Format: Sega CD
Genre: 2d Fighter
Developer: Funcom
Publisher: JVC Musical Industries, Inc.

Qualitatively, the Genesis is not that architecturally different than the Neo Geo, and indeed both the Takara cartridge port and this Funcom Sega CD rendition move with marvelous fluidity! But quantitatively, the Genesis just can't display enough colors and doesn't have enough RAM to do justice to Samurai Shodown's rich graphics. At least, this Sega CD version fares a little better, with the system's extra RAM being used to deliver more frames of animation. Still no Earthquake though, no in-match referee, and still no stage scaling, although the game does feature all of the arcade original's cut scenes!

By far the biggest drawback of the cartridge port was the sound, with the YM2612 completely unable to provide even a working approximation of the original soundtrack. Thanks to Red book though, the Sega CD version-- like its 3DO cousin-- has the full Neo Geo soundtrack, leaving the Genesis sound chip to focus exclusively on the sound effects. The downside is that-- and also like the 3DO port, peculiarly-- the sound effects are not of a particularly high sampling rate. The in-match announcing is also absent, probably due to RAM limitations.

Where the 3DO version feels ever-so-slightly stilted or choppy, while the Super Nintendo rendition lacks the smoothness of the original, both Genesis ports are as smooth as velvet! Even arcade form, the game's engine inherently has some very strange and inconsistent hit detection, but this Sega CD version, especially when played with Sega's lovely six button controller, is as close as one can get to the gameplay feeling of the Neo Geo original.

There are two pretty significant things holding this Sega CD version back: the hardware's lack of simultaneous colors, and the absolutely maddening load times! The developers provide an option to disable the post-fight taunt screen, but even then the player spends far too much time staring at a scrolling red progress bar. Of course, this Sega CD rendition is miles away from the 3DO port, but that's to be expected given the wide disparity between the two sets of hardware! In the end, this is an impressive 16-bit take of what is a very taxing game to replicate.

Format: Cartridge
Genre: 2d Fighter
Developer: Takara
Publisher: Takara

Being the almost revolutionary leap that Samurai Shodown was over Street Fighter II, reducing that formula down to 64 on-screen colors, removing the scaling effect, greatly simplifying the backgrounds, and shrinking the character sprites means that the Genesis simply can't do justice to the formula in the same way that it can Capcom's aforementioned juggernaut. Most disappointingly, features that are in the also-Takara Super Nintendo port-- the full intro and the post-match character sequences among them-- are simply absent here. That said, the animation is hugely intact, and the game-- typical of the Mega Drive-- is buttery smooth.

The Genesis' ever-dependable Yamaha YM2612 sound chip is phenomenal at producing rock, funk, jazz, or dance music. Where it falls down is when asked to do sample-heavy tunes-- just like those featured in Samurai Shodown. The sound programmer put in a noble shift, but in the end the music just sounds scattered and chaotic. Once again, the Super Nintendo port is greatly superior here, as its DSP was practically built to do digital samples. At least the sound effects are crystal clear, though the pre-match announcer is oddly absent.

Unsurprisingly, the Mega Drive is more than up to the task of mimicking SNK's arcade juggernaut in the area that matters most: game play! Seeing as how the Genesis and the Neo Geo employ Motorola's both nimble and muscular 68000, it would not surprise this reviewer if the vast bulk of the engine's code-- for the jumping, the dashing, the collision detection, and so on-- was lifted straight from the arcade original. Idiosyncratically and inexplicably though, the motion moves-- fireball and dragon punch rolls-- are extraordinarily finicky in this version.

This port of SNK's classic overwhelmingly reveals one thing: Samurai Shodown is a bridge too far for the Mega Drive, in its base form. The game plays fine, but otherwise the sound chip is a poor fit for the source material, the original backgrounds simply have too many colors for the Genesis to replicate with much degree of faithfulness (and they are zoomed in too far), and there was much that had to be cut to fit within the Genesis' memory restrictions, including an entire character (Earthquake). JVC, however, delivered a phenomenal port of this game to the Sega CD, proving that with some minor spec increases, the Mega Drive could do Haohmaru and friends proud.