Samurai Spirits Tenka/Samurai Shodown 6

This is a petition to get SNK Playmore, the inventors of the Samurai Spirits series, to put blood effects in their upcoming arcade release, Samurai Spirits Tenkaichi Kenkakuden, or Samurai Shodown 6.

The reason for this is simple. We are tired of trade-ins. In this case, we are getting a Samurai Shodown dreammatch everybody has waited for, except it has no blood whatsoever.

Samurai Shodown is a series that focuses on one-on-one combat with blades. The series was well known for its unique gameplay that separated it from all the others, but another common property was this game's atmosphere. It is set in feudal Japan, where the world is in turmoil and combat like this oftentimes results in death. Bloodshed was common in the Samurai Shodown series, and unlike other series that merely used blood as a gimmick, (Such as Mortal Kombat) the shedding of blood was justified. Death and dismemberment was also in the series, and that too was justified. Besides, the representations of death in this series were never meant to be realistic. A prime example is when you cut someone in half. Their top part just slides off and disappears while the bottom torso collapses, with the dismemberment being merely a shadow of their sprite. There's no guts spilled, nor any other real tasteless gore to be found. Besides, if the player wanted to avoid death, the final blow could be dealt simply with a non-lethal blow, such as a kick.

The former SNK wasn't afraid to try new things or go in a particular direction in order to remain true to the development of a given title. The Samurai Shodown series is a perfect example of this.

Nowadays, SNKP has forgotten the simple fact of what their predecessor worked so hard to do: tell a story as best they could. This is due to the development of an obsessive fear of some imagined fallout. This appeared in the case of the recent Samurai Spirits Zero Special, where the company spent weeks advertising new moves they had put into the game. But thanks to the complaints of a few arcade operators, and thanks to a violent incident that happened in Nagasaki, SNKP removed all of the moves they were just spending weeks advertising. As a result, this censorship created bugs in the game itself. They heard our anger, and did a cart recall, but they were telling half truths and whole lies. Although these bugs were fixed, dismemberments were still removed, and the advertised moves were watered down to appear less violent. The moves themselves beforehand were no more violent than what the SS series already had up to that point.

This leads us to today. SNKP finally answers prayers that many fans have been itching to hear. Their favorite characters are all brought back. The new game has a system of styles to play with. There's an option to turn on and off classic SS gameplay.

But what's the catch? Not a single ounce of blood. All that's there are some somewhat crumby hitsparks.

A number of people claim this lack of blood is due to the game's intended setting, which is that of a Japanese "matsuri" festival. It soon becomes clear that they don't want to put the blood in because they have developed an obsessive feeling towards an imaginative fallout. They think they are going to be sued if they put something simple in, yet they don't realize that the amount of violence in this series doesn't compare anywhere to that of games such as Grand Theft Auto, which is already being a target of Japanese media.

Of course, as with all games, gameplay takes higher priority over special effects, but we all feel that the ommission of blood is unnecessary for a game for a series such as this. The series was built on its bloody atmosphere, and it should stay that way. We think SNKP is being too careful in their development plans for this game. If a few pixels of near borderline nudity is just fine for the series, (Like one of this game's new characters) then a few pixels of blood should be no different.

How you can do it is very simple. It can be encoded into the software itself as a dip switch, or it can be an option in the menu or console that can turn the blood and fatality effects on and off. You used something very similar to this back in your days on the MVS software, why do we need to be deprived of even the option for this game? If the arcade operators don't like the blood, they can turn it off. Simple as that. We shouldn't be forcefed this lack of blood because just a few other people might not like it, such as the media.

Give us back the basic yet very important detail to the series. It will be a positive move on your part, increase your sales, and make all the fighting game fans' dreams come true.

Thank you.