Samurai Shodown (2014) is a reboot of a old 2D Fighting Game Series that released shortly after Street Fighter II and Fatal Fury marking it's place as one of the original fighting game series that achieved widespread success. Sam Sho (2014) tries to tie together the best mechanics the series has to offer while doing so with a large roster and a art direction that takes is one of the firs 3D on a 2D planet SNK has produced that manages to look nice by using some cell shading on the characters and having well layered backgrounds.

Samurai Shodown is a fairly simple fighting game when considering the universal mechanics like weak lights and very strong (1/3 health) strongs while medium buttons tend to either reach far or have high reward via special/WFT cancel for more damage. Rage activation and Lightning Blade are also universal options which use your meter for good. Every character has one Super move that they can do only once per game but they are only good for hard reads usually due to how slow their activations are.

This game has a few problems common for this generation of Fighting Games like about 1/2 of the roster being behind DLC and much of said roster being on the stronger side of the roster to the point of seeing EVO finals become Baiken vs Warden (two DLC guest characters). the graphics themselves will look dated next to what ARC System Works already does but this game looks far better than KoF XIV before it and even KoF XV in my opinion.

This game manages to fix many quality of life issues in the series making this a good entry point into the series so long as you have friends to play with. If you have friends to play with you can easily pick up half the roster for a fun evening of seeing a bunch of unique character kits do their thing via varying levels of risk reward for each chacter covering various ranges and having unique movement options. Some characters like Shizumaru are so reliant on a held button turning into a ton of damage that their whole kit revolves on making your opponent scared of that. Meanwhile nothing Galford, Rimururu, Nakoruru, Ruixang, Cham Cham, or Jubei do very little damage but many of them control space so well that they still win just as often by hitting the opponent many many times. Some characters find a middle ground where certain ranges deal a ton of damage while others just lightly chip the opponent. Overall the game feels very diverse for better and for worse and every game is unique but some Match Ups suck while various characters are so good at every MU that they are played more often (Baiken Vs Warden Grand Finals as neither come from Sam Sho and are DLC Guests), props to the Galford in Top 8 that always shows up somehow).

This games biggest strength is it's simplicity but that is also it's biggest weakness as some characters will revolve around one approach to neutral that works on 80% of the cast but then that 20% just shuts you down completely. Certain characters are so versitile they get around this so they wind up in Top 8 at Tournaments more often (Jubei, Baiken, Galford, and Warden). I almost wish this game had tag mechanics like the early 2000s KoF games but that would go against the simple nature of Heavy Slash being your highest meterless damage and Crouching Slash canceled into WFT being you best way to spend Rage for pretty much every character. Weapon Flipping Techniques are a bit controversial as it can be somewhat hopeless for the defender if they get too much distance between them and their weapon. On top of the high damage of the WFT you have to then deal with whatever damage you take trying to get your weapon back. It's similar to SFVI Burnout state in where you are heavily punished but not even for much of a mistake beyond getting hit with a close Medium or crouching Medium Slash that was super Canceled. Samurai Shodown is absolutely a game willing to strongly reward one player for winning a single Rock Paper Scissors-like interaction.

Sadly this game didn't release on PC until too late (Stadia doesn't count). This game is a fairly strong part of SNKs history for fans that are interested in that. Sadly by this point SNK isn't the giant they used to be. You will get a solid game but it will not have the polish Namco, Capcom, NRS, or Arc System Works put into their games leaving it feeling oddly hollow compared to games by those companies. Even with that said I still recommend this game due to how well it all comes together for a game that doesn't demand as much attention as mainline fighting games... at the cost of a consistent playerbase. Bring Your Own Friends.

Overall I have to reccommend this game next to Sam Sho II, V, and VI as the best in the series. The biggest issue this game has is a lack of people currently playing it.