Video games - Samurai Shodown: Warriors Rage

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	Video games - Samurai Shodown: Warriors Rage

Samurai Shodown: Warriors Rage (Japanese title: Kenkyaku Ibunroku-Yomigaerishi Soukou no Yaiba-Samurai Spirits Shinshou / 剣客異聞録甦りし蒼紅の刃サムライスピリッツ新章) is the seventh game in SNK's popular Samurai Shodown series of fighting games.

General information

Continuing onward from the storyline set forth in the two Hyper Neogeo 64 games in the series, Samurai Shodown: Warriors Rage takes place 20 years later, with a dramatically revamped cast, and was released solely for the Sony PlayStation. Though other SS games have followed it, it is chronologically the last game in the series, and is the only game in the series proper to not get an arcade release.

The first and most audacious change is the revamped character roster, which removed every playable character from previous games, with the exception of Haohmaru, who was now a middle-aged man, sporting a beard and missing his trademark mop of black hair. Hattori Hanzo also appeared, though it was not actually the same man, but rather one of the original Hanzo's relations, who had assumed his name. Nakoruru and Rimururu also played a role in the story, but were not in a playable form. Every other character was a new design.

The game was also very plot-intensive, with more than two dozen characters, each one having a reasonably significant role to play in the story.

Gameplay

Though the game was still in 3D, SNK sought to further diminish the role of the third dimension, making all gameplay on a straight line, with no movement along the Z-axis, beyond a basic dodge. Two buttons controlled weak and strong slashes, a third controlled kick attacks, and the fourth was used for dodges.

The game introduced a new lifebar system, which was subdivided into three sections. The first "round" of the fight lasted until one person was drained of all three sections, upon which one section of the bar would disappear, and the remaining two would refill. Once those two were drained, the second section would be dropped, with the last one refilled. This was punctuated by a pause in the action, during which the other player would go through a taunt animation. The match was finally over when one player had been drained of this last section of life.

Aside from the lifebar system, gameplay was relatively straightforward.

Title Confusion

For reasons unknown, SNK gave this game an extremely similar English title to that of its predecessor, Samurai Shodown 64: Warriors Rage
. This generated considerable confusion, and led many to the assumption that it was a port of the second Hyper Neogeo 64 game. It was also released in relatively limited numbers outside of Japan, as the gaming market was gearing up for the release of the PlayStation 2. This meant that few people had actually seen either game, and so the title was the only thing they had to go on. Even a cursory comparison between the two reveals that they are two very different entities. To help eliminate confusion, Samurai Shodown: Warriors Rage is now frequently referred to in English-speaking circles as Warriors Rage 2, or SSWR2 for short.

Critical and Fan Reception

For a variety of reasons, the game was poorly reviewed by virtually everyone, and is usually cited as the lowest point in the series' history. The most common complaints are:

The graphics, though running at a smooth frame rate, are very ugly, with poor texture work and low-polygon models.
The new lifebar system interrupts the flow of fights.
Gameplay has too much of a "stuttering" feel to it.
Lack of classic, favorite characters.

The most obvious issue is the visuals. Arriving as it did on the heels of speculation and hype about the PlayStation 2's graphical capabilities, the game simply did not measure up, even by the standards of the original PlayStation's games of the era. The visuals also stood in sharp contrast to the rest of the game's presentation, which featured excellent artwork and music.

While it is not an inherently bad game, it is a fairly mediocre one, perceived as worse than it is because of subpar graphics. Currently, it is all but forgotten, regarded by most as little more than a curious and lamented footnote in SNK's history. Its poor reception resulted in the death of the series for some years, until Samurai Shodown V
.

Story

The official story, as given by SNK, is as follows:

It is a time of sustained peace, and the age of the sword was drawing to a close. But an increasing number could not adapt to the flow of history and became trouble before long. So the shogunate created a "colony of prisoners" on a small island in sea nearby Edo as a place to rehabilitate the outlaws. But, there were those who exploited this prison island and tried to create a "new world exclusively for the chosen ones" after destroying the shogunate. The group they formed was called the "League of the Three Blades of Domination" and each member had their own mighty strength. Using their might, they subjugated the outlaws and begin their plans to overthrow the shogunate. And in no time the "town of outlaws" came to be called "Ritenkyo"-the seat of opposition.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Samurai Shodown: Warriors Rage ]

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