Ranking of Fighters 0002: Samurai Shodown

Is this secretly a series for Jeff to practice random money matches for EVO 2016?

Jeff's a lefty!

#Leftypride

0002? Does this mean 9997 more fighters to go?

@ganz32: Back in the '60s, when the belt was still a thing they used in schools for naughty kids, both my mother & my father were belted continually for being left handed when they were in Primary School. We're talking about hitting 6 & 7 year olds with a leather strap because they are using their left hand. And it was at least partially because some oddball fundamentalists thought that writing with the left hand was a sign of the devil.

Scotland in the past was weird.

I love this segment. Can't wait for the next one

the concept of this series is great! i would also like to say ..... Rival Schools! anyone!? or is it just me?

I applaud the ambitious number of zeros in the title numbering.

I like the 4 digit number -- It's going to be a long road and I don't look forward to 3S vs Garou... OH and the right choice was made here. Love the feature! Keep it up, can't wait for episode 1000!

I quite appreciate that they haven't started with anything like Street Fighter or Mortal Kombat, instead going with games you don't hear quite as much about.

What exactly does a Japanese arcade smell like?

Samurai Shodown II is the greatest fighting game the universe has ever experienced.

Does anyone know where you can buy an Omega, or you just have to be friends with Steve Lin?

Found it for USD$530, oh boy.......

I remember seeing ads for Samurai Shodown in magazines with that main key art image and thinking oh God he's standing in an ocean of blood this game looks gory and gross.

Just sharpie in Garou: Mark of the Wolves at the top. This is really a battle for second place.

@forkboy: Somewhere between kindergarten and second grade (its all hazy now) I remember being taken out of class to another room where I got speech and writing training where they tried to teach me to write right handed. No belts in the 80's, maybe that's why it didn't take... I always get comments from people about my left-handedness, nothing negative, but people get all excited. "Wow your left handed!" Is a thing I've herd a bunch. I guess I do the same thing..

@kgkris: Im jealous of his whiteboard skills, Im lefty too, I would be smudging that shit...

Looking forward to episode 1000

Cigarettes

A wonderful new series! I love this!

Fighting games are better when characters have fewer "special moves". It emphasises differences between characters more.

Jason outs Ken Williams as a Sushi-X in this video.

Illuminati Confirmed.

Had the exact same thought last night. Wonder how many titles they're planning on covering overall. Comparing Samurai Shodown 1, 2, and 3 would be really interesting. I played a lot of 3 in college and while it's flawed in a number of ways I'd love to hear Jason and Jeff go back and forth on what was good or broken between each of the releases.

I love hearing (and seeing) Jeff and Jason wax poetic on games.

Flying Dragon (Hiryu no Ken) SD mode for life. Get on my level!

This is a great video series.

This actually still does look fun to play...

Samurai Shodown 4 was one of my first arcade experiences together with 1943. I think that Samurai Shodown is it. :)

Great video. I'm terrible at fighting games but I love watching Jeff and Jason play and talk about them.

Samurai Shodown is an amazing game, and this is coming from somebody who doesn't really even like fighting games generally.

Also this is the first time I've noticed that it's spelled Shodown in the name, not Showdown.

I definitely forgot how difficult and cheesey the boss fight was. Man, I don't remember how anyone would beat that without cheats way back when. Thanks for another Ranking of Fighters!

I really want a Neo-Geo

Which is, no joke, my favorite part. Not that it isnt a great game, but that little detail puts it over the edge.

Did anyone play that SamSho anthology for PS2? Were they good versions? I miss these games a lot but have no business going down the NeoGeo rabbit hole.

I have so many memories of playing the Genesis port of Samurai Shodown 2 at my friend's house. To this day I greet my roommate's dog with a "hey poppy!" in the exact same cadence and voice because I am a huge loser. I'm kind of sad that I never saw a Shodown cabinet in the wild--it was strictly SFII and MK II for the most part in my neck of the woods until the release of 3D fighters like Tekken and Virtua Fighter and Soul Edge. Then again we didn't really have proper arcades in my neighborhood, just like.. pizza places with a couple cabinets and the laundromat (and movie theaters, on the rare occasion I found myself in movie theaters). The skating rink had some cabinets too, but I probably only showed up there once or twice a year (and it was all MK cabinets anyway).

I love Ranking of Fighters but I don't know if these games can sustain entertainment value for an hour and 30 minutes. I think this segment would be better if either it was 2 games with around 45 minutes each or 1 game at around 45 minutes. This video was starting to DRAG by the end.

You know, for a series which is about kicking each other's face in, this is really relaxing to put on.

I think it's because both Jeff and Jason aren't super competitive or at least willing to put that aside to just chill and go through a game and see what it offers.

It reminds me of being young and going through bad WWF games on the PlayStation with friends to see if we could set up cool ways to do moves on top of ladders and stuff and not really caring who wins.

Plus the consistent bleeps and tsssh of fighting games have a great rhythm.

It's also great to see Jason in premium content. He's been really good in Breaking Bad and also this. So yeah I'm really enjoying this.

I can't wait until they get to the Bloody Roar series. Bloody Roar 1 and 2 are awesome.

Loving this series so far. I can't wait til episode 1000.

That's also sort of where we get the word sinister. In Latin, 'sinister' means left, but the left side was associated with bad omens.

I really like the sound-design in this. Reminds me of old kung-fu movies.

This game was my entire freshman year at college. What money I didn't spend playing this, I spent on the vending machine next to it. When Jeff said that this was the best fighting game of all time, I went "yeah, no shit"... well until they play Samurai Shodown 2.

I feel like the board should be something more like this:

I actually felt this way after the first video. I don't see why they put a hard limit of 90 minutes. It just feels like a very long time, especially if they cover Mortal Kombat games which had been shown for hours at this point, I just don't know if we need another 90 minutes of it. I feel like this feature should give a background of the game, what it did different or what made it important/stand out, show off each character and stage, show the single player and then any extras then rank it.

Toshinden 3 is the alpha and the omega.

Damn it, that joke was used in the video. So I'll counter with:

This is probably the most accurate this list will ever be.

this does not seem like a winner.

This game looks sick! Love how much life one hit takes since it's a fight with weapons.

I really like the "time your hit right and take 50% life off" aspect to the gameplay.

I played a bunch of this on the Genesis of all things.

And it does it waaaaaaaaaaaaay better than in 3. Man I hated SS3.

not only do I love how seriously they take the ranking of fighters, but I also am slightly ashamed by how much I was looking forward to episode 2.

also, wouldn't mind a sequel-encompassing double episode where the differences between an original game and it's successor are examined

p.s. "butt c to exit" best pause screen possibly in all of history.