It's goddam 4 AM rn and I'm here pissed as fuck because I like to play randoms with a friend but I always get fucking Hanzo so I present here FACTUAL PROOF that he fucking sucks and absolutely does NOT deserves to share mid tier with Yunfei, Jubei and Suija.

Fact 1: https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/877686108018847805/989787556348575834/1.png

Fact 2: https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/877686108018847805/989788149452521512/2.png

Fact 3: https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/877686108018847805/989788174735769630/3.png

The samsho 5 discord is trying to gaslight you into thinking slow command grabs are good mix-ups substitutes to AB slashes (the so called 'impartial media' won't show you this one(don't let 'Big ninja' fool you)).

Samurai Shodown V Special is pretty slim in terms of what it offers casuals with its arcade mode. But I'm not one to play fighting games that way.

As a multiplayer game, Samurai Shodown V Special is one of the greats of the genre.

The presence of both Time Slow ("State of Nothingness") and Rage lead to some interesting planning and decision making. Generally to make the best of one, you have to weaken or not use the other. But in a pinch, you might still use time slow even when you spent the whole match focused on rage. Or you might rage explode to avoid dying, even if you end up not getting anything from all the meditation you did for time slow.

This sets the game apart from all others in the series when combined with the dodge button and all the different maneuvers they tied to it. Hopping in place to avoid and punish a throw. ducking or rolling to go under fireballs. meditating in place to build up power for your time slow.... it's great

Samsho's hard hitting attacks, plentiful game mechanics, and atmospheric music lend it a beautiful and still unique flavor to this day.

Game's pretty jank though. Probably would have benefited from some extra polish and dev time. But it's not like there's any money on the line when you play it. Just enjoy it and embrace the occasional quirky interactions between attacks.

Easy for beginners to jump in and start swinging big Heavy Slash attacks that do tons of damage. Fun for experienced players to master the many tools available and learn how to bluff and bait their opponents into missing their attack and being struck down.

It's hard to pin down what makes V Special better than it's original counterpart. There is a lot of stages cut, a few characters cut, but ultimately everything here feels fresher or brighter or simply more alive than it's previous counterpart. What it lacks from the original Shodown V, it effectively delivers in smoother gameplay, and a slightly more interesting arcade experience. The difference between the two games even shows up at the very beginning and ending of their respective games. With the character selection screen being more interesting, and a far more engaging credits compared to a simply rolling of names. This all kinda accumulates to a better time playing this version of V compared to the original.

Arcade mode has effectively gutted out the story mode for these characters, but it replaced it with an interesting alternative which is effectively a boss rush of the past boss characters if you get the right requirements. Each match's speed and character balance also helps make for not only an easier time during arcade mode, but also makes it feel like a more enjoyable, well paced ride. Each character has something to use and options to play with on top of a bunch of mechanics and attacks that are able to decisively end the match. V Special basically just gives each character / player enough options to make it feel like a hard earned victory without other characters feeling overpowered or wasting each others time. If you failed to make the right moves and used the wrong power than you are punished for it properly. While I can't say this is an exclusive feeling in Samurai Shodown, V Special certainly makes it feel far easier to use these optional power ups compared to the rest of the series.

Basically Samurai Shodown V Special is just a polished product compared to it's original counterpart. It's odd in the sense that on paper the original certainly seems better. More characters and stages traditionally make for a better game, but with the way the changes V Special makes it out to be the better experience. V Special's roster, the balancing of characters, and the more vibrant stages it has; gives off a product that is better than the originals newly added dull stages and unbalanced character additions. Their certainly is enough reason to look at Samurai Shodown V, but V Special simply outshines it in ways that matter more to a fighting game audience.

There is a myth, circulated amongst gamers, that what they want is a fair and honest multiplayer game, that balance is the ultimate ideal from which fun will trickle down. Seeing this, I cast myself in the form of a gamer, as Zeus took the form of a hermit, and went out amongst them seeking one gamer who could define concepts like "honesty" and "scrubby", their mouths moved, but I cannot hear lies, the world was silent. The gamer knows not what it wants, it wants to get one over the other guy, to get schnasty, to rub dirt in it's opponents eyes. If the gamer held in their heart the values they profess with their mouth, 10,000 people would be playing Nidhogg at evo, people would be lining up around the block to 1v1 me in Quake 1 (honest liar that I am, I'm playing Quake 1 because the Quake 3 guys are too good and I want to rub dirt in some kid's eyes).

Bushido, the code of the sammerai, the iron clad laws of honor which bound men, ahistorical fascist mythologizing, the Samurai was the type of mfer to take a gun to a knife fight, Miyamoto Musashi showed up late to the most important duel of his long career, against Sasaki Kojiro, he did it on purpose to make sure Kojiro was good and mad so that the well rested Musashi, whose mind no doubt was like a placid lake, a sheet of liquid glass reflecting the world, could win more easily. Like Bushido, the fair and honest multiplayer game is a confabulation of gamer machismo, it doesn't even exist, the games I named several sentences ago are for nasty little freaks and I was just lying.

Samurai Shodown knows the lure of the myth, look how elegant it is, a single well timed sword stroke can win you the match if you read your opponent well and play with patience, no crazy combos will squeeze out extra damage from a love tap, no scrubby blockstrings to mix you up, none of that nonsense, at last you can prove your warrior's worth, a steely eye and a hard read in neutral and your opponent is lying on the floor in two pieces. Then the wuxia guy gets a health lead and spends the last 10 seconds of the match flying around the ceiling to force a time out for an easy win; Samurai Shodown also knows that when gamers get what they say they want they'll be bored in 15 minutes, and go back to screaming at other people to deflect for their own ineptitude in DotA 2.

There's two gauges that effect the strength of the wound your mighty sword stroke will inflict: "the sword gauge" and the "rage gauge" they fill and deplete in fickle increments, a coward might research the values that dictate them, a True Samurai will perform arcane rituals to appease them. If you are in doubt , hit the button labelled "special", it hops, it rolls, it dodges, it deflects, it meditates, whatever you want, it does; the longer you meditate, at the cost of you rage gauge, the longer and sooner you can go into slow-motion when you're at risk of losing, enabling you to steal an easy win from the guy who was trouncing you. This is the true historical Bushido, the way of the Samurai, what all warriors and e-warriors want, despite their claims to the contrary. Show up late, and bring a gun.