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I was wondering if it is fun.
how about a mini review anyone?

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I was wondering if it is fun.
how about a mini review anyone?


It's very bad. The only good thing about it is that the characters have decent stories. Really, I'm a big Samurai Shodown fan and I returned the game the day after I bought it.

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The Samurai Spirits 64 Arcade game is a GOOD game, and it has no relations to the Playstation game at all. None of the characters are the same.

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The Samurai Spirits 64 Arcade game is a GOOD game, and it has no relations to the Playstation game at all. None of the characters are the same. If you want to see some movies of the arcade one my friend and I captured, contact me on ICQ... they're completely different games.

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I was wondering if it is fun.
how about a mini review anyone?

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[this message was edited by Toxico on Thu 6 Jun 18:56]

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Yes, you can get HNG boards and games for fairly cheap. You don't need a cabinet, though. Shoot for one of these: Link Here

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> The Samurai Spirits 64 Arcade game is a GOOD game, and it has no relations to the Playstation game at all. None of the characters are the same. If you want to see some movies of the arcade one my friend and I captured, contact me on ICQ... they're completely different games.

Completely different, and both completely crappy. I'd like to know what alternate-reality of SS64 *you* played, because the one *I* played was awful is just about every conceivable way: Awful graphics, awful framerate, awful control, awful hit-detection, awful gameplay. OKay, the artwork was really cool. Everything else was ass.

I never played SS64 II. All I heard was that it was *slighly* better than its predecessor, which doesn't say much.

> Oh really? I have never played the PSX game, I figured it was a port of the Hyper 64 game.

The PSX 3D SS game is New Chapter of Blade, aka Warrior's Rage II. Warrior's Rage I is SS 64 II. So the PSX game is a pseudo-sequel to the second arcade 3D SS game, not a port. It also did the impossible by being *worse* than SS64!

Whoever buys a HyperNeoGeo for the 5 or 6 pieces of shit games that are on it... well, you have more money than me I guess.

> Either way, I was severly unimpressed with the one I played, but I didn't give it much time.

As well as you should be.

Come to think of it, the only really good SS games are SS1 and SS2 (not counting the handheld versions). All the others had their varying degress of shittiness.

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Come on Ultima be nice, you really dont have to only show up only to act like a butt monkey. It's not like we are gonna eat you or something.

Have a nice day.

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rugaLbernstein,dont bother trying to convince the ignorent that the SS64 games were good.Let them continue being fools.Atleast we,the samurai shodown elite,know the truth of the matter.We are blessed above most other samurai shodown fans as is any samurai shodown fan that realized the greatness of the SS64 games.

it stems from ignorence really.They stick in a quarter or two and think they know how the game is and then form an opinion without actually understanding the games.Their loss.free will is wasted on them.

If ever snk decided to translate them for a console system,then everybody will see what the few and the proud already know about the SS64 games and these ignorent fools will have to eat their words as droves upon droves of old school samurai shodown fans finally get to play them.And wont they be surprised ^__^

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[this message was edited by HIDDEN WARRIOR on Sun 9 Jun 13:36]

[this message was edited by RugalBernstein on Mon 10 Jun 17:30]

[this message was edited by RugalBernstein on Tue 11 Jun 09:04]

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To RugalBernstein:

This is a public forum. I have every right to not only post my opinion, but comment on those of others. Those who hide behind such nonsense as "it's my opinion, therefore you can't attack it" is living in a world of ignorance.

Now, I don't remember actually insulting anybody. Go back to your alternate reality where games like SS64 are somehow considered something other than "rubbish". The only good thing about SS64 (besides the art) is that it actually made SS3's gameplay look good.

Concerning your ownership of a HNG board, good for you. I'm glad to know you have money to burn. Most of us aren't that fortunate to waste money on hardware no one gives a shit about.

You like SS4? Well, it's kinda fun, as long as you *don't* know what you're doing. Then it gets really stupid. But even then, I find the game dull.

YOu're the first person I've ever heard who doesn't like SS2. Either a) you're too young to have played it when it first came out to understand its greatness, b) you've gotten you ass mudhole-stomped by better players and don't like it because you can't win, or c) in that freaky alternate reality you live in SS2 is somehow a worse game than SS4 (I assure you that such is NOT the case in the normal universe). Or perhaps it's d) all of the above.

To Hidden Warrior:

"Samurai Shodown elite"..? "Greatness of SS64 games"..? BWA HA HA HA HA HA..! That's hilarious stuff man. Keep it up.

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Maybe between the two of you, you can come up with a well-thought out, rational argument that isn't 90% filler.

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[this message was edited by RugalBernstein on Tue 11 Jun 20:59]

[this message was edited by Rid Hershel on Tue 11 Jun 20:42]

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No offense, but could you delete this topic? It's the only way to stop this pointless discussion...

Thanks.

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[5 or so paragraphs of useless pontficating deleted]

> SS2 was no where near perfect.The amount of work it took snk to make SS2 was less then the hard work obviously put into SS3.

Debatable. BUt even so, that doesn't mean that the final product was shoddy as hell. Capcom put more effort into Super Sf2 than HF, but SSF2 was a much worse product.

> Till this day,3 still has the best backgrounds.

Irrelevent. I'm really only concerned about gameplay.

However, if you want to argue asthetics, I thought SS2's backgrounds were vastly superior. They weren't as colourful, but they were better designed and had far more interesting background elements. The SS3 backgrounds are pretty but empty.

Continuing with aesthetics, I prefer SS2 sprite artwork to SS3's. I also prefer all the sound-effects in SS2. This is ll quite subjective, so I'll stop here.

> What causes SS2 to fall from your delusional grace is its horrible gameplay. SS2 was mostly defense oriented. There was no overhead attacks,no switch sides move. It really had nothing to deter turtle players to dominate.

You're right in that it was defensive-oriented. That's how the game was designed. There was nothing wrong it. The game was conceived to be very patient and strategic. You ever see any of the "Samurai" movies? The ending fight between Musashi and Kojiro (the two characters whom Haohmaru and Ukyo are based on) is what SS1/SS2 tried to emulate - two highly skilled opponents trying to find the slightest opening and taking the fullest advantage of it.

However, with the possible exception of turtle Ukyo, who just plain unstoppable, there were ways of characters to get in on others. Characters like Gen-an, Charlotte, Kyoshiro, Galford, Hanzo, and Cham Cham were good at forcing mistakes. Dash -> throw is one of the most powerful techniques in the game.

> It had useless standard moves for its game system. Where to begin. The small hop(B+C_ was near useless.

True. It was the predecessor to the short-jump, which was better implented in the KoF series.

> SNK saw this error and turned those into the overhead attacks that are in 3 and 4.

I think it was more a pre-cursor to the short jump myself, but the universal overhead is an equal possibility. The overheads were a good idea, but the universal-ness helped homogenize SS3 (more on this later).

> Then theres the dodge move.A good idea but badly implemented. Down down was lacking in the initiative department and had to be 'dumb-downed'.

Huh? Are you saying they were dumbed down in SS2?

Dodges had little effect on SS2's gameplay. I didn't see this as a bad thing, actually. Dodges are for people who don't like to think how to set-up/avoid moves.

> Of course snk realized this and did make them easier to do by 3.

Now here is where they were indeed "dumbed down" by making them stupidly easy to do and overpowered. The dodges were superfluous in SS2, but at least they didn't cause Ukyo to do [dodge/side-step] -> 50% damage dizzy combos.

> Then their are those useless dash and roll combinations. Snk realized that rolls ruined he gameplay and had to take them out immediatly. Its no fluke their gone,and their gone for good.

And yet, rolls returned (in much better form) in the KoF series. So much for that theory.

And in fact, they were modified from SS2 because they were too *good*, not because they were useless. Dashing at someone, rolling through their counter-attack, and then throwing them was quite insidious. Great against turtles (though you could reverse throw if you timed it right). What were you saying about turtles again?

> Snk saw there usefulness in the kof series.They did NOT belong in samurai shodown.

Why not?

> Lets see how many dash and roll combinations that I can remember that sucked.b=back,db-down back,f=forward,df=down forward

> b,b,df-USELESS!

True. It's the pre-cursor to backroll. It had to start somewhere.

> b,b,f-practically USELESS

Decent fake-out. Good for dashing out of the way of an attack/jump-in, then running in for a throw.

> f,f,df-USELESS!

See above. Dash, roll through attack, throw. Good stuff. Made Galford/Hanzo really dangerous with dash -> roll -> SPD.

> f,f,db=USELESS!!
> b,b,db=USELESS!!

I'll agree with these two.

> IS IT ANY WONDER THIS GARBAGE IS GONE?!HELLO?!Mcfly?!

PLease. All you've stated is that some of the other features of the game weren't that great. Since these features had little to no effect on the solid core gameplay, they really do nothing for your argument.

> The combo system was VERY unbalanced. Some charecters were favored. Remember the cruch AB into kogetsuzan? Talk about unfair.

Why was it unfair? Haohmaru's low AB was slow was hell. Your opponent had to do a GIGANTIC mistake for you to land it.

> Hahmaru could even go into his multi hitting kogetsuzan secret move.

Yeah. This took actual skill to pull off, and again, your opponent had to make a gigantic mistake to pull it off.

Compare this to, say, a Nakoruru ToD in SS3: Low AB, AB Lela-Mutsube. 5 or 6 hits, 50% damage and a dizzy. Only you didn' have as good a defense in SS3, so it was a lot easier to pull off more often. This is progress?

You're right in that the combo system didn't favour everybody equally. But what game does this? In every game, there's ALWAYS going to be someone with better combos than others. You have no point here.

> Thank god he could only cancel from a crouch AB in SS2.

*shrug* If you want damage, he could do more reliable damage with jumping CD, far standing AB. But who used to jump forward in SS2?

Also, technically he could cancel off other moves in SS2: low A, low C, standing C. The thing was that his specials were too slow too connect after them.

> That little combo had a 50% of a redizzy.

As opposed to 100% chance of redizzy for Nakky in SS3.

I've never seen that combo redizzy, BTW. Dizzy yes, but again, your opponent would have to hav made one colossal fuck up fo you to land it on a non-dizzy opponent.

> The overrall combo system was really sad. Hardly any two-in-ones/cancels.

It had quite a few links though. Haohmaru's low c, low B and Galford/Hanzo's low C, low C, standing B were great.

I agree with the 2-in-1s. BUt SS was not designed originally to be a combo-intenstive game. They forced that issue in SS3, and the results were disastrous IMO.

> Most combos werre about 'jumping hard slash into standing hard slash'This meant that scrubs could rock in this game.

You must be joking. SS2 is very scrub UNFRIENDLY game. Hell, the only character who could jump freely was Ukyo. I'd like to see you pull off jumping AB, crouching Ab against competition who's awake. I mean, what's to stop me from blocking it? Walking/dashing underneathe and hitting you from behind? Dashing back then running in and throwing you when you land? You have no idea what you're talking about.

> Worse of all was that annoying huge slowdown which occured after a deep jumping hard slash.

The enormous hit stun was to prevent potential repeat abuse of the moves that did a lot of damage, and to give the attacked opponent some breathing room. In addition, it was meant to show the severity of the hit. When you hit someone with a full on staning AB with Genjuro in SS2, that thing looked like it HURT. You just don't get this impression in SS3/SS4.

> That crap snk took care of by 3.Thank god!

It took away from the style. And if SS3 had SS2 type hit-stun, it would probably had had a lot fewer ToD combos.

> basically you had to play like SS1 cause all that new stuff(rolls,dash roll combos,low hop etc.) was badly implimented in SS2.

In a sense. As I said, SS2 was a near perfect refinement of SS1, improving on it in all areas. But the badly implemented stuff in SS2 didn't detract from the gameplay, as oppose to all the crap in SS3 which helped make it worse.

> Anyone who says they loved the SS2 gameplay really loves the SS1 gameplay.

And this is a bad thing?

> What the hell was a referee doing?!Do you think he can stop mizuki from killing you just cause you beat her on time out?! It was sucxh a silly consept that snk decided to throw away kuroko.

Actually, they did away with Kuroko because they were lazy. It's the same reason why they had the lazy static backgrounds, and why instead of designing more new characters, they took old characters, added a number of special moves, and split them in two. It's also why they reduced the number of moves per character, and had fewer characters in SS3 than in SS2 (they had more frames of animation, but I think the total artwork for SS2's 15 characters is greater than SS3's 11 - someone feel free to prove me wrong there).

Also: You can beat Zankuro by time out as well. As well as in every other fighitng game with a timer. Are all other fighitng games (including SS3) silly now?

> Afterall,the samujrai shodown series isnt a tournemt.TAheir is no need for a ref.Its an oversite that snk fixed by 3.

Laziness. The referee was one of the most unique and original aspects to SS1/2. It's not my fault if you didn't understand his historical and cultural significance (for those who don't know, he's from Kabuki theatre, and you're supposed to pretend he's not there; if the game has a fighting kabuki, there's no reason why they can't have the kabuki theatre black stage-hand as a referee). And even so, Kuroko is STILL in the game, only now instead of being a really badass hidden boss with his own moves (even if most of them are ripped off rom other SNK characters), he now morphs into your own character. MORE laziness on SNK's part.

> Another gameplay flaw both 2 and 3 shared was the random bomb/food tossing by the edo express delivewry man.In a heated game of skill vs. skil,their was no need for random luck based advabtage.

It was part of the game. Another part of its uniqueness. Same thing with the random bombs and the random damage modifiers (why sometimes a brutal hard slash would do more [or occasionally less] damage than normal). I would hardly call it a gameplay flaw, since it didn't detract from either game's core gameplay. Against skilled competition, you could win maybe ONE match out of 100 due to the "luck" of getting a lot of meat.

> All your left you do was play SS2 like SS1 but with new moves,doll moves and super arts.

The doll moves and supers were kinda superfluous as well, actually. They added to the strategy, but I can't think of anyone who had a relly *great* super, since most of them were generally so easy to block. You could do a couple pixels of free damage with Haohmaru's and Charlotte's, but that's about it. Still, they had the purpose of breaking an opponent's weapon, putting your opponent (except for Galford and maybe Hanzo) at a severe disadvantage, making them quite worthwhile to pull off. Compare this to supers in SS3, which were nothing more than combo enders. Yeah, you made your opponent lose your weapon (a strategic element that was lost in SS4), but aside from combos, there was no *real* reward for pulling them off, since normal moves did SO much damage. Why do I need a 50% damage super when one combo, or occasionally one good C hit will do the trick?

Now, try and defend SS3's implementation of air-blocking, by far the WORST example of air-blocking ever implemented. IIRC, You could air EVERYTHING, no questions asked. Talk about mindless jumping. Furthermore, you could counter-attack after air-blocking. Thi characters with air-throws a nasty option select: If your opponent jumps, jump at them holding back. If they do nothing, air throw. If hey attack, air-block, then hit C. Free damage for you either way. Absolutely stupid. SNK couldn't get rid of this fast enough.

Then there was the individual character tactics. Never have I seen a game like SS3 in which just about every character seemed to have some really DUMB tactics that worked(though I guess CvS2 comes close). From Haohmaru's 2 hit death, to [Slash] Nakoruru's re-dizzies and unstoppable rushdown and free jumps, to Bust Ukyo side-step 50% damage ToDs, to Gaira's "strategy" of "block everything, hit C", it was just a big mess.

Add to that the overall INSANE damage control, the unnecessarily fast timer (10 seconds left in SS2 was a lifetime; 20 seconds left in SS3 means the round is over) and he really lame guard-crush. What was wrong with throws? SS1/SS2 had some of the coolest throws ever, and they were quite good in SS2. Why did they get rid of them? Probably to appease some throw-whining scrubs - didn't KI1 (proof of why listening to scrubs when making a game is a VERY BAD IDEA) come out somewhere around this time? And yet, we got guard-crushed that, against some characters, left you open to free 35% damage low C. Who thought that this was a GOOD idea?

Plus, the new control scheme blows. Kicks were useful and strategic in SS2. Kicks were an after thought in SS3+. I'm sure you'll counter with the incredibly predictable "but it's a WEAPONS game and they should be using weapons", but their was balance in SS1/2. You used kicks for positioning and harassing, and you used the slashes for big damage. Changing the button scheme reduced the moveset for every character (laziness), and it dumbed down the gameplay.

SS3 was lacking in the gameplay department no matter how you look at it. It had some good ideas (like the overheads, though I would have preferred unique overheads for every character), and it did improve on SS2 in a few areas (faster game speed and slightly better control), but the GIGANTIC flaws pretty ruined the game. These flaws were (mostly) corrected in SS4, but they didn't bring back any of the stuff that made SS2 so good. SS4 has its own problems, which I won't go into at this point. This post is long enouh already.

Anyway, I'm glad you went into the actual gameplay aspects of the game. Too bad you were about 95% wrong, but it's a start. Now if you can lay off the initial posturing that no one (inclduing me) gives a shit about, maybe we can get somewhere.

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[5 or so paragraphs of useless pontficating deleted]

> SS2 was no where near perfect.The amount of work it took snk to make SS2 was less then the hard work obviously put into SS3.

Debatable. BUt even so, that doesn't mean that the final product was shoddy as hell. Capcom put more effort into Super Sf2 than HF, but SSF2 was a much worse product.

> Till this day,3 still has the best backgrounds.

Irrelevent. I'm really only concerned about gameplay.

However, if you want to argue asthetics, I thought SS2's backgrounds were vastly superior. They weren't as colourful, but they were better designed and had far more interesting background elements. The SS3 backgrounds are pretty but empty.

Continuing with aesthetics, I prefer SS2 sprite artwork to SS3's. I also prefer all the sound-effects in SS2. This is ll quite subjective, so I'll stop here.

> What causes SS2 to fall from your delusional grace is its horrible gameplay. SS2 was mostly defense oriented. There was no overhead attacks,no switch sides move. It really had nothing to deter turtle players to dominate.

You're right in that it was defensive-oriented. That's how the game was designed. There was nothing wrong it. The game was conceived to be very patient and strategic. You ever see any of the "Samurai" movies? The ending fight between Musashi and Kojiro (the two characters whom Haohmaru and Ukyo are based on) is what SS1/SS2 tried to emulate - two highly skilled opponents trying to find the slightest opening and taking the fullest advantage of it.

However, with the possible exception of turtle Ukyo, who just plain unstoppable, there were ways of characters to get in on others. Characters like Gen-an, Charlotte, Kyoshiro, Galford, Hanzo, and Cham Cham were good at forcing mistakes. Dash -> throw is one of the most powerful techniques in the game.

> It had useless standard moves for its game system. Where to begin. The small hop(B+C_ was near useless.

True. It was the predecessor to the short-jump, which was better implented in the KoF series.

> SNK saw this error and turned those into the overhead attacks that are in 3 and 4.

I think it was more a pre-cursor to the short jump myself, but the universal overhead is an equal possibility. The overheads were a good idea, but the universal-ness helped homogenize SS3 (more on this later).

> Then theres the dodge move.A good idea but badly implemented. Down down was lacking in the initiative department and had to be 'dumb-downed'.

Huh? Are you saying they were dumbed down in SS2?

Dodges had little effect on SS2's gameplay. I didn't see this as a bad thing, actually. Dodges are for people who don't like to think how to set-up/avoid moves.

> Of course snk realized this and did make them easier to do by 3.

Now here is where they were indeed "dumbed down" by making them stupidly easy to do and overpowered. The dodges were superfluous in SS2, but at least they didn't cause Ukyo to do [dodge/side-step] -> 50% damage dizzy combos.

> Then their are those useless dash and roll combinations. Snk realized that rolls ruined he gameplay and had to take them out immediatly. Its no fluke their gone,and their gone for good.

And yet, rolls returned (in much better form) in the KoF series. So much for that theory.

And in fact, they were modified from SS2 because they were too *good*, not because they were useless. Dashing at someone, rolling through their counter-attack, and then throwing them was quite insidious. Great against turtles (though you could reverse throw if you timed it right). What were you saying about turtles again?

> Snk saw there usefulness in the kof series.They did NOT belong in samurai shodown.

Why not?

> Lets see how many dash and roll combinations that I can remember that sucked.b=back,db-down back,f=forward,df=down forward

> b,b,df-USELESS!

True. It's the pre-cursor to backroll. It had to start somewhere.

> b,b,f-practically USELESS

Decent fake-out. Good for dashing out of the way of an attack/jump-in, then running in for a throw.

> f,f,df-USELESS!

See above. Dash, roll through attack, throw. Good stuff. Made Galford/Hanzo really dangerous with dash -> roll -> SPD.

> f,f,db=USELESS!!
> b,b,db=USELESS!!

I'll agree with these two.

> IS IT ANY WONDER THIS GARBAGE IS GONE?!HELLO?!Mcfly?!

PLease. All you've stated is that some of the other features of the game weren't that great. Since these features had little to no effect on the solid core gameplay, they really do nothing for your argument.

> The combo system was VERY unbalanced. Some charecters were favored. Remember the cruch AB into kogetsuzan? Talk about unfair.

Why was it unfair? Haohmaru's low AB was slow was hell. Your opponent had to do a GIGANTIC mistake for you to land it.

> Hahmaru could even go into his multi hitting kogetsuzan secret move.

Yeah. This took actual skill to pull off, and again, your opponent had to make a gigantic mistake to pull it off.

Compare this to, say, a Nakoruru ToD in SS3: Low AB, AB Lela-Mutsube. 5 or 6 hits, 50% damage and a dizzy. Only you didn' have as good a defense in SS3, so it was a lot easier to pull off more often. This is progress?

You're right in that the combo system didn't favour everybody equally. But what game does this? In every game, there's ALWAYS going to be someone with better combos than others. You have no point here.

> Thank god he could only cancel from a crouch AB in SS2.

*shrug* If you want damage, he could do more reliable damage with jumping CD, far standing AB. But who used to jump forward in SS2?

Also, technically he could cancel off other moves in SS2: low A, low C, standing C. The thing was that his specials were too slow too connect after them.

> That little combo had a 50% of a redizzy.

As opposed to 100% chance of redizzy for Nakky in SS3.

I've never seen that combo redizzy, BTW. Dizzy yes, but again, your opponent would have to hav made one colossal fuck up fo you to land it on a non-dizzy opponent.

> The overrall combo system was really sad. Hardly any two-in-ones/cancels.

It had quite a few links though. Haohmaru's low c, low B and Galford/Hanzo's low C, low C, standing B were great.

I agree with the 2-in-1s. BUt SS was not designed originally to be a combo-intenstive game. They forced that issue in SS3, and the results were disastrous IMO.

> Most combos werre about 'jumping hard slash into standing hard slash'This meant that scrubs could rock in this game.

You must be joking. SS2 is very scrub UNFRIENDLY game. Hell, the only character who could jump freely was Ukyo. I'd like to see you pull off jumping AB, crouching Ab against competition who's awake. I mean, what's to stop me from blocking it? Walking/dashing underneathe and hitting you from behind? Dashing back then running in and throwing you when you land? You have no idea what you're talking about.

> Worse of all was that annoying huge slowdown which occured after a deep jumping hard slash.

The enormous hit stun was to prevent potential repeat abuse of the moves that did a lot of damage, and to give the attacked opponent some breathing room. In addition, it was meant to show the severity of the hit. When you hit someone with a full on staning AB with Genjuro in SS2, that thing looked like it HURT. You just don't get this impression in SS3/SS4.

> That crap snk took care of by 3.Thank god!

It took away from the style. And if SS3 had SS2 type hit-stun, it would probably had had a lot fewer ToD combos.

> basically you had to play like SS1 cause all that new stuff(rolls,dash roll combos,low hop etc.) was badly implimented in SS2.

In a sense. As I said, SS2 was a near perfect refinement of SS1, improving on it in all areas. But the badly implemented stuff in SS2 didn't detract from the gameplay, as oppose to all the crap in SS3 which helped make it worse.

> Anyone who says they loved the SS2 gameplay really loves the SS1 gameplay.

And this is a bad thing?

> What the hell was a referee doing?!Do you think he can stop mizuki from killing you just cause you beat her on time out?! It was sucxh a silly consept that snk decided to throw away kuroko.

Actually, they did away with Kuroko because they were lazy. It's the same reason why they had the lazy static backgrounds, and why instead of designing more new characters, they took old characters, added a number of special moves, and split them in two. It's also why they reduced the number of moves per character, and had fewer characters in SS3 than in SS2 (they had more frames of animation, but I think the total artwork for SS2's 15 characters is greater than SS3's 11 - someone feel free to prove me wrong there).

Also: You can beat Zankuro by time out as well. As well as in every other fighitng game with a timer. Are all other fighitng games (including SS3) silly now?

> Afterall,the samujrai shodown series isnt a tournemt.TAheir is no need for a ref.Its an oversite that snk fixed by 3.

Laziness. The referee was one of the most unique and original aspects to SS1/2. It's not my fault if you didn't understand his historical and cultural significance (for those who don't know, he's from Kabuki theatre, and you're supposed to pretend he's not there; if the game has a fighting kabuki, there's no reason why they can't have the kabuki theatre black stage-hand as a referee). And even so, Kuroko is STILL in the game, only now instead of being a really badass hidden boss with his own moves (even if most of them are ripped off rom other SNK characters), he now morphs into your own character. MORE laziness on SNK's part.

> Another gameplay flaw both 2 and 3 shared was the random bomb/food tossing by the edo express delivewry man.In a heated game of skill vs. skil,their was no need for random luck based advabtage.

It was part of the game. Another part of its uniqueness. Same thing with the random bombs and the random damage modifiers (why sometimes a brutal hard slash would do more [or occasionally less] damage than normal). I would hardly call it a gameplay flaw, since it didn't detract from either game's core gameplay. Against skilled competition, you could win maybe ONE match out of 100 due to the "luck" of getting a lot of meat.

> All your left you do was play SS2 like SS1 but with new moves,doll moves and super arts.

The doll moves and supers were kinda superfluous as well, actually. They added to the strategy, but I can't think of anyone who had a relly *great* super, since most of them were generally so easy to block. You could do a couple pixels of free damage with Haohmaru's and Charlotte's, but that's about it. Still, they had the purpose of breaking an opponent's weapon, putting your opponent (except for Galford and maybe Hanzo) at a severe disadvantage, making them quite worthwhile to pull off. Compare this to supers in SS3, which were nothing more than combo enders. Yeah, you made your opponent lose your weapon (a strategic element that was lost in SS4), but aside from combos, there was no *real* reward for pulling them off, since normal moves did SO much damage. Why do I need a 50% damage super when one combo, or occasionally one good C hit will do the trick?

Now, try and defend SS3's implementation of air-blocking, by far the WORST example of air-blocking ever implemented. IIRC, You could air EVERYTHING, no questions asked. Talk about mindless jumping. Furthermore, you could counter-attack after air-blocking. Thi characters with air-throws a nasty option select: If your opponent jumps, jump at them holding back. If they do nothing, air throw. If hey attack, air-block, then hit C. Free damage for you either way. Absolutely stupid. SNK couldn't get rid of this fast enough.

Then there was the individual character tactics. Never have I seen a game like SS3 in which just about every character seemed to have some really DUMB tactics that worked(though I guess CvS2 comes close). From Haohmaru's 2 hit death, to [Slash] Nakoruru's re-dizzies and unstoppable rushdown and free jumps, to Bust Ukyo side-step 50% damage ToDs, to Gaira's "strategy" of "block everything, hit C", it was just a big mess.

Add to that the overall INSANE damage control, the unnecessarily fast timer (10 seconds left in SS2 was a lifetime; 20 seconds left in SS3 means the round is over) and he really lame guard-crush. What was wrong with throws? SS1/SS2 had some of the coolest throws ever, and they were quite good in SS2. Why did they get rid of them? Probably to appease some throw-whining scrubs - didn't KI1 (proof of why listening to scrubs when making a game is a VERY BAD IDEA) come out somewhere around this time? And yet, we got guard-crushed that, against some characters, left you open to free 35% damage low C. Who thought that this was a GOOD idea?

Plus, the new control scheme blows. Kicks were useful and strategic in SS2. Kicks were an after thought in SS3+. I'm sure you'll counter with the incredibly predictable "but it's a WEAPONS game and they should be using weapons", but their was balance in SS1/2. You used kicks for positioning and harassing, and you used the slashes for big damage. Changing the button scheme reduced the moveset for every character (laziness), and it dumbed down the gameplay.

SS3 was lacking in the gameplay department no matter how you look at it. It had some good ideas (like the overheads, though I would have preferred unique overheads for every character), and it did improve on SS2 in a few areas (faster game speed and slightly better control), but the GIGANTIC flaws pretty ruined the game. These flaws were (mostly) corrected in SS4, but they didn't bring back any of the stuff that made SS2 so good. SS4 has its own problems, which I won't go into at this point. This post is long enouh already.

Anyway, I'm glad you went into the actual gameplay aspects of the game. Too bad you were about 95% wrong, but it's a start. Now if you can lay off the initial posturing that no one (inclduing me) gives a shit about, maybe we can get somewhere.

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