Box Copy
Only winners live;
losers must deliver their own fatal punishment!
An endless sea of blood floods the realm as the demonic Zankuro slashes
a path of grisly terror. But even Zankuro can't be everywhere. Some say
fate lent a hand when a dozen infants escaped the slaughter! Now, years
later, 12 revenge-driven samurai begin their violent quest...for the
head of Zankuro!
Discussion
Looking back for (ironically) a third time with this page update, there
needs to be a separation of original content and ported code. Samurai
Shodown III had a lot to go up against in its heyday. Having been able
to go back and play the original arcade version thanks to a Home MVS
set-up, the original game really isn't that bad. In fact, to some
degrees it holds its own in terms of interesting combo set-ups.
Probably the most famous
aspect was Nakururu's 'Bust' Mode ('Rivalry' to you import peeps).
Instead of her Bird Mamahaha, she uses an amazing looking Wolf. When
using her against Galford and Poppy, things get pretty freaking crazy.
With that, I leave you
with the original review below.
The third time is always the charm…except in the video game world. It’s
no secret that when Samurai Shodown III hit the arcades, it had a lot
going against it. For starters, it wasn’t done by the previous staff, as
they had left SNK. It also didn’t help that to try and distance
themselves from said group, they went in a radically changed SS’ play
style, artwork style, and well…just damn near everything else you an
think of.
This departure, had it been handled right would have probably completely
catapulted the series into the mainstream. However, the plan backfired,
and a broken game was given to the masses. In an attempt to make up for
lost profits, SNK brought the game to the Saturn and PlayStation, with
one very horrific and unimaginable situation; the original Japanese
version was unplayable, in the fullest sense of the word.
So bad was the PSX version that after what seemed like minutes of load
times, the game was missing loads of animation frames. Which was then
compounded by the huge slowdown issue; when a character connected with a
fierce attack, the action screeched to a halt, as if someone had paused
the game for a split second.
How did Sony bring it to the states and expect results? Well, they
actually tried their best, that’s for sure. The loading times were
repaired to a more acceptable level (even better on a PS2 with Fast
option), but their attempt at repairing the in-game issues seems to be
the lesser of two evils. It finally plays correctly, but with the
animation still missing, it’s a very jerky, almost classical film real
look to it. It’s nowhere near a travesty as Children of the Atom, but
it’s still not what it could have been. |
Trivia
- That whole "Nearly
Flawless" comment on the back can go take a hike.
- Here's a condensed
list of what's different / missing from the PSX Version
- Characters have no
animation on Selection Screen.
- Once chosen, their
oversized image does not show up.
- In-game animations
have been cut to about a third. Sony of
America sped up the game play to try and even out the difference.
- In the Japanese
version, a Fierce Slash could grind the game to a stop
- The resolution has
been severely dropped. I played both the Arcade and the PSX version
on S-Video, and the difference was staggering.
- Zooming in / out
gets extremely jerky with any flashy, larger move.
- Gaira has the most
animation removed due to his size. His standing animation barely
animates.
- Oddly enough, the
load time is a tad better on the US side.
- Weird change - in
the original Arcade, Ukyo's stage fog moves as if it were a single
entity. In the PSX version, it almost animates a tad more, perhaps
due to the resolution issues. Hard to explain in text form.
- Despite all that,
there doesn't seem to be any loss in actual on-screen imagery.
Foreground objects, background animations, etc all seemed present.
- Apparently the SCEA
employee Chad Okada is THE GAME LORD...or at least that's what the
credits have you believe.
- Despite it's poor
conversion, the original Neo Geo version is still one of the more
astonishing games, at least from an animation standpoint. Each
character had with-and-without-weapon animations, extra moves per
style, multi-scene changing backgrounds, and some decently sized
sprites. Just the fact that they got what they could into 1 meg of
RAM is impressive.
- Was also available
on the Sega Saturn with the 1 Meg Ram Cartridge.
- Inside the
instruction manual was an add for King of Fighters '95 and Real Bout
Fatal Fury. RB:FF was never released in America.
- Despite only getting
the third Samurai Shodown 2D game and the 2nd 3D game (Warrior's
Rage), the Japanese PlayStation got the original four 2D games (3,
4, and then a compilation of 1 & 2), and console exclusive RPG.
- The referee makes an
odd appearance by becoming you as an opponent. In SS2, you could
actually play as him.
|
