MORE CLASSIC SAMURAI SHODOWN MOMENTS

Straight-up Murder

Samurai Shodown certainly wasn’t the first fighting game to let you kill someone, but that doesn’t diminish how cool it is when it happens.

There are a few different possibilities, but we’re partial to the animation where blood gushes from the opponent’s wounded neck, until they dramatically collapse to the floor.

Bigger Than Your dad

Some Neo-geo fighters made every character huge, but Samurai Shodown decided upon a smaller cast to emphasise the enormous bulk of Earthquake, who happens to be about twice the size of a regular fighter. We’ll never forget seeing him for the first time and wondering how – or if – he could be beaten.

weapon Clash

When two fighters go to attack at the same time, they lock blades and battle for position, with the loser of the clash dropping his weapon as they disengage. A button-mashing fury follows, though it turns out that it might not matter – one conversion programmer claimed that the buttons never did anything.

Get Some Perspective

One of the key features of the Neo-geo hardware was sprite scaling, and this was put to use in spectacular fashion here. Where other fighting games constraining the player’s movements to the edge of the visible playfield, Samurai Shodown zooms out to show both fighters if they move too far apart, showing more of the magnificent background art.