Waterloo

Well, they got me. Epic Games, that is. I didn't have much interest in the company's digital distribution service, having taken root with Steam many years before. I ignored their weekly freebies and even their Epic coupons which shave ten bucks off your purchase, but this was a bridge too far.

I'm speaking, of course, about the Samurai Shodown Neo-Geo Collection, which was recently announced by SNK. It'll be available on four different formats and costs $39.99 on each of them... except the Epic Games service, which will just give it away from June 11th to June 18th. Granted, I have a lot of these games for a lot of different systems, but the Neo-Geo Collection will also include Samurai Shodown V Perfect, a previously unreleased upgrade-to-the-upgrade which balances the gameplay of SamSho V Special and gives all the characters their own endings. Yes, it's like putting a new hat on Malibu Stacy, but nobody was giving Malibu Stacy away for free, were they?

So now I'm an Epic Games customer. It wasn't brand loyalty to Valve that kept me from getting an account... just a desire to keep my aging computers from getting bogged down by a billion different software launchers. However, it seems that everybody has their price, and six great Samurai Shodown games (and Samurai Shodown III) was mine. 

I do have one question, though. Why isn't Samurai Shodown RPG included? I mean, it's technically a Neo-Geo game, albeit one for the short-lived Neo-Geo CD. Maybe I should just be happy with what I'm getting in a couple of weeks rather than looking a gift warhorse in the mouth.

There was one other thing I wanted to mention! Unsatisfied with the lackluster performance of the Sega Saturn version of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, a Chinese hacker rewrote the game to make it work with the Pro Action Replay and other four meg RAM cartridges. This gives you faster load time between sections of the castle, quick access to the options menu, a handy keystroke that brings up the map, and improved animation. If you're wondering why the Saturn needs a RAM cart to play Symphony of the Night well when it ran just fine on a stock Playstation, you'll have to take that up with KCE Nagoya. 

Thanks to RetroRGB for the news, and YZB for his hard work in ironing out the wrinkles in the original release.