I had to work through the weekend, but grabbed the Samurai Shodown demo to play in downtime. It was very frustrating both because of the input lag and the nature of the game - seemingly simple and slow. Determined to learn the game and not be a scrub, I kept at it, and eventually learned the pacing and general strategy.
Hyped to learn new fighting game skills and also support a legendary developer, I bought the game. Upon release, the input lag issues were fixed (frames of lag reduced by half!!), making the game way easier to get into.
However! It also released on "fighting game talk-show night", where a number of respected "Fighting Game Community" members chat about news and events surrounding the games. Samurai Shodown was the topic of the night, and the opinions were, shall we say, razor-edged?
UltraDavid, an esports attorney and popular commentator, repeated certain opinions several times - the game is slow (characters move and attack slowly), every move is "unsafe" (you can't attack without the constant threat of being countered in a big way), and every tool every character has is bad (there is no reason to throw a fireball when a regular slash accomplishes the same thing). His most damning criticism was that if the developers were going to make a simple game with basic strategies, why wouldn't they at east make it fast enough to be enjoyable?
Mike "Danke" Schiller, an outspoken and well-reasoned co-host of the "Best of V Show", said that the game has everything people complain about in new fighting games "in spades". "It's like a game that came out in the 90's, and wasn't necessarily meant to be good, and wasn't necessarily meant to be balanced, and just came out to.. to put a game out there."
That last part really stings, and is something I speak on a bit in my, "Why all fighting games are good" series of blogs. I honestly don't agree, but a lot of these dissenting opinions from reasonable and educated people in the community are really weakening those of the people that have been enjoying it (myself included, but I know practically nothing about fighting games compared to these guys).
Might have to make this a two-parter, to discuss some of the positive opinions and counter-arguments. Also, if I can get any time to actually play the game, I might do a review!
Hyped to learn new fighting game skills and also support a legendary developer, I bought the game. Upon release, the input lag issues were fixed (frames of lag reduced by half!!), making the game way easier to get into.
However! It also released on "fighting game talk-show night", where a number of respected "Fighting Game Community" members chat about news and events surrounding the games. Samurai Shodown was the topic of the night, and the opinions were, shall we say, razor-edged?
UltraDavid, an esports attorney and popular commentator, repeated certain opinions several times - the game is slow (characters move and attack slowly), every move is "unsafe" (you can't attack without the constant threat of being countered in a big way), and every tool every character has is bad (there is no reason to throw a fireball when a regular slash accomplishes the same thing). His most damning criticism was that if the developers were going to make a simple game with basic strategies, why wouldn't they at east make it fast enough to be enjoyable?
Mike "Danke" Schiller, an outspoken and well-reasoned co-host of the "Best of V Show", said that the game has everything people complain about in new fighting games "in spades". "It's like a game that came out in the 90's, and wasn't necessarily meant to be good, and wasn't necessarily meant to be balanced, and just came out to.. to put a game out there."
That last part really stings, and is something I speak on a bit in my, "Why all fighting games are good" series of blogs. I honestly don't agree, but a lot of these dissenting opinions from reasonable and educated people in the community are really weakening those of the people that have been enjoying it (myself included, but I know practically nothing about fighting games compared to these guys).
Might have to make this a two-parter, to discuss some of the positive opinions and counter-arguments. Also, if I can get any time to actually play the game, I might do a review!
