fan in me died a little bit with this game.
Lyte Edge
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I hate to say "I told you so," but...yeah.
Unfortunately, gameplay is the most important thing. That's why this game is such a bust. It's funny; to me KOF XII had good gameplay going for it but almost everything else was severely lacking, and this game is the opposite.
Taiso, I wouldn't even say the gameplay feels 10 years old. More like 15 years old; 10 years ago Soul Calibur was out.
Unfortunately, gameplay is the most important thing. That's why this game is such a bust. It's funny; to me KOF XII had good gameplay going for it but almost everything else was severely lacking, and this game is the opposite.
Taiso, I wouldn't even say the gameplay feels 10 years old. More like 15 years old; 10 years ago Soul Calibur was out.
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Gotta agree with Taiso, for the most part. If they'd gone with a feel more like the second Hyper Neogeo 64 game, with some more speed, this could have been some real magic. As it stands, what's here is basically just competent. It's a shame, because there's a lot of real love put into this. The new additions I've seen are pretty interesting, and the style of some of the returners (particularly Sogetsu) is pretty engaging. The controls on a standard 360 pad are atrocious. I'm glad I have an adapter and a Neo Stick 2. It makes all the difference in the world.
The AI ramps up to ridiculous levels very quickly, to where I feel like I need to know my character inside and out. The three-tier blocking system has always been a staple of 3D fighters, and that's one of the reasons I've never been fond of them.
Animations look nice, models are okay (though Kazuki's hair looks way off-model), and the stages are all right. Music is very good, though we knew that. What hurts here is that this obviously wasn't a throwaway project, but it really needed a different director's hand.
The AI ramps up to ridiculous levels very quickly, to where I feel like I need to know my character inside and out. The three-tier blocking system has always been a staple of 3D fighters, and that's one of the reasons I've never been fond of them.
Animations look nice, models are okay (though Kazuki's hair looks way off-model), and the stages are all right. Music is very good, though we knew that. What hurts here is that this obviously wasn't a throwaway project, but it really needed a different director's hand.
Lyte Edge
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To me it felt like a bad imitation of both Soul Edge (not Calibur) and Tekken.
Well, keep in mind that Sen is actually about two years old now. It came out in the arcades in April 2008, before Soul Calibur IV was released in August that same year. I wouldn't have expected K2 to be able to match Namco in the graphics department; the budget for Sen could not have been anywhere near as much as what the SC developers had to work with. I think Sen has decent visuals and good atmosphere overall.
As much as I hate Sen, I'll say this- At least it feels like a more complete game than the $60 beta that was KOF XII.
Again, going by release dates, Street Fighter IV is newer than Sen as well. That was SNK's stupid decision to release a home version so late in the game. It's sad that this is how Samurai Spirits is going to go out.
BTW, Tenchu isn't K2's game. They took over from Acquire, who got the series back and made the fantastic Tenchu 4, coming back to the series from their own never-released in the U.S. Shinobido series. A lot of Tenchu fans never liked K2's Tenchu titles anywhere near as much as they did Acquire's. My favorites from them are Tenchu Kurenai and Shinobi Taizen (despite its atrocious PS1-level draw-in). I was glad they lost the license after Tenchu Z though.
The only game worse than Sen is the home version of Arcana Heart 2 on the PS2. I was highly disappointed in Sen too, but when I want my SS fix, I just go back and play the older titles instead. I liked where Tenka was going and wish they would have made a sequel to that instead, 3D or not. Or even let the same team (sans Falcoon, of course) who handled the Maximum Impact series take a stab at it. Anything would have turned out better than what K2 did with it.
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And I knew you'd be right. But I figured...what the hell. Not that often a new SS game comes out and I like samurai stuff so it's all good.
You know, I wonder why they even tried to retain the old gameplay if it's so outdated. This game clearly isn't up to modern 3D fighting standards and the notion of doing a next gen SS game would seem to imply that they're trying to get more of 'today's audience' on board with the series. This being the case...why use a game engine that didn't really do anything to help the series in the first place?
Oh well. I got what I basically expected out of this and SNK-P made me no real promises with it so I don't feel cheated. How fucked up is it that I can say I'm more satisfied with this game, which is part of a series I'm an amateur at (at best), than I am with KOF XII?
This company...it confounds me!
You want me to rank the game among the entire series based on less than two hours of play time.
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problem?
Yes. It's an idiotic request, and if I weren't already certain he was serious, I'd be laughing at the lunacy of the joke.
Roughly on par with SS4.So Deuce, where do you rank the game among the SS series SO FAR?
Ask a stupid question, get a stupid answer.
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ouch
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Again, going by release dates, Street Fighter IV is newer than Sen as well. That was SNK's stupid decision to release a home version so late in the game. It's sad that this is how Samurai Spirits is going to go out.
The series was over back in 04 with V special. Everyone pretty much had an idea this game was going to be a flop.
Sure, there is. You basically asked me to evaluate the game as a whole and arrange the metaphorical priority stack. I haven't had enough time to do that, and you know I haven't. I won't give a comprehensive evaluation until I can comprehensively evaluate it.
Too much life in too few years. And living in nearly constant pain does not help.What happened, Deuce? You weren't like this back in the DHP days.
Lyte Edge
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Nothing wrong with initial impressions. Plenty of people can rank a new game up against previous editions after a few hours' play time. Especially crap like Sen. Not asking for any kind of "comprehensive evaluation."
What I should have known is that for Deuce, Samurai Shodown = serious business. Sucks about the pain. I have a bunch of back and leg problems myself.
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. Loved AH2 in the arcades- haven't gotten the PS2 rev yet. What went wrong with it? *back on topic* my Ukyo combos don't work. Ugh. Wanted so much to like this.
Plenty of people make snap judgments. I don't. It really is that simple.
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Really? That's your complaint? That it doesn't play exactly like the game you already own?
Lyte Edge
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Yeah, this is going completely off-topic, but in short, the PS2 Arcana Heart 2 is a total shit port. It has visual problems all over the place (the sprites get insanely pixelated when you move), frame rate issues/slowdown/control input lag, etc. It was also based on an older revision than most people were used to, IIRC. It is the worst arcade-to-home fighting game port in years. Perhaps of the last decade. Really weird since there doesn't really seem to be anything about the game that the PS2 couldn't handle, plus the original was ported just fine.
This video should be enough. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0buhp43BK8E