Samurai Shodown

This is a game of very few combos, and matches are often won and lost to single hits

Samurai Shodown is a game in which you think you’re doing okay, then look at your health bar and realize you’re about to die. In this wonderfully attractive and vividly animated game, even light attacks look like they hurt. And they do, to a point. But medium slashes hurt more, and heavies even more than that. Then there are dashing slashes, and counter-hits, and a variety of other ways to increase the damage output of a certain attack. You can spend 40 seconds chipping away at an opponent, playing the match perfectly, at least in conventional fighting-game terms. Two heavy hits later you find yourself fighting for survival.

This is jarring at first, but it’s no bad thing. You’ll learn to recognize when a massive hit has been landed without needing to glance at your health bar; with so many strengths of attack, this is a game that virtually fetishizes hit-pause. When a big hit arrives you can practically stick the kettle on. And once you make the adjustment, you’ll realize that it’s entirely in keeping with the spirit, and intent, of the game. Samurai Shodown is not a game of 100-hit touch-of-death combos. It is a game of purity, of tremendous risk and an enormous reward. It is a game of skill. But moreover, it is a battle of wits, the delicious psychology inherent in the genre brought to the fore. Either you predict what your opponent will do next, or you coach them into doing what you want them to do. Then one of you gets punished, and heavens above do it hurt.