The Samurai Shodown revival game is literally weeks away, as the game was announced for an early summer release window. And believe it or not, we still do not know much about the game, besides the info we have gotten, ourselves, by watching the trailers a gazillion times. With that in mind why don’t we go ahead and list the top 5 things that will make neogeonow and many fans quite happy if they are included in the game.
5- Gore and fatalities
Since the first Samurai Shodown game took the world by storm, the gore and blood present in the first title became a series staple. Whyilethe samurai spirits finishers and blood are no where as gory as mortal kobat. It really became a big part of the series. Some samurai shodown titles did not have any gore, like Samurai shodown V and VI. But ultimately these titles felt incomplete. With the new Samurai shodown game coming soon, we hope that the gore is back. We do know that there is blood, and characters get bloodied in a match which is definitely a good step in the right direction. We also hope that the Zetsumei Ougi, which the fatalities in Samurai Spirits zero special, are also included. The good news is that if rumours are to be believed, Samurai Shodown 2019 will have tons of gore as well as amputations and decapitations. yikes
4- Cinematic story mode
If back in the 90’s and even early 2000, you ask for a detailed long narrative story mode in a fighting game, you would have people laugh at you. But thanks to Netherrealm studios industry shaking cinematic story mode introduced in Mortal Kombat 9, things have changed. Many other devs followed suits, like Capcom with their street fighter v cinematic story mode that was added post launch, and of course Netherrelam titles after MK9, which took the story mode concept and made it even better and longer. With that said, we really hope that SNK will do something similar and give us a cinematic story mode for Samurai Shodown. After all, the samurai spirits franchise has some of the best character stories and developments, just look at our history of Samurai Shodown documentary or the ongoing bushido tales series to see how multi layer most of the Samurai Shodown cast is.
3- varied post launch DLC
DLC has now become a standard when it comes to fighting games. And yes we are pretty much guaranteed that SNK will have Post launch dlc content coming for Samurai Shodown. The company did the same with KOFXIV and SNK heroines offering extra characters post launch (although a second wave of dlc character for snkh seemed to have been cancelled). While we would love to have more characters added as DLC, we would also love to have other content, like stages, bgms, and costumes, One area that KOFXIV really missed was DLC costume as we only have gotten a few. A galford costume looking like his Samurai shodown 64 outfit? A Haohmaru with untied hair? Yes plz!
2- Cross play
Officially Samurai Shodown is coming out on PS4 only. Unofficially, the title will be released simultaneously on Ps4, xbox one, Nintendo switch, and Steam. While its great that the game will reach the maximum number of potential gamers and fans, it would really be a missed opportunity to have the community split by console version. For that we really hope that SNK will implement a crossplay option for players to challenge each other regardless of the console they have. Capcom did it with street Fighter V on PS4 and PC, and Killer instinct had it between PC and Xbox one. Recently Fortnite, the ulta popular 3rd person shooter, was the first game to have a cross play between all version, PC ps4, xbox one and Nintendo switch, making it the first true cross play game. Interestingly enough, epic games the game developers behind fortnite and the wildly used Unreal Engine, has created a set of tools for cross play that are giving interested devs for free. C’mon SNK dn’t say no to it!
1-Great Netcode
In this day and age, a game’s netcode is what will either keep a game alive of kill it. The netcode is what allows players to connect across the world to fight each other and compete in their favorite games. Obviously samurai shodown will have online play, but how good the netcode will be will have an effect on the game’s longevity. SNK’s previous titles had a hit or mis experience when it comes netplay. KOFXIII had a terrible netcode, but the company improved it on KOFXIV, but still it was not considered a great experience. Other developers had better luck creating a robust multiplayer experience, like Capcom, or Netherrealm studios. The latter seem to have outdone themselves with Mortal Kombat 11 if the latest stress test is any indication. Now that SNK seems to have allowed a bigger budget for Samurai Shodown we hope that a good chu.ck of that money went to Netplay development.
So that was the neogeonow’s top 5 things we want to see in Samurai Shodown? Do you agree or disagree? Let us know in the comments section below!
