![]() Captured pieces are not removed from play, for instance. Suffice to say, there are some different pieces alongside the familiar knights, rooks and pawns, and some very different rules. It takes this Live Arcade version several hours of bone-dry tutorials to explain the nuances and differences between Shogi and the chess we're used to, so clearly there's not going to be room to explain it all here. Shogi is the Japanese variation of chess, taking an already deep game of strategy and concentration and making it even more complicated. In the end it only seems fair to rate it the same as the Virtual Console version - as a solid fighting game in its own right - and leave it up to you, dear reader, to decide if the online play and minor technical compromises improve or tarnish an enjoyable core experience. But it's also an imperfect conversion that only offers a second-best experience for those familiar with the original. It's tough but fair, and boasts a nicely balanced selection of fighters and a robust yet accessible combat system that makes it easy for all players to use measured attacks and blocks rather than random button-mashing. Do you rate the game itself, the modern experience or compare it to every similar fighting game available? Samurai Shodown II is a really good fighting game, no question. Grading these sort of retro games is always tricky. I prefer the original look, but then I'm a wizened old fart. The enhanced sprites look smoother, but are clearly less detailed and have a smudgy crayon look to them. You also get the option to enhance the graphics, but this depends on whether you find pixels off-putting. It's certainly not enough to make it score higher than the VC version. The online play offers all the basic settings you'd expect, but the frame-rate suffers even more obviously and will certainly annoy the people most likely to play online the most - the hardcore fighting fans who want to test themselves against everyone else. Pulling off the special moves is a real trial, and attempting to do so can often leave you open to fatal attacks. Those additions certainly make this 800-Point purchase more appealing, but it still suffers from the same technical snags - namely some noticeable slowdown and ugly borders - and is held back by the 360's notoriously slippery d-pad. Arriving on Live Arcade only a few weeks after the unadorned NeoGeo ROM landed on the Wii's Virtual Console, the addition of online play and leaderboards should make this version of SNK's sword wielding battler the obvious choice - even if the price is double what we were led to believe.
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