Samurai Shodown

The Good
The zoom feature during the fights is intact. The controls are modified, yet arcade-ish enough. Easier to execute moves. The colors are bold and crisp (especially on either the 3DO Blaster or an HDTV that accepts S-Video). The game loads pretty fast, too. Everybody's present and the stereo sound effects from the Neo-Geo original are presented in the same fashion that the Neo-Geo does. The disc label is cool, too, with blood splattering across it. Also, that's one tough disc, as I totally scratched it up and it plays without flaw.

The Bad
Like other Crystal Dynamics games, this has that weird choppiness only their 3DO games have. Why? Can't they program sprites right on the system they help build? Besides that, the controls aren't as tight as the arcade original (though not terrible like Takara's or JVC's translation, with the Game Boy and Game Gear versions exempt . . . no I've never played the version on PlayStation . . . sniff). Also missing is the cinemas (that made it into the Genesis version, even). There's a glitch at the end of the game when you think you're supposed to enter your name and nothing happens. The music stinks, frankly, as does the sound. The music sounds like 3DO's digitizer just playing back the music from a bad recording made by holding a tape recorder up to the speaker of the arcade machine. No joke. It's not the dynamic music of the Super NES or Sega CD versions. Then the sounds . . . if Galford's scene, he yells in the arcade, "Plasma blade!" but here, it sounds like, "Bless your brain!" Okay, so it's not as bad as the Genesis or Super NES versions, and the sounds are in stereo, unlike the Sega CD version . . . but on the Sega CD version, "Plasma blade!" is just that, not blessing my brain. About the graphics, but every end graphics after rounds is the same, with the bamboo rug and refs leaving with the dead body of the samurai in question. In the arcade original, unless you caused spray or cut the dude in half, the scene would show the disgraced samurai kneeling down moping. Here? Nope, everybody's dead. Then, on a normal TV, the bottom of the screen where the sarcastic remake is happens to be a different shade of black that the top! Huh? Also, this game's easy, no matter the difficulty, and nothing's hidden. It seems like a rush job from Crystal Dynamics. I think SNK should've helped, somewhat. I mean, little things that add to atmosphere, like the lire playing during the globe rotation before fights is absent, and such other nitty-picky things like that. Also, don't bother putting this game through a home theater. Lastly, there's a NOW LOADING access time before every fight! Just like Street Fighter Alpha 2 on the SNES. I think that could've been executed better, like between the end of round cinema instead, or have be identical to the Neo-Geo CD version . . . something! (But not that annoying NOW LOADING from the PlayStation version of Samurai Shodown III.)

The Bottom Line
Got a 3DO? Get this game. Despite my extreme pickiness, it's actually the best version of the game outside of the SNK originals. If you have it on Sega CD, you may pass, but I highly recommend it. If you're avoiding the optical disc revolution still, get it on the following consoles: SNES, Genesis, Master System (Europe/Brazil), Game Gaer, Game Boy, Neo-Geo Pocket Color, PlayStation (Japan), or just emulate it on NeoRAGE XP. But wait, there's more! You can import Samurai Shodown Zero (or is it 5) for the PS2! Back to this version, if plays very well, and if you want, build an arcade machine for it. It's cheap to do.