Samurai Shodown Sen

Although Sen's character designs and animations are far better than anything the Neo Geo 64 ever coughed up, this 3D transition is still infinitely less impressive than Street Fighter IV. Many of the characters look bulbous and disproportionate, and when you see Galford, an American ninja who's been with Samurai Shodown since the very beginning, you wonder how SNK went from his charismatic select-screen portrait to his completely wooden in-game portrayal.

The general feeling of the game is a mesh between the early Soul games and Bushido Blade; although Sen doesn't have realistic damage, by ending a two-round match with a heavy slash it's possible to dismember your opponent's hand, fatally slice them in half or, if you time a horizontal slash particularly well, even decapitate them. That said, when Haohmaru follows up a fatality with a win quote like "That's... what I'm talking about!", you may wish SNK had added a Seppuku option as well.

But as different a Samurai Shodown as this is, the inclusion of the classic POW gauge at least helps to retain some of the classic appeal. In Sen it gradually fills as you take damage, and then once maxed, pressing all four buttons puts you into a powered up state complete with an angry red aura. Whilst enraged, you can also perform your character's Super move, which in most cases is a preset multi-hit combo, none of which are particularly noteworthy.

The available stages are a generic mix of tavern interiors, desert marketplaces and cherry-blossom-infested gardens, which despite numbering 21 bland locations, include five variation arenas which are set at night. None of them have any bearing on the gameplay either, as each one is nothing more than a differently decorated square accommodating the ability to bash your opponent against the wall and an awkward sidestepping mechanic. The interestingly titled Kokain Gate also turned out to be a mild disappointment.

In terms of features, at least, Sen does a slightly better job than The King of Fighters XII by including Versus, Practice and Survival modes, as well as replay save options. Each character also gets a Story mode: the player must battle through a set number of opponents before facing off against sub-boss Draco. This hateful cowboy assassin is spectacularly cheap and comes with a range of shotgun moves that can decimate you in seconds. Nonetheless, finally lopping off his trigger hand is fairly satisfying.

After this cheese-fest, you'd probably expect the game to end with a kind of mobile steam fortress, or going by Samurai Shodown's history, some manner of cataclysmic demon, but here SNK have reigned in the stupid with a hard, but fair, showdown against the sabre-wielding Golba. His moveset is quick and highly damaging, but with carefully timed sidesteps and heavy slashes, a cheap counter-victory is achievable.

After beating Golba 24 times with all the characters, the only thing left to do is check out the online mode. Now I've heard that the Samurai Shodown Sen online experience isn't all that bad, at least in terms of stable netcode, but after many attempts to find a Player or Ranked match spread across three days, I've yet to find a single opponent. It's also telling that on the online leaderboards, from rank 107 to 171, each player has won exactly 100 matches - the number required to earn a certain 60-point Achievement.

Although Sen is a solid and playable weapon-based fighter, it's surpassed in every conceivable way by just about every other game on the market - whether by the 2D likes of Street Fighter IV and BlazBlue, or the 3D likes of Soul Calibur IV and Tekken 6. It's shortcomings are twofold, because not only is it noticeably dated both in how it looks and plays, but it also estranges itself from the Samurai Shodown diehards who loved the flow and character of the original 2D games.