With all the fighting games of the good old days having made the switch to the third dimension, it’s not so easy to find 2D fighters that were all the rage back in the day. Samurai Shodown V, although not exactly a new game, as it is a remake of the 2003 Neo Geo version, provides some nostalgia for those yearning to remember their cartoon fighter past. The day of the 2D fighter may be long gone, but SNK is trying to keep it above ground with the latest release for the Xbox. Why they decided to release SSV instead of SSV Special, which fixes several gameplay issues such as balancing and is undeniably better, is lost on many of us.

Samurai Shodown V follows the path of 26 playable characters through each of their own individual stories trying to resolve each of their personal issues. The manual says that there are 4 characters that can be unlocked, but unfortunately they actually cannot be. Much like your typical fighting game, when you begin, you choose your fighter and make your way through each opponent that stands in your way until you reach the final boss. While none of the players’ storylines are really all that captivating and the cut scenes between each round are nothing spectacular, with ungodly huge text inside word balloons and poorly animated backgrounds, they set the tone for the graphics through out the entire game.

Being that this version is as previously mentioned, a port of the 2003 version for the Neo Geo, for good or for bad, the graphics are a faithful reproduction as is everything else found in the game. Being that it is three years after the original SSV, there is no reason why SNK couldn’t have prettied up the graphics at least a little bit to bring it into the modern age. Pixilated scenery and characters just seems to scream 1990's at you as you start playing. Seeing water ripples that are made up of big blocky lines is just hard to take in this day and age. Animations are not on par with what they should have been either. Low frame rates or just missing frames makes things seem as though they are skipping and throw you back years to how games used to be.

The 26 characters to choose from are quite various in size, speed, style and degrees of annoyingness. The majority of the characters are like the sword swinging Yumeji Kurokochi but there are the quite odd ones thrown in as well. Characters like Kusare Gedo, who takes up most of the screen and likes to chew on his own skin, is quite exceptional, while on the opposite side of the spectrum, is Mina, the fluffy archer who has a little child with her on screen while you fight that whines and screams constantly and makes you want to jam screwdrivers into both of your ears so it will stop. When you start your one on one battle against your opponent, you will notice a few bars along the top and bottom of your screen. The bottom bar is your rage meter which will increase through out the round the more you get hit. Once it is full, you can activate it once per round which will make your skin turn red as a tomato and give you full strength hits that will devastate an opponent in no time if used right. Along the top, under your health bar is a green bar that will slowly deplete as you hit your opponent.

When you stand still or back off, the spirit bar will slowly increase until full or until you attack again. When it is full, the stronger your hits will be and likewise, the emptier the bar is, the weaker your attacks will be. This slows down the game play a bit as you can’t go berserk on your opponent without the strikes becoming weaker with each hit. It does however, force you to back off and plan your attacks while you have a stronger wallop. Aside from the combos you can pull off and the unique moves each character has, such as being able to knock the weapons out of your opponents hands, you also have another attack called “concentration one” which allows you to slow down time when you have a sliver of life left. Although tricky to pull off, the technique can easily sway a loosing battle into a winning one. The majority of the fighting can be quick or slow paced as you choose, but sometimes, when you think you have a perfect hit coming up, you seem to pass your through the opponent and totally miss for some reason or other.

Once you are done with the single player arcade mode, you can take your skills online with Xbox Live and face off against other real life opponents, assuming you’ll be able to find some. Finding a Live opponent took longer than was expected, but once an opponent was found, connecting to a match was quick and painless. Versus mode allows you to take on your friends and practice mode lets you square off against an opponent, whether it is a lifeless body waiting for your pummeling or a fully functioning player that fights back. The controls are fully customizable so you can map each attack to which ever button you feel is most comfortable or more accessible for your butt kicking needs.

All in all, if you aren’t a fan of the series or haven’t delved into the SS series in the past, chances are you won’t take too kindly to the dated graphics and unbalanced gameplay. If you are a fan of the Samurai Showdown series and have fond memories of the old 2D fighter games and want to take a trip to the past on your magic Xbox time machine, then you should at least give the game a rental before taking the plunge on purchasing it.