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Hmm... Samurai Showdown... If i recall, didn't they cut out certain content when they brought it over?

Welcome back, today I'll be reviewing Samurai Shodown, another SNK fighting game.







The original Samurai Shodown lets you play as twelve characters - Haohmaru, Galford, Hattori Hanzo, Tam Tam, Ukyo, Charlotte, Wan-Fu, Gen-an, Nakoruru, Jubei, and Earthquake. The story revolves around Haohmaru and the other characters traveling around the world to stop the demon sorcerer Amakusa (the final boss), recently revived by the demon king to shroud the world in darkness.

Samurai Shodown utilizes a four-button input control scheme- one for weak slashes, which are quick but causes minimal damage, and a second for medium slashes, which are more powerful, but somewhat slower. Combining the two buttons simultaneously results in a powerful, single strike that deprives the enemy of a rather large amount of their life and cab end the battle rather quickly, just like real life. If you end a match with a fierce slash, you can potentially strike an artery, causing a fountain of blood, or cut them right in half, causing them to (oddly enough) explode in a mess of bonus coins. But the game's not easy. SNK is pretty much infamous for its difficult CPU's and Samurai Shodown is a perfect representation of this. The computer never lets up on you, even on the lower difficulty levels. It also learns your patterns if you take to repeating battle maneuvers, so staying unpredictable is an absolute must. The remaining duos of buttons are used for kicks, weak and strong. Kicks can be combined into a single input to make a powerful kick, like the slash attacks, and are often utilized to take an enemy off guard or make an opening in defense. You can run by double tapping forward, and leap backward by double tapping back. This pacing is really what makes Samurai Shodown unique.

There aren't really any super moves in the first Samurai Shodown, Rather, as you take and receive damage, the POW meter at the bottom of the screen fills up, and your character slowly turns bright red. When the POW hits max, their attacks are more powerful. Occasionally, the characters can lock weapons, and only by mashing buttons can you escape. If you manage to completely overpower your foe, they temporarily lose their weapon and need to retrieve it. And it's actually possible to destroy your opponent's weapon, if you do it right. Even if you're unarmed, you can catch your opponent's sword with your hands and toss them backwards.

Overall, I'd give Samurai Showdown a 8/10. It's an amazing fighting game, but it does have better sequels.

This is great, Glad Mephisto D didn't loose his temper with me and agreed to literally show me the way to this place, but it is rather unorganized...

Now I gotta get on finding someone to interview... or at least try for more game footage...

If I do a game review, I can try my hand at doing one on uncommon games, like games that were released in Japan, like Mother 3. You two have the other fields covered, hands down! smile

Im in the house!

Welcome back, today I'm going to be reviewing the gameboy game Kirby's Dream Land.



1992 saw the debut of everyone's favorite a** kicking pink (well, black and white at the time) puffball with the release of Kirby's Dream Land. It was a platformer made by Hal Labs.

You play as Kirby, a resident of Dream Land who is out to retrieve all the food that King Dedede stole from everyone, but what can Kirby do to stop this king? Well, Kirby is equipped with the ability to inhale enemies and either swallow them, or spit them out as stars which make for a projectile attack. He can also fly! While in flight also, he can spit out puffs of air as another projectile attack, however this doesn't have as much range as the spit projectile. The controls are very solid, nothing is forced. A is jump, B is inhale, pressing b again while having an enemy inhaled will cause Kirby to spit the enemy out, while pressing down will swallow. The directional pad is for movement, holding up will cause Kirby to fly for an indefinite period of time. There are a few power ups in the game, one is invincibility, and the other two are both fireball power ups, which allow Kirby to shoot out a barrage of fireballs for a short amount of time, one while in his normal state and the other during flight. There are a few items in this game, a max tomato which restores all life, a bottle which restores 2 health points, and a 1up. Kirby will go through 5 stages which are Green Greens, Castle Lololo , Float Islands, Bubbly Clouds, and finally Mt. DeDeDe. I'm going to do a mini description of the levels and their bosses.



Green Greens is a forest, it also has one of the most well known songs in the Dream Land soundtrack. The boss is Whispy Woods, a giant apple tree that attacks by dropping apples and blowing wind. He's pretty much a pushover. you can stand right next to him and simply duck for the wind attack, and then just inhale and spit them back out at him. You can take him out after 2 wind attacks easily.



Next step is Castle Lololo, which is pretty much self explanatory. It's a giant castle, which features a cameo appearance of Lololo and Lalala from their own game The Adventures of Lolo. Basically, all they do is push boxes into doors through narrow pathways, and you pretty much have to get behind them, absorb the box, and hit them with it.



Next we have Float Islands. It looks like an island paradise, but has a lot of enemies hanging around. The boss here is a blimp with a canon on it. To fight him, you get a special powerup only seen twice in the game. It's a leaf that has Kirby is a state of flight only mode and he shoots a lot of projectiles. So basically just fly, shoot, and avoid the blimps attacks and you should be good. He does have a high health bar, the second highest in the game next to King Dedede's.



We're getting close to the final level, but before doing that, we have to travel through bubbly clouds, which is a sky level. For the mid-boss you face Kracko, but not in his full form, simply as the eye. He'll shoot some kind of projectile out of his eye and charge towards you, dodge him, and when he sends out waddle dees just inhale and spit them at him 3 times and he's done. After finally reaching the boss Kracko returns, this time in his full cloudy self. He has his charging attack, a beam attack, and he spits out waddle dees again...basically have the same strategy and he's pretty much yours.



Finally we arrive to Mt. Dedede, where I believe Hal took a page out of Capcom's book, because you have to face the bosses again, but you go through mini variations of the last 4 levels, and in order to pass you have to touch a Kirby model doing some type of pose. After beating the four bosses again, it's time to fight Dedede. You enter through that picture of him on the wall, where you will now see yourself in some type of fighting ring. Dedede is really the only character that will provide some type of challenge, although this is mainly if you are reckless. Dedede has 3 basic attacks, he can inhale/exhale you, use his hammer which will create a star for you to inhale and spit at him, and a jumping attack which will also create two stars on either side of him for you to inhale and spit at him. He has a large health bar, but just dodge and spit and he's pretty much done. When he's defeated he'll go flying out of the castle and Kirby will make himself grow very very large and release all the food from the castle and fly away with it.

After the credits, a screen will come up showing a code you can input for a hard mode which is up, a, and select at the same time at the title screen. Down, select, and b will get you an options screen which will allow you to increase your health and the amount of lives you start off with, although you really don't need to do this because the game is pretty easy.

This game was before Kirby's copy ability, so you are only able to use your inhale/exhale attack. Although there is a lack of copy mode, which is very popular and makes Kirby unique (once again I think Hal Labs was taking pages out of Capcom) the game is still very good for a sit and play type game. Kirby is never meant to have a deep meaningful plot, it's not meant for long hours gameplay. It's meant for what most games back then were about, short burst action and fun. That's all you could really ask out of Kirby. I'm going to give this game a 9/10. I'd give it the full 10 if it had maybe 1 or 2 more levels, but for what it is, it is a very fun experience.

I recorded a playthrough of Kirby's Dream Land and uploaded it to youtube, however my playthrough is accompanied by music. It's in 3 parts, so I'll link to all 3. Feel free to subscribe to my channel and watch my other videos also:

Part 1
http://youtube.com/watch?v=dGuPpC4qVYE

Part 2
http://youtube.com/watch?v=VndFhIiq8QU&feature=related

Part 3
http://youtube.com/watch?v=wL-T0rENJMs&watch_response

Anyway, that's it for this review, I hope you enjoy the videos, and take care.