A few years ago, Capcom commissioned Digital Eclipse, one of the best retro compilation developers in the business, to come up with a collection comprised of tons of classic Street Fighter games from the 90’s. The end result was a commendable experience, albeit flawed, as it was filled with repeated entries with minimal differences between each other (FIVE versions of Street Fighter II, may I remind you). Not to mention little to no quality of life improvements, such as a more stable framerate. You were basically paying for a cheap way to play upscaled emulations of classic arcade games. I guess SNK, the father of the beloved NeoGeo, enjoyed the end result, as they ended up asking for Digital Eclipse to come up with the same kind of compilation, but for their Samurai Shodown franchise instead. Let’s see if this one is worth the admission ticket.

The Samurai Shodown NeoGeo Collection features all of the Samurai Shodown games previously released for the NeoGeo MVS arcade board, as well as the first official release of Samurai Shodown V Perfect. A game that was supposed to be SNK’s final official game for their masterpiece of an arcade board, which had never seen the light of day. We have one version of Samurai Shodown I, II, III and IV, as well as a whopping three different versions of V, including the aforementioned V Perfect.

Just like in the Street Fighter collection, there aren’t visual upgrades or quality of life improvements in these games besides a resolution upscale, meaning that the games look and feel just like they did back when they were first released. You’re getting the same soundtracks from the MVS board, therefore no superior NeoGeo CD soundtracks included. You’re even getting the same performance, including the same severe framerate issues present in the original releases.

The only new inclusions in the collection are online multiplayer, an admittedly very welcome sound test mode, and a very bare-bones museum mode. The museum mode is comprised of a ton of behind the scenes footage and concept art, but the online multiplayer doesn’t work as well as it should. I feel like the bare minimum has been added to make sure that this collection offered more bang for your buck than just buying the separate HAMSTER-developed ports of all Samurai Shodown games on Steam.

Digital Eclipse and SNK should have used the opportunity to include some other games from the franchise. Beloved gems such as Samurai Shodown 64 and the NeoGeo Pocket Color version of the original game. Or even a localization of the bizarre yet amusing Samurai Shodown Bushidō Retsuden, also known as the one time the franchise dabbled into JRPG territory. I get that the collection is supposed to celebrate the franchise’s history on the NeoGeo platform, but I doubt fans would have complained about having one or two outlier games as bonuses. It surely would have added more value to the overall package.

This is a good collection if you’re interested in owning the entirety of the Samurai Shodown catalogue originally released for the NeoGeo for a more affordable pricetag, but I feel like Digital Eclipse could (and should) have added some extra games and quality of life improvements in order to make this collection a true must-have for retro enthusiasts. As of now, this might be a pretty decent compilation of games, but if you really want to grab it, wait for it to be released on the Switch, and then wait a bit more for a sale.

 

Graphics: 7.0 These aren’t remasters of the original Samurai Shodown games. The only visual upgrade these games have received was an upscale in resolution. The games still look great, but they are still plagued by severe framerate issues.	Gameplay: 7.5 NeoGeo games often feature “simple to learn, hard to master” controls, and it’s no different in here. The problem lies in the irritating amount of slowdowns and framerate issues, problems that were present in the original Samurai Shodown games that still haven’t been fixed.
Sound: 6.5 The NeoGeo wasn’t exactly known for its sound potential and it’s clearly noticeable in here. It’s decent, and there are lots of voice clips, but nothing special. They should have added the NeoGeo CD soundtracks in order to offer more value in this overall package.	Fun Factor: 7.0 This collection offers more bang for your buck than buying all of the Samurai Shodown arcade re-releases separately, with some bonus features to make the package even more interesting. With that being said, most games are very similar to one another, and they still feature the same technical issues from back in the day.
Final Verdict: 7.0

Samurai Shodown NeoGeo Collection is available now on PC.

Reviewed on PC.

A copy of Samurai Shodown NeoGeo Collection was provided by the publisher.