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Hearing Samurai Spirits (or Samurai Showdown in the US) in the same sentence with playstation usually draws up memories of extreme loading time and incredible slow down. Well, at least for those of you who had the misfortune of buying the SS3 playstation-port hoping to get something close to the arcade. Well, all you die hard Samurai Showdown fans, as well as 2-D fighter fans, can breath a sigh of relief and then take a deep breath before you get exposed to what I believe to be one of the best 2-D ports to the play station. Here is my impression of the psx version of SS special:
Positives:
Can you say no slow down whatsoever. That's right, no slow down during game play. Well there maybe one instance of slow down when the back ground changes to danger mode, but that only happens when you're doing a normal slash and your opponenet blocks, and rarely does it ever happen (Well at least for the 3 days that I've been playing it). The loading time has also been cut drastically. In addition, instead of the loading signal being flashed in your face for what seemed to be 2-3 minutes in SS3, you now get a picture in pencil art with a story caption underneath. There seems to be barely enough time in the loading for this 3rd year Japanese student to translate the caption. If you want to decrease the loading even more, you can choose to cut most of the animation scenes. For example, there's a list of character's names in English instead of their picture on the select screen, and there's no Vs. screen that says who your character will be fighting next.
"What else does this game have that makes it sooo coool?" you say. It has everyone's favorite animal-wanna-be, Cham Cham. That's right, and from what I hear the Sega Saturn version doesn't have her (just another point that proves the psx has way better games than the Saturn (except for Sakura Taisen :P). You also get to use Zankuro, as well, without having to use a code. The only thing is you can only use these two special characters in the Vs. Mode (so far that is).
Another plus is the Practice Mode included in this game. I know, I know, every other fighting game has one. But, hey, SS3 didn't. What's more, one of the options in the Practice mode is being able to view the commands for all the Master arts for each person. The Master Arts should not be confused with normal "waza" or special moves. On top of that, there seems to be a forth special move for everyone on the Master arts list. It doesn't show the command, but when you press the demo button and the computer performs it for you to view. It seems to be their normal combination attack with something else "tacked on." All charachters seem to differ here. For example, Rimiruru has more hits added on to her normal combination. About 90+ hits.
How about BGM and voices? Well, the BGM seems a little different from the arcade at times (actually I could never here the music in the loud arcades anyway), but it's still very good. The voices are also very loud and clear. I think they added a few new voice samples for certain characters that I don't remember from the arcade. For example, Genjuro seems to be saying something to the effect of "Go to Sleep," right after he's KO'd you.
Lastly, as for most fighting games, there really is no specific level of Japanese needed to get through the game. You really don't need to know any Japanese unless you want to try to read the captions under the pictures during loading, or the dialogue's before each battle. The options are all in English. Even in the command list, the names of the attacks for each character are in English. This game is very non-Japanese speaker friendly.
Negative:
To tell you the truth, I don't think that there are any negatives to this game except for three things. The price of the import, I paid $79.95 without tax. There are also two periods of loading that are slightly annoying but don't take away from the game play at all. Right before you begin the first round with each new opponent the psx loads one more time for about 6 seconds. It also loads the voice for the winner after each round for about 0.5~1.0 seconds.
Overall:
SS special is definitely worth the $79.95 I paid for it. Except for those two periods of loading, there is no slow down whatsoever. Every SS fan must have it. Great game, 'nuff said.
Score: Best out of 10
Graphics 9
-- Can still tell that some frames of animation are missing.
Sound 8
-- Excellent BGM, yet it seems different from the arcade. Voices are excellent, no complaints here.
Control 9
- - Very responsive. Still, for some reason I can't give it a 10.
Overall 9.5
-- As I said earlier, definitely worth your money. No, not just 'cause Cham Cham's in it :P.