Samurai Shodown Sen

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Samurai Shodown Sen
An almost pathetic end to a classic franchise.
Genre(s): Fighting Platform(s): Arcade Xbox 360 Release Date: 2008 (Arcade) 2009 (Consoles in Japan) 2010 (Consoles in America) Developer(s): SNK Publisher(s): SNK Xseed Rising Star Games Series: Samurai Shodown Predecessor: Samurai Shodown VI Successor: Samurai Shodown (2019)

Samurai Shodown Sen (or Edge of Destiny in Japan) is the eleventh and last game in the Samurai Shodown series until 2019, which is also considered the worst of the franchise, though Warrior's Rage for the Playstation is considered to be much worse by some people.

Why It Sucks

1. The gameplay barely feels like Samurai Shodown; there are no supers or any special moves like projectiles or energy attacks. It feels more like it was in a limbo between a 2D and a 3D fighter.
2. Due to this, none of the old characters from the franchise work like they used to.
3. The new characters, apart from Suzu, are extremely boring and generic.
4. The graphics are horrendous: It looks like a PS2 game. This is especially unacceptable considered that it was originally released in Taito Type X board.
5. The lighting is awful, and the models look dreadful. The artwork is the only thing that looks good.
6. Too little game modes.
7. Horrible English translation.
8. Mediocre sound design.
9. Barely any story or something that contributes to the lore of the franchise. In fact, it removes all the supernatural elements that were part of the story of previous games.
10. The controls are extremely broken. Complex tactics and combos barely work, special moves are insanely hard to pull off, blocking is hard, and you need it; side stepping is stiff as hell and results in jumping most of the time.
11. Atrocious AI, it never stops attacking you, yet it's completely incompetent to deal against certain situations like avoiding strong slashes on a certain distance.
12. Even if combos worked the heavy slash does as much damage as the best combo you can do.
13. Tasteless and lame fatality moves.
14. Even if the game worked, the combat is pretty slow.
15. The game doesn't indicate you if you do the weapon flip techniques correctly like Samurai Shodown 2.
16. The bosses, Golba and Draco, are pale in terms of design and abilities compared to the other boss characters of the franchise.
    • Golba is insanely fast, has a move that that can take half of your life and blocks everything.
    • Draco is an abomination; he uses a gun, of all things, and he can spam it nonstop and since side stepping almost never works, he's a nightmare to defeat him thanks to this. However, if you use him, you can basically do infinites with one button.
17. There is an extremely easy exploit in the game where you can just spam throws; if an enemy gets free from one, he doesn't get enough distance from you, so you can just try again to throw him until it works. If you evade comeback attacks, you can repeat the process until the enemy is dead. This even works with Golba and Draco!
18. You cannot use Golba and Draco in the Story mode (aka Arcade mode).
19. It was censored in Japan for unknown reasons whereas the rest of the world have the uncensored version.
20. It nearly killed the Samurai Shodown series until they rebooted the Samurai Shodown games in 2019 but kept going with mobile games.

Redeeming Qualities

1. It has an okay soundtrack.
2. As mentioned above, the artwork looks pretty good.
3. The veteran characters have new moves.
4. Despite of being undeveloped, the story has some interesting details for some characters
   • Rimururu acts brave and mature in absence of her sister instead of being childish and weak.
   • Galford tries to avenge the death of his father by confronting Draco.
   • Wan-Fu story is about saving his son life instead of something related to his country like in his other apperances.
5. The voice acting is okay.

Trivia

• Suzuhime was voted as one of the best arcade characters in Arcadia's Arcade Game of the Year 2008 Awards. She was also voted and placed in seventh in Dengeki Online's Samurai Shodown (2019) Most Wanted DLC Character Poll.
• The Quarter Guy named this game as the most disappointing game he's ever played.

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