NCS Game Notes & Spoilers
* In the intro to the game, a parchment appears and it is sliced in half by an unseen sword. Various character portraits from the game appear, cherry blossoms fall, and staged matches are fought to provide ATTRACT screens to cajole players into dropping a quarter or three. Screens from the previous samurai spirits games also float along with the game logos in another part.

* Upon pressing START, the following selections appear:

ARCADE MODE - Play like you paid a quarter for the chance
VS MODE - Battle against a second player in the room
PRACTICE MODE - Learn the ways of hack 'n slash, Tenkaichi style
COLOR EDIT MODE - Change the colors for all 40 characters featured in the game
NETWORK MODE - Link to KDDI Multi Matching and face off against an opponent online
OPTION MODE - Set button configurations, sound settings, save/load data

* Frames of animation per character is smooth for the most part - Samurai Spirits stalwarts such as Haohmaru, Galford, and Nakoruru animate well but it's the massive fighters in the game that are impressive - for example, Earthquake, the bruiser with the red vest, red pants, orange face paint, and swinging chain and sickle animates just as smoothly as the svelte Nak or Charlotte. If Earthquake just stands there, you can listen to the grinding of his chain as it swings around in perpetual motion. Controlling Earthquake also feels more weighty than when controlling a lightweight such as Cham-Cham and Earth moves with measured pace and substantial inertia. Another impressive accomplishment is the blue skinned beast named Kusaregedo who goes out in public with spine bones sticking out, an elbow bone poking out of its left arm, a bone-sickle for a hand, and prodigious pot belly. Stare as its jaws open and close while a skeleton necklace dangles from its undulating neck. It's possibly the slowest moving fighter in the game but it packs a wallop with its slashing attacks. Kusaregedo also leaps upwards as sprightly as any other fighter in the game, which is somewhat unbelievable...

* The action runs fast and responsive with move combinations pulled off with tugs of the joypad or joystick and appropriate button presses. The background animations and panoramas are pretty much intact from the Atomiswave original. We must also commend SNK on the vibrant audio of the game. We ran the game through an 5.1 surround sound setup and there's a song in the game which features background drums and faint jingles - listen to the little nuances in the music as it plays and the throaty beats. The music selection ranges from a Japanese operatic number which features a woman singing to a Texas ditty complete with lively fiddle and toe-tapping rhythm as ship bob up and down in the background. There's also a "Chinese" song that plays while performers do the Dragon dance in the background with an undulating green dragon prop. In the White House stage, a rousing rendition of patriotic music plays while a massive White House sits in the background. The fighters eventually travel to Africa where lions and zebras elephants commingle in the background with tribal friends as an African song with chanting and the occasional singing appears with thumping of drums and other percussion instruments.

* The silent judge/referee is present as always and every blow that you register against an opponent is marked by a raising of a white flag to your side or a red flag to your opponent when he/she registers an attack. When a match is won, the referee may be seen cheering in the background. The running courier is also present where he races across the background and throws up a coin, a rock (used it like a projectile weapon), or sushi plate bonus to grab.

* The benchmark fighter we usually use when assessing Samurai Spirits conversions is generally Haohmaru. His default colors in the game consist of a blood red uniform and his animation is a herky-jerky shiver where he stands with trademark shock of hair moving as he carries a sword in his right arm. His left arm pumps up and down while crooked at the elbow. Haoh controls well with dashing speed and his howling tornados fly off his sword with ease. Haohmaru also jumps and rushes on screen with flowing movement as he ranges to and fro to close the distance on an enemy. We were concerned that his sprite stature might have been reduced to accommodate his vicious speed and awe inspiring attacks but he's there in all his glory and hacking it up like an Atomiswave natural. In SNK's last outing on the PS2 (Last Blade 1), we mentioned the shadows were flickering fiercely. They're solid in this conversion and the team that handled the conversion to the PS2 appears to have improved skills with the PS2 hardware, resulting in a very good conversion.

* Most of the fighters measure up to roughly 1/2 the height of the screen but bruisers such as Earthquake and Kusaregedo fill up 3/4 of the height of the screen. Pit the two together for a freaky looking carnival of fighting circus. Both fighters are bald on top but Kusa's belly is bulging more and he has hair on the side of his head which would make an vicious comb over.

* The camera scrolling action isn't as intensive as the Atomiswave original but the camera pans in and out as fighters moves to the opposite periphery of the screen with about 12 gradations of visible camera movement. When the fighters are in attack range to each other and roughly 2 swords apart, the screen doesn't pan in and out until this distance is surpassed.

* Due to the large amount of characters, the fighter select screen is made up of seven columns of six fighters each which may be scrolled through by moving the columns forward or backwards. The column which features Amakusa, Mizuki, Zankuro, and Gaoh have two Question Mark placeholders which serve as randomizers if you're feeling unattached to any of the fighters.

* The 40 fighters featured at the outset game are as follows below. NCS has taken the liberty to split everyone up in the order of their appearance in the canonical sequence of the games:

Samurai Spirits
Amakusa
Charlotte
Earthquake
Galford
Gen-An
Hanzo
Haohmaru
Jubei
Kyoshiro
Nakoruru
Tam Tam
Ukyo
Wan-Fu

Shin Samurai Spirits
Cham Cham
Genjuro
Mizuki
Nicotine
Sieger

Samurai Spirits: Zankuro Musouken
Basara
Gaira
Rimururu
Shiizumaru
Zankuro

Samurai Spirits: Amakusa Kourin
Kazuki
Sogetsu

Samurai Spirits Zero
Enja
Gaoh
Kusaregedou
Mina
Poppy (unlock)
Sankuro
Suija
Rasetsumaru
Rera
Yoshitora
Yumeiji
Yunfei

Samurai Spirits: Tenkaichi Kenkakuten
Andrew
Iroha
Ocha-Maro
Shin Gaoh (unlock)
Sugoroko
 

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