When we learned that Digital Eclipse would be working with SNK to deliver a Samurai Shodown compilation, we
were quite excited – the previous partnership between the two companies, 2018’s SNK 40th Anniversary Collection, was a retro compilation that stood as a great example for any game developer to follow. The good news is that while Samurai Shodown NeoGeo Collection might not offer the same level of variety as that package, it does offer the same level of care and attention for the original games.
As you’ve probably guessed from the name, Samurai Shodown NeoGeo Collection contains all of the Neo Geo MVS games in the series. For the uninitiated, these one-on-one fighters are set in the Edo period of Japanese history and feature fighters loosely based on historical figures as well as wholly original designs. The style of combat in all of the games is based on high-damage strikes, which emphasise careful judgment of range and well-timed blows over speed and combo mastery. This was unique in the Nineties, and remains very unusual today. As you’d expect, the seven games here are fairly similar, with mechanical additions and character roster changes providing the major distinctions between each.