Samurai Shodown -known as Samurai Spirits in Japan -was released in 1993. Fighting games were extremely popular at the time, and Samurai Shodown offered something new: weapons. Each character in the game had their own weapon, along with a few special moves. You can lose your weapon, but the fight will continue and you can just punch the opponent if you can. In total there are 12 characters to choose from, whilst Amakusa is the unplayable boss of the game.

Playing Samurai Shodown makes you wonder exactly how they managed to mess up the anime adaption so badly. "You've played the game, now see the movie!" says the video box. You'd be far better off just playing the game, and then playing the numerous sequels. The Samurai Shodown series is still going to this day, with the latest installment being released in 2019.

The arcade version of Samurai Shodown was very popular, and the game was ported to many systems. Versions were released for the Neo Geo CD, Super Nintendo, SEGA Genesis, SEGA CD, Game Boy, Game Gear and 3DO. It was also included on Samurai Shodown Anthology and SNK Arcade Classics, two separate collections released for the Playstation 2, Playstation Portable and Nintendo Wii. More recently, it was released as part of the Arcade Archives series, for Nintendo Switch, PC, Playstation 4 and Xbox One.