Samurai Shodown Sen Review

As a company known for its 2D devotion, SNK nonetheless has a long-running and unfortunately mediocre fascination with polygons. Although games like The King of Fighters XII and Metal Slug 7 help support the relevance of sprites in the age of gigahertz processors, 2D-to-3D revamps like Metal Slug 3D and, cough, Maximum Impact have been underwhelming to say the least.

But it's important to remember that even Capcom shovelled out Street Fighter EX and Final Fight Revenge before crafting the masterful Street Fighter IV. And so with Samurai Shodown Sen - a new 3D revamp that's based on one of SNK's most fondly remembered 2D fighting series - it's best to look at the package objectively, rather than recoiling in nostalgic revulsion purely on principle. Because whichever way you look at it, Samurai Shodown VII this certainly isn't.

Booting up the select screen for the first time shows a healthy smattering of classic characters, including wandering swordsman Haohmaru and French fencer Charlotte. But their inclusion is merely homage as, mechanically, Samurai Shodown Sen shares more with Soul Calibur than any of its 2D forbears. Indeed, those expecting flashy projectiles and an abundance of half-circle specials will be in for a shock, as Sen has forgone the traditional fireworks in favour of juggles and three-hit combo strings.

That's not to say special moves have been removed entirely; for example, the sadistic Genjuro still has four motion specials including his classic Hanafuda slashes and Shoryuken-style uppercut. But when you consider the rest of his command list is made up of 34 different Tekken-esque combos - ranging from single strikes to combos that require directional inputs - it quickly becomes apparent that Sen is a 3D fighter in more than just appearance.

Sen has the same basic throw animation for each fighter - a lazy design choice when you consider 1996's Soul Blade had multiple animations per character.

The control set-up also deviates from the classic formula, as although we still get a four-button layout, things have changed to horizontal slash, vertical slash, kick and special. Furthermore, by pressing two or three buttons simultaneously, the player can access strong slash variations, which can do around a third of full damage if timed correctly, as well as mostly useless unblockable attacks, which take forever to charge and are easily punished.

Playing Samurai Shodown Sen also highlighted how accustomed I've become to Street Fighter IV's input leniency, as pulling off a juggle combo on the 360 pad often required strict timing. Fortunately, SNK have had the foresight to map all the important button combinations to the shoulders and triggers, because otherwise an arcade stick would have been more or less mandatory.

Roster-wise, we get 13 classic characters in addition to 11 new creations, with everyone falling into either a Power, Skill, Speed or Tricky play-style. Out of the returning cast, grizzled veteran Jubei is a Skill type, whereas the perpetually ill Ukyo is a Speed type who can punish mistakes quickly. The Iaijitsu master also gets his iconic sword-flurry special complete with "just because I can" apple toss.

Even on the easier settings the AI can be fairly unforgiving.

The new bloods are a more curious mix, as although there are typical additions like Haohmaru's apprentice Takechiyo, who fights with a wooden sword, and the spear-wielding Kim Hae-Ryeong, we also get afro samurai J. and Garros, the world's most generic Viking. No prizes for guessing which combat type our Norwegian friend falls under.

Further branching off into the realms of raised eyebrows is princess Suzu, a petite blonde who makes it into Samurai Shodown Sen as a Power type. Her weapon of choice is a moderately sized claymore, which she can somersault through the air with before comboing into a command throw - all for enough damage to make Siegfried wet himself. And speaking of armour-encased blockheads, Samurai Shodown Sen gets European knight Walter, another Power type who fights with a bastard sword and shield.

Although Sen's character designs and animations are far better than anything the Neo Geo 64 ever coughed up, this 3D transition is still infinitely less impressive than Street Fighter IV. Many of the characters look bulbous and disproportionate, and when you see Galford, an American ninja who's been with Samurai Shodown since the very beginning, you wonder how SNK went from his charismatic select-screen portrait to his completely wooden in-game portrayal.

The general feeling of the game is a mesh between the early Soul games and Bushido Blade; although Sen doesn't have realistic damage, by ending a two-round match with a heavy slash it's possible to dismember your opponent's hand, fatally slice them in half or, if you time a horizontal slash particularly well, even decapitate them. That said, when Haohmaru follows up a fatality with a win quote like "That's... what I'm talking about!", you may wish SNK had added a Seppuku option as well.

But as different a Samurai Shodown as this is, the inclusion of the classic POW gauge at least helps to retain some of the classic appeal. In Sen it gradually fills as you take damage, and then once maxed, pressing all four buttons puts you into a powered up state complete with an angry red aura. Whilst enraged, you can also perform your character's Super move, which in most cases is a preset multi-hit combo, none of which are particularly noteworthy.

The available stages are a generic mix of tavern interiors, desert marketplaces and cherry-blossom-infested gardens, which despite numbering 21 bland locations, include five variation arenas which are set at night. None of them have any bearing on the gameplay either, as each one is nothing more than a differently decorated square accommodating the ability to bash your opponent against the wall and an awkward sidestepping mechanic. The interestingly titled Kokain Gate also turned out to be a mild disappointment.

For some reason you have to go back to the select screen each time you lose in Story mode, and the load times are teeth-grating.

In terms of features, at least, Sen does a slightly better job than The King of Fighters XII by including Versus, Practice and Survival modes, as well as replay save options. Each character also gets a Story mode: the player must battle through a set number of opponents before facing off against sub-boss Draco. This hateful cowboy assassin is spectacularly cheap and comes with a range of shotgun moves that can decimate you in seconds. Nonetheless, finally lopping off his trigger hand is fairly satisfying.

After this cheese-fest, you'd probably expect the game to end with a kind of mobile steam fortress, or going by Samurai Shodown's history, some manner of cataclysmic demon, but here SNK have reigned in the stupid with a hard, but fair, showdown against the sabre-wielding Golba. His moveset is quick and highly damaging, but with carefully timed sidesteps and heavy slashes, a cheap counter-victory is achievable.

After beating Golba 24 times with all the characters, the only thing left to do is check out the online mode. Now I've heard that the Samurai Shodown Sen online experience isn't all that bad, at least in terms of stable netcode, but after many attempts to find a Player or Ranked match spread across three days, I've yet to find a single opponent. It's also telling that on the online leaderboards, from rank 107 to 171, each player has won exactly 100 matches - the number required to earn a certain 60-point Achievement.

Both bosses can be unlocked by playing multiple times through arcade mode. There's also a single-point achievement for entering your initials as SNK.

Although Sen is a solid and playable weapon-based fighter, it's surpassed in every conceivable way by just about every other game on the market - whether by the 2D likes of Street Fighter IV and BlazBlue, or the 3D likes of Soul Calibur IV and Tekken 6. It's shortcomings are twofold, because not only is it noticeably dated both in how it looks and plays, but it also estranges itself from the Samurai Shodown diehards who loved the flow and character of the original 2D games.