Samurai Showdown Classiek

[Shoonay]

Bon-joor, today I'm going to be reviewing an awesome beat-the-heck-out-of-them game, from the 96th Berliner Spielekiste Extra disc, called Samurai Showdown Classiek.

The first screen after loading the game is very optimistic:

In 3 minutes I can kick ass? Radical!

Some decrunching because why not...

Little bit more...

Only a few more seconds...


Alright alright, I'm waiting, why not, I waited so long I can wait more...


Game info... OMG, stats, requires AGA and a memory expansion!

("now playability"? Seriously?)

So let's press RUN GAME... Loading:


Developer's logo...

If we didn't know that, they produce games, not furniture...

Presents...


... Workbench screen?

[Shoonay]

The waiting was worth it, finally some music... and the title of the game so that we don't forget it.

Shocking view, fully digitalized black&white people materialize on the screen. And dance breakdance.

Full 10 fps and both 2 poses shown are so impressive I almost not notice the game is rushing me to press fire.


Let's load some more...


I should disable my mouse and plug in another joystick? Why the mouse hate all of a sudden? GTFO, I'm going to play with my mouse and that's final! Besides, I don't have anyone next to me to play with in such crap... great games.

Oh, and BTW: this game's name is SAMURAI SHOWDOWN. With the emphasis on DOWN.

Now the fun part starts, loading. I'm scared.

Almost...

There...

Here...

Once more...


Well well, a black screen loads up and the game keeps on loading. I think the game already ate 16MB of my memory, hope 32MB is going to be enough.

Just to be safe I'll put on my sunglasses, wouldn't want to get blinded by all the AGA colors pooping on the screen.

WOW!

... quoting the classic: "What the fuck is this shit?"
(Yeah, I know, Samurai Showdown)

Recovered from the shock after a few hours and finally noticed this is the main menu and I can control it by moving the ying-yang ball with my joystick. Innovative.

I selected Epilepsy Alert and BLAST BOX. No idea what that does but took some pills and chose FIGHT.

[Shoonay]

The battlefield with both characters poped out of nowhere almost instantly without loading anything, the pink gheyness is flashing and my eyes begin to hurt. My opponent lands on the arena perpendicularly, while rhythmically pulsing with all of his muscles.


The character animation is groundbraking, too bad you can't see it on static screens.


My opponent looks like is ignoring me, that little bastard, standing there and acting like he doesn't care. My punches go straight through him, but I can do a jetpack move or spit out (literally) a deadly mosquito. Realism FTW!


After doing the jetpack move I can safely land behind my opponents back using an umbrella. Clever.


The other guy discovers he can teleport and does only that, and I discover I can't turn my character to face the opponent when he's behind me. At least I can walk to the right side of the screen and come out of the left side of the screen. Now that's playability.


Thing's happened too fast for me to make a screenshot, but I finally managed to kick my opponent. Too bad the life-meters on the top of the screen didn't notice that.


My opponent gets offended after I kicked him and teleports somewhere behind the visible screen area. All I can hear is a strange sound of flapping... or is that... fapping? What a perv.


I try to run in his general direction to kick such ideas out of his head, unfortunately it looks like he came before me because the game faded out and started loading. And reminded how the Workbench Screen looks like.

What's going on, did I do that? Did he pulled a Fatality on himself? Who won?

Oh, no, that was just a nag screen loading reminding us we should register the game...

Awesome feature, the info screen scroll from right side of the screen to the left side and when I press the LMB it scrolls from left to right. Also, after pressing fire it stops. Too bad you can't see that, you're missing one hell of a ride.

Too bad there's nothing more happening on the screen because I'm forced to end this review...

PS: yeah, I now, triple-post, there's a limit to the number of screens per post and I just had to show those

[dex]

Marvelous... a true "classiek"

[Photon]

This goes in my Pouet thread, hope you don't mind. good stuff and agree. Andrew Braybrook and Mahoney (and many others I'm sure) have made similar observations about game design before, perhaps not fair to pick on PD efforts but still agree.

[Shoonay]

Yeah, I know, it is a bit unfair, but this game, with THAT title (Samurai Shodown anyone? )... it's asking for it.
Plus it's so bad it's actually fun.

The full version looks like this, I'll only show things I didn't in the demo.

At the start there's a new screen mentioning things we shouldn't do and who registered it.


Nothing new after that:: decrunching, game info, logo and those dancing breakdancers.

Then there's a new select player screen

In the end we still can only choose those two who already were in the demo, after choosing Miki this info pops up:

SORRY!
BUT I HAVEN'T BEEN PROGRAMMED

Then we wait some more for the identical menu to load and after pressing FIGHT an identical arena loads

The life-meters are still dead, there's no time indicator.

After some kicking my opponent exploded into gibs probably trying to end this shame, I don't know what happend.


There's an extra winner screen at the end


And we can enter our initials at the hiscore table


Nothing new beside that.

BONUS screens showing off special moves:

The long giggle leg of liberty


Special punch that pulls my opponent making him leap behind me


Split-dodge


Torpedo


Second player's moves:

Leg-drill


Superman's cape?


Sword attack

[SyX]

The best thing are the sprite graphics ripped from the speccy version of Fist II