ACA NEOGEO Samurai Shodown IV

Genre: Fighting Game

Players: 1-2 Competitive (Local / Online), Online Leaderboards

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Review:

Samurai Shodown IV, sometimes subtitled Amakusa’s Revenge, is a Fighting Game released in 1996 in arcades and on the NEOGEO AES home console, later receiving ports to numerous other platforms. In the current day, this is probably SNK’s second best-known Fighting Game franchise after the King of Fighters games, and this is the fourth game in the series, with this release of the game on Nintendo Switch coming in 2017.

Samurai Shodown IV ups the playable roster to 17 characters, though only two of these characters are completely new to the series. There are a few other additions too, such as the new “CD Combo”, but mostly this sequel isn’t much changed from Samurai Shodown III. While not bad by any stretch, it still feels lacking compared to contemporaries like the Street Fight Alpha series, and that’s not even talking about more modern Fighting Games. Even so, I can still see some players yearning for an old-school 2D Fighter getting a lot of enjoyment out of this one.

This release of the game includes a new “Hi-Score Mode” that challenges players to score as much as they can in one run before seeing a game over screen. There is also a new “Caravan Mode” that does much the same, but with the limit being five minutes. In addition, this release of the game includes both English and Japanese versions, and gives players a decent array of options, including various display options, sound options, challenge modifiers, button mapping, and online leaderboards.

While these settings are nice, there’s one setting noticeably absent here that was present in the Samurai Shodown NEOGEO Collection – the ability to map combinations of button inputs to one button. Given how this series assigns important commands to multiple simultaneous button inputs, this is a glaring omission, and a big point in favor of getting the collection.

In the end, Samurai Shodown IV is a solid, if somewhat dated, Fighting Game that’s still enjoyable today. However, if you’re considering buying this, you may want to instead consider getting the Samurai Shodown NEOGEO Collection. It will cost you more than just getting this one game, but you’ll save on buying multiple games in the series, plus it has the better control options and bonus content you just won’t find here. However, if for some reason you only want the fourth Samurai Shodown, and don’t mind missing out on all of that, you may find this game worth getting.

tl;dr – Samurai Shodown IV is a Fighting Game that tweaks a few things from Samurai Shodown III and expands the roster of characters to 17. It’s still not on par with modern Fighting Games, and it’s not a huge leap over the previous game, but this is nevertheless an enjoyable entry in the genre, even today. That said, this release lacks control options and bonus content in the Samurai Shodown NEOGEO Collection, so you may want to consider getting that bundle instead. However, if you’re just looking to buy the one game, this is a pretty decent choice.

Grade: B-

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