Samurai Shodown V Perfect

There's not a lot to say about the gameplay for Samurai Shodown V Perfect, as it's basically the same game mechanically as Samurai Shodown V Special. So I'll be sharing a story of how and why this game exists and what to expect different in this final version of Samurai Shodown V. 

Due to much of the information on the SNK fan Wiki and Wikipedia being incorrect, the information and story presented here come from two sources: my own accounts through the years covering the neo-geo.com community's reaction to the rumor of a Samurai Shodown V Red version in 2004 and 2005, and the Samurai Shodown Neo-Geo Collection of which V Perfect is a part. To say this game shocked the community when it was revealed is an understatement of epic proportions. 

After the controversy and whoopla surrounding the AES release of Samurai Shodown V Special had died down toward the end of 2004 (see that review for details), there was a rumor that cropped up on the internet shortly thereafter which claimed a version of the game called Samurai Shodown V Red was recently shown in a secret location test at an arcade in Japan. The fan community at neo-geo.com and other online forums quickly debunked this claim as there was no footage from the location test, nor were there any murmurings of a new Samurai Shodown game aside from the sixth numbered game in the 2D series which was already known to be in development for Sammy's Atomiswave arcade hardware. 

Fast forward to 2019 or so when Digital Eclipse began doing research for the upcoming Samurai Shodown Neo-Geo Collection for release on modern platforms. This celebration of the original 2D series was commissioned by SNK to continue the interest in the game after the positive reception to the 2019 2.5D reboot of Samurai Shodown (which is quite excellent, I might add).

During the many developer interviews, it was revealed by the director of the Samurai Shodown series at the time, Takaya, that this final version of Samurai Shodown V did actually exist and was location tested for a very brief period of time before being axed by the higher ups at SNK Playmore once it was discovered. Reports here suggest that the game was on test for less than a day, and that the director didn't even make it to the game center to talk to players before SNK Playmore pulled the plug. After the interview, Takaya asked a prior development team member if he still had a copy of the final rom, and low and behold it was found on an old hard drive completely intact. 

The modern leadership team at SNK (no longer SNK Playmore) gave the greenlight to include V Perfect in the upcoming collection and make it a true, official SNK release over 15 years after it was pulled from development. What's more is that the storyline elements were freshly translated into English (Engrish) for the first time for this release, which was the only part of the game not completed on the original code. 

Once the Samurai Shodown Neo-Geo Collection was released, Neo-Geo fans and modders quickly got to work to extract the rom and make it available for play on SD carts, like the Neo SD Pro, so folks could experience it on real Neo-Geo hardware. Once the rom code was cracked and the game was up and running on both the MVS and AES, boutique reproduction houses like NCI and NeoOldStore lost no time making stand alone reproduction cartridges of the game so people could round out their physical Neo-Geo collections with what is now considered the final Neo-Geo game. 

There are a number of changes and differences between V Special and V Perfect. While most of these changes do not effect the core mechanics, there were some further changes to the fatalities. Here's a general breakdown of what's different.

• Takaya wanted to bridge the gap between the V series and Samurai Shodown VI that was currently in development, so a small team of 3 developers retooled the game to nip and tuck fatalities and other features to make room for the text that would largely comprise a few additional story sequences and true endings for each character. This had to be done because the memory footprint for V Perfect was the same as V Special at 708 megabits. 

• For the 2020 release, the finished Japanese script was translated to English for the first time using the coded full-width font size the series had become known for.

• The intro sequence was changed from the shoreline background to Mizuki's stage, and the title screen was updated both in Japanese and English. Although, the announcer for the English title screen still says "Samurai Shodown V Special" whereas in Japanese the new title is stated. The background on the title screen was also changed from a blue hue to green. 

• All fatalities were carried over from V Special mostly intact, but all were retooled to be less gory and all dismemberments were removed entirely. For example, Jubei's fatality in V Special split the opponent in to quarters and in this game they just fall over dead after the onslaught of slashes. It still looks cool, but it doesn't have the impact of the full expression of the move from the prior game. 

• As this game was based on the MVS code from V Special, there were no bugs or glitches to iron out from the AES release. 

• According to the interviews in the Collection, Takaya took it upon himself to rebalance the cast. Although, these balance changes haven't been fully explored to my knowledge as the game is not played competitively and nothing has been confirmed.

Taken as a whole, it's neat that this final, unreleased Neo-Geo game is truly available after years of rumors. It's rare that a finished prototype shows up so long after it was deemed a ghost chase. For game preservation in general this is a very big win. It also speaks volumes that SNK encouraged the game to be finally released specifically for preservation purposes. There are many collectors sitting on precious code stored on old CDs and hard drives who will not dump the rom data for wider preservation purposes - hording this art and thinking they are protecting their investment when their greed is actually holding the game back from being properly preserved as cherished piece of art history. Thankfully, this is not the case here and we all get the chance to experience the final expression of Samurai Shodown V the way the original director intended. It really is a treat.

After the release of the Samurai Shodown Neo-Geo Collection in 2020, fans speculated that it may replace V Special as the defacto, tournament grade Samurai Shodown game, but that never happened. Fans still adore V Special, and for good reason. This "Perfect" version is much, much less of an upgrade than V Special was to the vanilla release mechanically - which was substantial to put it mildly. There really isn't a good reason for V Perfect to exist, honestly. V Special is already a brilliant game. But here we are, and here it is. Another weird curio in the Neo-Geo's library. 

Should you get a copy? Get a cheap copy of the collection on sale - it's an excellent library of Samurai Shodown lore presented museum style, and this curio fits right in. There's no need to get a specific copy for your AES or MVS unless you want to own all Samurai Shodown games on physical SNK hardware - and I get that to some extent - only, this game did not and will not ever have an official AES Release. For everyone else, though, get the collection. It's a lot of bang for your buck with excellent emulation and loads of content. If you're already intimately familiar with V Special there won't be a lot to interest you here other than checking out some of the minute differences and seeing the different endings.