Reviewed by C.K. Gan

This is the first Samurai Shodown that made a lot of us gone nutz to the series, without SS1, you wouldn't be reading this right now. I believe Samurai Shodown is the first game that introduced weapon fighting into the fighting game genre. Well, I think at the time, there were probably a lot of platform games that's weapon based, but Samurai Shodown is the first and original intensed sword fighting game.

The first time I saw Samurai Shodown, I saw something that was different, something that was different than other 'beat 'em up' games. It looked much cooler and stylish than other games. Not only the game was beautiful than other games, that was much more to it: the characters, the interesting stories, those cool moves(when I first played Haohmaru, I was like keep saying 'Kogetsuzan' in my mouth), and also cool boss(yes I think Amakusa is a lot more cooler than Bison).

Among all the Samurai Shodown games, if you ask me which one is my favorite, I would tell you all of them are my favorites. But the truth is I actually like Samurai Shodown 1 a bit more than the others. You see, even the game seem to be quite a simple game, lack of special features, special moves and other combos stuff, but the thing is this is the kind of game that you need a lot of skills to play. Later in the SS series, since they are more features to the game, a lot of people start to use them a lot, and when they abuse the moves with cheeziness, they still wouldn't know that they are abusing it. For instance, a lot of people use the AB turn around move in SS3, they use it for starting their combos, they use it a lot that they don't even know whether they are too skillful with the AB side step or that they are abusing.(Okay, maybe I'm just talking about myself). I think the simplicity is the beauty of SS1. You might think you mastered every moves in SS1, but when you play the human players, the strategy and tactics are the essential thing in SS1. So, what I am saying all along is SS1 actually have very good game engine, unlike other games like SF2(no offence to the god of all fighting game), the game to me is just a 'fireball exchange extravaganza'(Actually, KOF95 was like that too).

Overall, it's a very solid game. This is the kind of old game I still wouldn't mind playing in the arcade.