SNK

Samurai Spirits remains perhaps SNK’s oddest fighting series. This fact does not diminish.

I now notice that it was updated every year, for four years — and that with each installment were abrupt leaps in quality and gameplay style. Then SNK… stopped. For seven years, if we ignore the 3D games — and let’s do that, for the moment

The games themselves… I have trouble grasping on first glance. I need more time.

It’s blatantly obvious that the second game just makes the first one obsolete in every sense. It’s the same thing, only better. The third and fourth games, though — they’re not so easy to interpret.

SSIII is of a notably different style from the other three games (in a general sense), and yet it lends some key elements to the fourth game. SSIV seems like an attempt to retreat to the level of SSII, while it retains a number of the elements introduced in III. A not-entirely-succesful attempt to recapture the feeling of the older games.

SSIII — immediately, I like it a bunch in comparison to SSII. It makes a bunch of changes — for the more palatable, from my current vantage point. It’s prettier, and it’s as enjoyable as it is attractive. It’s got some great animation and backgrounds. It introduces some interesting, personable new characters.

It’s a big step to the mainstream, admittedly; the new characters are cuter. The overall tone isn’t nearly as somber. It’s faster, more powerful. More kinetic. Less cerebral. More appealing, on a surface level — yet without nearly the poise and elegance of II. It’s hard to tell how deep the waters run.

A lot of people really hate SSIII, because of how radical it is. I don’t know about that; it’s got a lot of potential. I’ll need to dig, to better understand what it’s doing.

Something else of note is that it seems that the Slash and Bust modes are introduced here. That is to say: we’ve got Rasetsu character variants, for the first time.

I think the evil Nakoruru first appears in SS2, although she remains little more than a palette swap in that game. The reason I say this is that her expression changes to a more wry one when you select the Player 2 colours. In SS3, however, she’s got her wolf. And the rasetsu Galford is Poppy-free. So we’re into the big time, as it were.

Even in SS4, however, the distinctions aren’t as strong as they’ve more recently become. Sougetsu and Kazuki are in the game (for what it seems is the first time), yet their rasetsu variants are again just palette swaps (cosmetically speaking; for all I know at this point, their move lists could be entirely different) — whereas we now know their rasetsu variants as bare-chested, tattooed, shabbier alter egos.

From what I see here, I’ll hazard to assume that all of the serious separation must’ve occured in the Hyper NeoGeo 64 games.

Speaking of SS4 — again, I’m not sure yet what to make of it. Some people love this game; others loathe it. More people like it than SS3, though. I can see where the trouble lies, but I’m not ready to decide what it means.

As I mentioned, it’s basically a step back to the style of SS1 and 2, away from the weirdly energetic gaiden flavour of SS3 — yet it retains a bunch of straggling elements from 3: the slash/bust distinction; the control scheme; some other bits of gameplay.

And there are a lot of gimmicks — even more than in 3. Like a time limit; you have to beat the game within a certain timeframe — or else? I assume the worst.

That’s… interesting. Perhaps it’s too clever. I don’t know yet. The same goes for most of the features.

It seems — on the surface, again — to have a bit of an identity crisis. It wants to do everything in the previous two games. And to be taken as seriously as 2. It’s not 2, though. It can’t go back.

Further: the backgrounds also aren’t nearly as pretty as those in 3. They’re all right, so far. But the ones in 3 — as with the whole interface — were just gorgeous. With 4, I get the sensation that the stages are unfinished. This might not be right. Perhaps there’s something I’m not yet prepared to appreciate. Again, more time needed.

I just have trouble figuring out where the game’s mind is. I’m reserving the possibility that it could be ingenious underneath the apparent mess.

The thing is — immediately, it seems to me that both the lovers and the haters are loving and hating for rather shallow reasons. There’s something else going on, I think. I don’t know what.

This will take some effort.