{"id":20408,"date":"2020-08-17T00:01:10","date_gmt":"2020-08-17T00:01:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/?p=20408"},"modified":"2020-08-16T12:54:36","modified_gmt":"2020-08-16T12:54:36","slug":"samurai-shodown-2-switch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/2020\/08\/17\/samurai-shodown-2-switch\/","title":{"rendered":"Samurai Shodown 2 (Switch)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>The NEO GEO Pocket Color is one of my favorite handhelds.\u00a0 For a while I even liked it better than the Game Boy Color!\u00a0 So that\u2019s why I\u2019m glad they\u2019re releasing more of the games on the Nintendo Switch!\u00a0 The NGPC was made by SNK, who is most famous for their fighting games, so many of their most popular series were on the handheld as well.\u00a0 One of SNK\u2019s most well-known fighter series is Samurai Shodown.\u00a0 They even had a new entry in the series this past year.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t get to review that one, though.\u00a0 Too bad.\u00a0 But I\u2019m glad I got to review this pocket sized Samurai Shodown 2!<\/p>\n

Samurai Shodown 2 is a one on one fighter with a medieval Japanese setting.\u00a0 You can pick from over a dozen characters, including Haomaru, the ninja Hanzo, Galford and his dog Poppy, Nakaruru and her little sister Rimururu, and many more!\u00a0 Even though this fighter is on a portable system and only uses two buttons, you\u2019ll still use a lot of button and joystick combinations when you pull off moves, so it\u2019s nearly every bit as complex as a regular fighter.\u00a0 One thing you can do when you pick your character is choose two different fighting styles.\u00a0 The game calls them \u201cSlash\u201d and \u201cBurst\u201d but the in-game instruction manual calls them \u201cChivalry\u201d and \u201cTreachery.\u201d\u00a0 What this means for you is that each character has two sets of moves.\u00a0 For instance, \u201cChivalry\/Slash\u201d Galford uses a lot of attacks involving his dog Poppy.\u00a0 But for his \u201cTreachery\/Burst\u201d mode, he loses his pup pal (oh no) in favor of more magical electric attacks.<\/p>\n

Modes of play include Story Mode, where you play out each character\u2019s tale.\u00a0 Although you end up fighting the same characters in the same areas.\u00a0 One thing I don\u2019t like about this mode is the last boss is really cheap.\u00a0 He\u2019s a giant purple monster chained to a wall, but he can attack you anywhere with falling rocks, and if you get too close, he\u2019ll eat you!\u00a0 I could never defeat it, even on Easy.\u00a0 There is also a Survival Mode where you try and defeat as many opponents as possible with one life.\u00a0 The Vs. Mode on the NGPC used a link cable for you to battle your friends, but here they get around that by having a second NGPC handheld pop up for the other player to choose characters on a split screen!\u00a0 Neat!\u00a0 Unfortunately, one mode that you can\u2019t play on the Switch is the Collection Mode.\u00a0 Here you could trade cards with friends via the link cable, but you can\u2019t do that here.\u00a0 And last is Game Option where you can choose your difficulty as well as other rules.<\/p>\n

Since this game came out 20 years ago, it doesn\u2019t have a lot of the quality of life features that many of today\u2019s games have.\u00a0 But luckily, there is an option screen that takes care of a lot of that.\u00a0 You view the action on a mock up NEO GEO Pocket Color handheld (which is weird when you are playing the handheld on the Switch handheld mode), but you can choose to zoom in on the screen to make it much easier to see.\u00a0 You can also toggle various screen filters, rewind, and view the game\u2019s original instruction booklet.\u00a0 Only real problem I had is the game is too hard, even on Easy mode.\u00a0 But then, I\u2019ve always found Samurai Shodown games to be more difficult than other fighters anyway.\u00a0 While Gals Fighters<\/strong><\/a> is still my favorite NGPC fighter, I\u2019m glad they put this one on the Switch as well, and I hope they continue to release more NGPC games!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Kid Factor:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Samurai Shodown 2 is rated E for Everyone with an ESRB descriptor of Violent References.\u00a0 It\u2019s a fighting game, so you hit other warriors with swords and other attacks and they fall over when hit.\u00a0 But the characters are very cartoony and there is no blood, unlike most of the main Samurai Shodown games which are usually a bit more violent.\u00a0 Reading skill is helpful for the text and younger gamers may find it too difficult.<\/p>\n

Just for fun, in the comments section, tell me your favorite Samurai Shodown characters.\u00a0 My favorite is Poppy, Galford\u2019s dog.\u00a0 Earthquake was also neat because he took up half the screen in the arcade.\u00a0 I also think Shiki, Mina Majinkina, and Iroha are cool.\u00a0 They\u2019re a bit too fanservice-y, but still neat characters.\u00a0 Later!\u00a0 –Cary<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The NEO GEO Pocket Color is one of my favorite handhelds.\u00a0 For a while I even liked it better than the Game Boy Color!\u00a0 So that\u2019s why I\u2019m glad they\u2019re releasing more of the games on the Nintendo Switch!\u00a0 The NGPC was made by SNK, who is most famous for their fighting games, so many […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":20400,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20408","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-game-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20408","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20408"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20408\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20412,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20408\/revisions\/20412"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20400"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}