I admit to knowing little to nothing about the "Samurai Shodown" franchise. I don't think that really matters because if a movie is truly good, it should be able to stand out as being good in its own right. I can say that this was very bad, among the worst anime films I've ever seen. I guess it's no surprise seeing as how bad video game movies are, but anime versions are usually better. I was amazed at how cliché the story was. It featured a bunch of people working together to defeat an evil force that was away for a hundred years or something. The animation doesn't hold up at all.
I found the characters to be so annoying. Haohmaru is particularly obnoxious. When he's not acting like a doofus, he's just insulting the other characters all of whom have very little depth to them. We get this stuff about how his mother was killed and the villain is tempting him and it's all things we've seen countless times before. The short length really works against it, because we have no time to flesh out these characters. I believe fans hate this movie as well, so I'll agree it isn't faithful to the games. The "Fatal Fury" movie was way better. *1/2
I found the characters to be so annoying. Haohmaru is particularly obnoxious. When he's not acting like a doofus, he's just insulting the other characters all of whom have very little depth to them. We get this stuff about how his mother was killed and the villain is tempting him and it's all things we've seen countless times before. The short length really works against it, because we have no time to flesh out these characters. I believe fans hate this movie as well, so I'll agree it isn't faithful to the games. The "Fatal Fury" movie was way better. *1/2