Add in Mizuki, the long-nailed, shape-shifting, monstrously difficult final boss, and there are seventeen characters total. This increases the character roster to fifteen playable combatants – not including the judge, who’s playable in the ports.

It also keeps most of the characters from the previous game except for Tam Tam, who apparently has been turned into a monkey and fights alongside Cham Cham. There are now four new playable characters – Cham Cham, the cute, green haired, boomerang wielding catgirl Haohmaru’s rival Genjuro Kibagami Caffeine Nicotine, a tiny little old monk in a funny hat and Neinhalt Sieger, who wields a gigantic iron fist. Samurai Shodown II improves upon the first game in several ways. The game’s storyline revolves around the evil demoness, Mizuki, “The Marauding Deity.” The plot occurs in 1789, (a year after the events of the first game) and picks up after the unsuccessful attempt of Amakusa Shiro Tokisada to lead the world into ruin. Samurai Shodown II (known as Shin Samurai Spirits: Haohamaru Jigokuhen or “True Samurai Spirits: Haohmaru’s Journey to Hell” in Japan) was released in the arcades in 1994.

Game samurai shodown 2