Unless stated, conversions were handled by
Takara.
Game Boy, 1994
Intro is a series of redone static stills, and 'A samurai fears not death' is changed to 'A samurai fears nothing'.
We get every character, intermission, bonus stage and ending, but stages are sparsely populated and frozen in time.
There's no blood, fatalities or speech, but themes are recognisable.
Winning quote is displayed after every round, rather than match.
Has that been done before, like ever?
Portraits are based on original, but Chibi is favoured over realism.
Nice.
As courier guy isn't present, bombs and items fall from the sky. Kuroko's face officiates proceedings between energy bars.
With only two buttons, tapping either brings slash/punch and kick, so strength is determined by length of time button is pressed.
It played kinda decent, but pulling off reduced specials is very difficult.
Archetypal of Nettou series, characters not playable in original release are unlocked after inputting a code.
Pushing Select rapidly 3 times during intro will make Kuroko, courier Hikyaku (the only time he's playable) and Amakusa available, bringing roster to 15.
WOW!
Game Gear, 1994
Intro has falling blossom and scrolling text against black background.
Boring.
Unlike monochrome rival, only 9 characters made it.
Wan-Fu, Earthquake and Tam Tam send their apologies.
Technical and censorship issues remain, but backgrounds are more detailed than Game Boy.
Energy bars have been shifted to the bottom, meaning items aren't dropped from the sky, or anywhere else for that matter.
Controls are the same as Game Boy, but gameplay feels smoother.
Kuroko and bonus stages are absent and endings are reduced to victory portraits (with text).
Portraits reflect arcade (as do intermissions), but there aren't as many.
Amakusa can be played by pushing right three times during Takara logo.
SNES, 1994
32 megs gave things a right old go.
First off, intro text is not spoken, but Haohmaru slicing tree and lanterns in half looks great.
Oh, a samurai 'still' fears nothing.
Scaling effect doesn't take place and instead, screen is 'zoomed out'.
Odd really, as same developer kinda managed it with Art of Fighting.
Complete with pre-fight taunts, sprites aren't too bad, but even smaller than original principle.
Backgrounds lack detail and most are blandly animated, but some rub shoulders with original.
Stages with unique objects that could be cut in half are either gone or moved further back.
Weird.
Every character, intermission, bonus stage and ending are somehow squeezed in, and courier guy occasionally shows up.
Announcer says full names of characters before and after winning a fight, but not after each round.
Begin, Victory and Well Done are spoken, but En Garde, Duel x and Ippon aren't.
Sound effects are few and far between and limited special move speech samples echo.
Music is kinda likeable and supports Dolby Surround.
When respective weapons clash, button mashing prompt is absent.
Gore and fatalities have gone.
Rather bizarrely, Super Fammy version has no blood whatsoever.
WHAT?
To jog memories, SNK recoloured claret white in subsequent North American AES release, which understandably, didn't go down to well.
Pre-fight dialogue is toned down to be less 'threatening'.
Kyoshiro originally said 'Now in this scene, I rip open your belly' but now is 'Now in the scene. You cry like a baby.'
Elsewhere, 'die' is changed to 'fall' and threats to 'kill' are made more harmless.
Umpires no longer carry corpse away in casket and enemy just remains.
It plays okay, but controls are strange.
A/X - Slash (punch with no sword)
B/Y - Kick
L/R - Press at the same time as Slash or Kick for Strong attacks.
Why not just use L or R as respective attack, instead of making things fucking awkward?
Buttons can be reconfigured, but problem remains.
As well as 1P and VS, Count Down involves picking your fave player and bumping off as many opponents as possible within a fixed time limit.
So basically Time Attack.
In 2P, Amakusa can be selected with code.
Mega Drive, Saurus 1994
24 megs rings the changes.
Intro is same as Game Gear, with dialogue censored and throughout.
Earthquake is missing and zoom is locked to large sprites. However, stages are cropped, reducing playing area.
Environments feature precious little animation and suffocated by depressing colour scheme.
Some stages retain unique objects that can be cut in half.
But as whatever are literally placed in line with Kuroko, being able to destroy them defies the laws of science.
Speech is muffled, sound and music are extremely basic and some cut scenes are missing.
Although screen flashing red reduces gore, red blood and being able to slice peeps in half is a conversion first.
Kuroko no longer says names of characters before or after match.
Names are not spoken pre-fight, and there's an odd pause before action and between rounds.
En Garde, Begin, Ippon, Victory and Well Done are spoken, but Duel x isn't.
Delivery guy and all bonus stages are present.
Locking swords displays arcade's button mashing graphic.
Upon winning, victory quote just appears in dialogue box, so no large scale portraits.
Controls are thus:
Classic pad/Arcade Power Stick
A - weak slash/punch
B - medium slash/punch
C - strong slash/punch
And just for kicks.
A+B - weak
B+C - medium
A+C - strong
Like SNES, hardly ideal.
6-button pad/Arcade Power Stick II
X-Z - slashes/punches
A-C - kicks
Much better.
In 2P, Amakusa is already here. Also, we can choose character's strength, stage and frequency of courier guy dropping items.
Showdown (WTF?) replaces SNES's Count Down, which involves choosing 5 characters and last man standing wins.
Mega-CD, Funcom 1995
Head fuck.
All will become 'clear'.
Intro inserts graphics, full speech and uncensored 'A samurai fears not death', but lanterns don't glow.
Victory dialogue is same as arcade.
Earthquake is still anonymous and Amakusa is again immediately playable in 2P.
But in 1P, face is present, but can't be selected (not even with a cheat code).
So why the FUCK is ugly mug even there?
PASS.
Sprites are still locked to large and characters boast more animation and attacks.
There's more gore, but we can't slice people in half. However, blood spurt is here.
Button mashing graphic is missing, but sparks fly when deflecting weapon.
Kuroko and delivery guy are gone, yet items still occasionally drop from the sky.
Full screen victory portraits add class, but during which, backgrounds freeze.
Objects can be sliced in half.
When energy is low, respective bars don't flash like they do in Mega Drive.
Intermissions look much better, but portions of character endings are missing.
Fighters are verbally introduced pre-fight, but then, game awkwardly loads (skipping taunts) and fight begins.
Speaking of 'disc access', this happens... a lot.
En Garde, Duel x, Begin, Ippon and Victory are muted.
Characters have more speech during gameplay, namely when attacking, getting hurt and screaming upon defeat.
Voices suck in general, which is particularly odd, as intro and pre-match speech is clear as day.
Thanks to JVC Music Industries, music is IDENTICAL to arcade.
AI is unbalanced (particularly with only 3 continues) but experience is still reasonably smooth.
2P can no longer be customised and Showdown is gone.
Backgrounds have a more vibrant colour scheme and boast greater detail, but playing area is even smaller.
Nicely, the unique atmosphere of arcade is captured by inserting the crackling of fire (Gen-an), water (Tam Tam), birds chirping (Jubei) and ominous heartbeat of Amakusa (before transition).
When compared to Mega Drive, some settings are just fucking weird.
Galford
Even though there's more crowd and animation, differently coloured water and 'black' ship makes San Francisco seem unfinished.
Gen-an
Candles glow around skulls and cave is more complex.
Nakoruru
Less animals and snow doesn't fall.
Amakusa
After winning a round, stage transforms, but flame geysers are missing. When next round begins, pink smog is static.
On the plus side, Hanzo's sky moves and Wan-Fu's stage rains.
Sega CD, Funcom 1995
Identical in every way to European or Japanese version, but reaching Amakusa causes game to glitch and ultimately crash, giving us no choice but to angrily reset console.
3DO, Crystal Dynamics 1994
According to title screen, SNK handled port in
1993, which is of course BULLSHIT.
For some bizarre reason, Japanese version bears the title of
Samurai Shodown.
I am very confused.
Speech during intro is awesome, but once game begins, it soon becomes obvious that voice samples were recorded inside a fucking tin can.
Music fares better, but far from crystal.
If character has more than one name,
only first name is said.
For example, Yagyu Jubei is just introduced as Jubei.
Oh, Duel 3 isn't spoken.
Sound of Kuroko and chums clapping after bonus stage success is missing.
You could put cutbacks down to system only having 2MB of RAM, but I'm not sure that's even an excuse.
Zoom is jerkier, animation is slower and Hikyaku never passes by.
One more thing:
THERE ARE NO CUT SCENES.
Still, auto zoom coming as standard is a first.
As regular pad only has three buttons, to kick, we hold L or R, then push A, B or C.
FM Towns, Japan Home Video 1995
Like Super SF II: The New Challengers, Japanese exclusive wasn't compatible with the FM Towns Marty or Marty 2, because game demanded 4MB of RAM.
Everything kicks ass, but delivery man is missing.
Why does dude cause such a problem?
Shit certainly isn't black and white, as Config reveals.
2 or 6 button pad
Self-explanatory.
Latter choice refers to either Fujitsu's own beast, or CPS Fighter joystick (assuming you had the adpater).
Zoom
On
Arcade's auto scaling is retained, but frame rate is horrendous.
Samurai Slowdown if you will.
Backgrounds are static until fight begins, extending to victory pose.
Off
Locked to large sprites and display is cropped, but played a whole lot better.
Also, backgrounds never stop.
BG Anime
If disabled, even with zoom on, situation runs smoother.
Predictably, there are no extra modes.
PS1, SNK 1998
Japanese only compilation Samurai Spirits: Kenkaku Yubinan Pack also included an accurate'ish' port of Neo Geo CD version of sequel, initially converted to Japanese Windows 95 PCs in 1996.
Anyway, loading impedes an otherwise perfect translation of Neo CD game.
Once character is chosen, a good 30 seconds must elapse. After pre-fight taunt, it loads again, and awkward pause follows 'En Garde'.
Also, loading is enforced before and after each bonus round and cinematic.
To be fair, it's more frustrating than bad.
We get four modes:
Story, Vs, Training and Classmatch.
Of 'new' mode, it's just Mega Drive's Showdown with a different name.
