SAMURAI SHODOWN NEOGEO COLLECTION

[quote]Just saying, but I do have a curator page. If you like my remarks about games, you can find more of them here: https://store.steampowered.com/curator/44130985-TDP%27s-Gaming-Escapades [/quote] I am NOT fond of Digital Eclipse's retro game re-releases. Everytime I hear that they are developing a retro game re-release or collection, I'm always filled with disappointment and try to warn others about that product, just to have them asking me: "What's the problem with Digital Eclipse?". The reason for those actions is how Digital Eclipse handles their re-releases. They usually end up being buggy or suffer from questionable performance issues (we are dealing with EMULATION and not ports), have ugly UI designs (most notable one being Mega Man Legacy Collection 1), or not offer the best or most feature-complete versions of the included games as they almost always go for the bare minimum. Samurai Shodown NeoGeo Collection is the same thing. While it's a convenient package that puts everything together in a easy-to-access manner, it does not offer the best versions of a bunch of the included games and is even inferior to the other re-releases of the same games. [h2]Not the best entrypoint...[/h2] I'm going to be honest here: If you're not already a fan or have no interest in the franchise, or if you are not a variety fighting game player, you should stay clear of this collection. Samurai Shodown is more tactical compared to other fighting games and while it's fun, it takes a while for newcomers to get accustomed to it. And since this is a collection of ROM files that are running through a built-in emulator, it's not the best entrypoint for newcomers in my opinion. The reason for that, is the arcade AI. The game versions we have here are built by default to have AI opponents that kick your entire ass, no matter how low the difficulty is. They read your inputs, have perfect reactions, and the bosses have access to moves that drain 25-50% of your health on hit. There's no helping mechanic like KOF's boosts either. If you want to get into the series and don't care about how much content it has, Samurai Shodown 2019 is the better choice. [h2]It's convenient, BUT...[/h2] To be fair, this collection gives people a very convenient way to play the past games of the series, especially for the less tech-savvy players, and if you are buying it for this reason or to access a plethora of gallery content (even from games that are not in this collection, including but not limited to Samurai Shodown Sen & Samurai Shodown 2019, which the latter proves that SNK was fully able of putting more content in that game and yet decided not to), you will be pleased with what you get here. But if you are after the very best and most content-complete versions... you might want to not get this. To see what this collection has and lacks, I actually went and played other collections and official releases of this series: Samurai Shodown V (Xbox & PS2), Samurai Shodown V Special (Code Mystics version) and Samurai Shodown Anthology (PS2). Unfortunately, Anthology always crashed my emulator when I wanted to play anything other than Samurai Shodown VI, so I cannot tell you anything about those games. However, it provided me with some information and comparison data to use in this review. So let's compare stuff, shall we? Let's start with the most obvious thing which is the choice of games in this collection. Instead of celebrating the history of the series by gathering every mainline 2D game together, something that Anthology did for the 15th anniversary, this collection only offers games that were released on NeoGeo and omits Samurai Shodown VI. And this begs the question: "Why?". Anthology did this years ago, and you can bring games of that era on modern platforms as shown in Mega Man X Legacy Collection 2. So what was the issue here if the intent was not to do the bare minimum? Now we get to the available content. All of the Xbox and PS2 releases, in addition to the Code Mystics version of V Special, offer a practice mode. Anthology even allows you to modify the color data of all fighters through all of the games. All of those games also have volume sliders. However, the NeoGeo Collection has none of them. Next, it's time for the impressions the collections give you. Anthology starts with an animated video, showcasing the included games, which you can skip and quickly get to the main menu. NeoGeo Collection starts with 25 seconds of unskippable company logos, followed by an additional 3-60 seconds of delay when you try to get from title screen to main menu as it tries to initiate its online functionalities. Now, to be fair to the NeoGeo Collection, the UI does feel more stylish but it's still reusing some of the exact same UI designs from SNK 40th Anniversary Collection, which came out two years prior to this one and was created by the same team. [h2]So what if you just want to play Samurai Shodown V?[/h2] None of the versions that are available in this collection are THE best versions of SSV... maybe with the exception of the vanilla game's Japanese ROM if we ignore some stuff. The devs have just stuck to NeoGeo roms that were available and have not tried to go above and beyond. [b]Samurai Shodown V:[/b] The best version of this game is only available on either the original Xbox or the PS2, which has fully translated story dialogues and the option to switch between original & arranged soundtracks. In the collection, the Japanese version offers almost the same experience minus the translated texts and the arranged soundtrack. [b]V Special:[/b] Content-wise, there seems to be no differences between this version and the standalone Code Mystics version, but the latter is the clear winner when it comes to emulation and netcode quality. [b]V Perfect:[/b] The version of V Perfect in this collection is a surviving copy of the game that was half-finished and did not have proper localization. They just found out about its existence as they were recording interviews and did a bunch of touchups to make it ready for release. However, there is a superior version which is only available on the exA-Arcadia arcade machines. That version has overkill animations restored, allows you to enable/disable the gore, and even features a full re-localization of the entire game. None of these are available in the other versions and probably never will, as exA-Arcadia is infamous for keeping all game enhancements exclusively to their platform. [h2]But wait! There's more...[/h2] Unfortunately, this collection also has a bunch of issues and shortcomings that I want to mention. 1- The characters section of the museum uses SamSho 1's character select as the background music, which is way too short and repetitive, and is not even looped so it fades out at some point and restarts. Was there really no other track in the history of the franchise to be used instead? 2- The movelist becomes inaccessible unless you have chosen a character and the round has already started. It also does this when you enter Rage Explosion in Samurai Shodown V. Why is that? 3- The subtitles on interview videos can bug out and stop being displayed, prompting you to make them reappear by fast forwading and rewinding. Maybe it was better to hardsub the videos instead of using a dynamic overlay. 4- What's the point of adding tournament videos if they play in a very small screen size with no way to make them bigger? I don't care about quality loss, I want to be able to see what's going on. 5- There's a buzzing sound at the end of every match when you play V Special or V Perfect. This issue has apparently been present since 2020 and the Code Mystics version of V Special doesn't have it. [h2]TL;DR[/h2] A convenient way of experiencing older games of the franchise, which is also loaded with gallery content. However, it doesn't offer the best versions of included games, especially Samurai Shodown V.