Samurai Shodown II Review

Man this looks sweet......

Good game, but terrible translation. Hilarious though!

This is a great game...I can't wait until it's on VC.

Oh hell (censored) YEAH!!!

This games awsome...I have so much fond memories of it.

Victoly! (sic)

As far as i heard this is actually supossed to be the best of the Samurai Shodown games.

Let's not forget:

Cham Cham: "Oooh! It was scarry!"
Cham Cham: "Shit! You really make me mad!"
Charlotte: "In France, there's no impolite person like you! It's reasonable I win!!"
Charlotte: "You imitate my distinguished family. I never forgive you."
Earthquake: "Gosh! I've made it mincemeat! He he he he he!"
Earthquake: "He he he he he, you'd better on a diet!"
Galford: "Hey! Do you like to challenge my American ninjutsu?"
Gen-an: "He he he, I drag your soul in the evil world."
Gen-an: "Who is the real king of the evil world, let's have it our!"
Genjuro: "I'll be never beaten by anyone who lives in confort, like you."
Genjuro: "KILL YOU!!!!!!!!!!"
Haohmaru: "How weak you are! I will kill you as well as 'tofu' with my sword!"
Haohmaru: "I don't like this ominous feelings."
Haohmaru: "I slay my imitation with my sword together with Mt.Fuji!"
Kyoshiro: "Go through the beauty of real 'kabuki' by your death!"
Nakoruru: "Power, speed and beauty. I have defeated you in all way."
Nicotine: "What a nice person! You kindly give the palm to such a crock!"
Sieger: "Don't be hateful each other. Love is the best strength."
Sieger: "Give you my knock for justice!"
Ukyo: "..... To cut a same face..... ..... feel bad....."
Wan-Fu: "How foolish, stupid and silly you are! Get away, chicken!"
Wan-Fu: "Look at our great Chinese power!"

Fantastic game, the nonsense above makes it even better!

@ sephiroth79: It looks like they did a word for word translation of the dialog.

Not that I'm complaining but what happened to the first one?

yes they did and it's hilarious

I hope they release SS1 and 2 soon, they were both fantastic games.

i hope it comes. at least till samurai showdown anthology comes anyways i'm waiting for snk games for wii including king of fighters orochi saga, which has krauser.

I'm waiting for Last Blade, Last Blade 2, Garou: Mark of the Wolves, and Pulstar. But Samurai Shodown II was the best of the series, at least in my opinion. The broken English was just a hilarious side bonus.

@sephiroth79

You forgot the best one of them all, the intro:

Long Long Ago, there were a man who tried to make his skills ultimate. Because of his bloody life, its no accident that he was involved in the troubles.

Ah, the troubles...standing on the criff at the beginning

BEST Samurai Shodown EVER!!

It's the pinnacle of the Samurai Shodown series. But I agree, the English translation was laughable at best. Funny stuff.

I dunno, it looks a little unbalanced from the video, also I could do without the blood, as it reminds me of Mortal Combat, and that game almost turned me off fighters forever! Still looks pretty damn good, though.

i have shodown 1.i need this one too!

While I haven't played the original, It was the first fighting game I've been interested in a while. The last one I played was Sonic the Fighters, and that was a little too complicated for me. I can only dread the thought of how incredibly complicated this is, but an interest is a start, not to mention it just looks that cool!

I can´t wait for this one. Really. Gimme pleease!

LOL ya this is great but...when is the vc gonna get THE LAST BLADE and SUPER SMASH BROS 64. we need these games and more n64 games like ssb and perfect dark if you guys know wat i mean

I think SS4 is better than this, don't you people agree?

More Engrish please:)

Lets attack aggressively! Go Fight! A winner is you!

"I think SS4 is better than this, don't you people agree?"

Nope, this one's the best, hands down.

Get it more! Get it more!

Only twinkies have preferences. You Pansy Face.

Okay, now I have to get this, the sheer humorness(inventing words is fun!) is too much to resist!

yayyyy its coming to na on Monday. Let's keep goin and get super smash bros and last blade!

@DaDun

I'm with you there - I played Super Smash Bros. recently, and even with all the sequels it still was fun! Plus, I saw some vids of Last Blade and I gotta say, if a game can make a little old fisherman seem badarse, then I'm all for it!

I'm not making up anything, it's real dialogue from "Pulstar" and "Matrimelee"

http://neogeoforlife.com/viewpage.php?page_id=101
http://neogeoforlife.com/viewpage.php?page_id=215
Funny stuff

@sephiroth79

It took me a while to figure out what that was refering to! I hope those games come to the VC soon, they look awesome! There sure were a lot of great games on the Neo Geo huh? Now if we'd just get more of those( hopefully games of or near Samurai Shodown will be a trend of some sort), people would stop complaining whenever a new one gets released.

What exactly makes this so much better than the first one? It just looks like alot of the same. I'm sure there are more characters but is that the only thing that's better?

The Dynamic Fighting System makes a solid difference. The ability to duck and hop over attacks adds a lot of defensive capability to the mix that was missing from the first game. Great new characters and a nice visual upgrade round this wonderful package out. Most Neo Geo fans, myself included, think Samurai Shodown II is by far the best release in the entire series.

Cool! Sounds good. I bought the first one and liked it so maybe I'll give this a try.

will download tmz

Would anyone say that this is a hard game? Have not played a samurai showdown game before.

The A.I. in SNK fighting games is very challenging and in some cases, notoriously cheep so don't expect to blow through the game in a day. As with the first game I would recommend an arcade controller for SSII. I use my PS2 Street Fighter controller by way of an adapter. It plays like a dream!

I can't wait till this comes. I was thinking about getting the original, but after seeing some videos, I knew this was the game to get! However, there have been some people who got the game and said that the original was better, so maybe someday I'll look into that one. But for now, I just want #2!

So if this one's so much better, how come they both get a 5? It just seems odd to me.

Well, like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dx38JqdB5uQ

Show me Hanzo kicking that much arse(or more), and I'll give. Until then, I'll just wait for this one to come out.

I'd prefer it if the opponent did something though, because I'll admit it's not as impressive once you realize that the opponent is just standing there most of the time. It is, however, a great way to show off the special attacks.

@Demon - Both SS1 and SS2 are excellent and worthy of 5 stars IMHO.

Having said that I do prefer SS2 myself, but I also prefer SMB3 to SMB1.

Im not really into fighting games but i think that I will give this a try sometime

morphballer: What kinda PS2-adapter are you using for the Wii? I would also like to use my SFII controller on this

@Demon: Both games are good games. SS2 is better than SS1, which already had 5 stars, so you have to give SS2 5 stars too. Seeing though they're rated out of 5, you can't just go 1 higher because it's better... this isn't Spinal Tap...

I'd also like to know about this PS2 adaptor, well, i'd prefer a saturn one, but i can't seen that happening

It's pretty good, but I've already bought SS1 and would rather have a Last Blade game. I don't play fighters often by myself, so I don't want too many.

Wow, I think it's time to expand my list of 20 VC games to purchase to a mega 21! It's only taken another 6 months, but Nintendo have finally broken my top 20 list.

For me I have sf new challengers and just want this game, last blade and super smash bros 64 for all the fighters i will ever need. my other two wishlist games r earthbound and perfect dark tho lol

I guess this is the adapter he uses:
http://www.play-asia.com/paOS-14-71-10y-49-en.html
I have just ordered one myself

Finally it's here!
Go Galford!

Yeah, Galford is still my favorite character to play as. And I've also discovered the charms of Cham Cham.

I wonder if this game will be on SNK Arcade Classics Vol 2.

I had big expectations, Samurai Shodown II is good, but I can´t see what the hype is all about. The gameplay feels strange. Perhaps I´ll get used to it, but the uneven tempo with slow characters, some quick specials and slowmotion on some hits... right now my timing is completely off!

Downloaded this yesterday. I have to say I'm liking it a lot.

its good, but i think ssd4 and last blade are a lot better

You think SS4 is good, then you gotta play SS6: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAcCCC6OU38&feature=related

Well this game kicking the tar out of me, and I can only manage to beat the first opponent. Hopefully by time and practice I'll manage to be decent, other than that, a nice game indeed and was worth the wait.

who are you playing as?

Cham-Cham is a good character I think with some good moves.

try setting the game to an easier difficulty setting to allow you to practice for a while.

SS6 looks frickin awesome. wants it cheers Mickeymac

What console is SS6 on ?

SamSho II seems to play fairly different from the SFII template. I think that's where a lot of people's complaints come from. It doesn't seem to allow for combos and you need to be fairly reactive and hit big when you get an opening. If you try to button mash and be too aggressive, the AI is gonna pick you apart. I like it that way, makes you learn and understand the mechanics. As I get to know the game better, I can see where poor decisions and lack of patience are making me lose rounds.
Just a couple of complaints: seeing as you can load from your save anyways, they might as well have just let you have infinite credits. It just makes it more of a nuisance than it needs to be, and if you're playing for score, you're only gonna use one credit anyways. Also, it would be nice if they'd mapped the strong attacks to L1 and R1 on the Classic Controller, but I guess that wouldn't be accurate.

@AngelBlack187

Right now, it's on the PS2, however it's going to be on the Anthology on the PS2 and Wii. I don't know when the Anthology is being released though.

A Samsho anthology? Sweet! now I don't need to get this from the shop! I can save 900 wii points and 200-some blocks for Star Parodier.

Samurai Shodown VI was developed using Sammy's Atomiswave arcade board. This board is based off of Sega's Naomi board. Samurai Shodown VI was also released on the Playstation 2 console in Japan and included some extra playable characters as well. While I don't like it as much as SS2, it's easily my second favorite game of the series.

On a side note - I almost bought one of those Atomiswave PCBs for my Neo Geo cabinet, but it seemed a bit expensive for just that one game. I couldn't find another Atomiswave game that I'd want bad enough to spend that kind of money on it.

It really saddens me to see that SS2 did not make the the top 20. How is SS1 going to make the top 20, but not SS2?

http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3163122

I was about to purchase when I read what follows:

"The Wii will receive a collection of all six of the main Samurai Shodown games similar to SNK's Metal Slug Anthology, which was released on Wii earlier this year. Again no official word on a U.S. release nor on what kind of Wii control capabilities might be implemented, but both seem likely."

I thought it may be of interest to some of you. Waiting will be hard because this review makes me want to play.

Currently my favourite game on vc. The art style is awesome compared to the sequels, and it almost feels like chess with it's attack/defend strategy. i used to look longingly at the arcade cabinet in my local arcade wishing i could afford a neo-geo, but now i can play it any time i like - cheers Ninty !!!

class game, but for some reason all the games ive played on the virtual console are running at 50hz ive noticed this because i got this game on mame and all the neo-geo games run at 60hz like in the arcades and the games run faster better in my opinion dont know why the games dont run at 60hz on the vc, still a good game though

Great game, but I would recommend getting it on xbox live if you have a 360. It might be a little more pricey, but looks better and has online play!

@The Fox

Yeah, I was just about to mention that! Personally I think it actually looks worse than the VC one, but that's just from looking at screenshots. I don't have a 360 yet, but if it is better I'll just save my money. Is there any noticable lag?

@Mickeymac
No single player lag, but there is a bit of lag online on some matches. It's not that bad from my experiences so far though.
The only real problem is that the standard 360 controllers d-pad isn't the best for pulling off some of the more complex motions. (like for the super moves)

The 360 version does not look better, matter of fact, if you don't turn off the terrible filter, it looks far worst. Also, since they didn't take the time to update the sprites in the game, it cannot look better than what it looks like on the VC since the VC is pretty much prefect.

Screw it, my brother doesn't want to play anyways. I might get the 360 one, since it has online, but I have no need for the VC version.

Samurai Showdown Anthology announce on Wii Fanboy:

http://www.nintendowiifanboy.com/2008/09/12/save-those-wii-points-samurai-shodown-anthology-releases-this-w/

Meanwhile, I am also getting it on Xbox Live Arcade for online play.

@sipherdee

Yep, 'nother game to add to my Christmas list, along with that King of Fighters collection.

I love this game, I just bought it today.

Its kinda hard to get used to the Classic Controller, Im used to using PS2-esque controllers for fighting games but, it works.

I also appreciate the save feature. =3