For this month's "Maps Of The Month" featurette, I wish to draw your attention to gRE3N744's Samurai Shodown (Super NES) maps.
It's the year 1788. The martyr Amakusa is brought back to life 150 years after his original death, and now a demon, threatens to unleash chaos! An assortment of warriors from around the world come to feudal Japan to stop Amakusa, and as in any fighting game, each comes with their own goals and story, and of course unique moves and abilities - but in this case, weapons too!
The original Samurai Shodown was for Neo-Geo hardware, but of the numerous ports, the Super NES one is one of the better ones, retaining all of the characters and stages. While maps are not really known to be useful for the fighting game genre, they are still interesting in that they showcase a variety of unique areas, oftentimes associated with particular characters which may add some personality and style. In this case in particular, we have animated maps!
gRE3N744 has mapped every area as an animated GIF, except for Kochi and Texas which are static, however, having added a second version of every map with the featured fighter at that location, ready for battle, every map has motion! I've raved about animated maps before - like TerraEsperZ's map of "The Revolution" stage in Battletoads for the NES back in September 2011 - but I think it's particularly cool to have an entire game mapped out like a short looped video of the time and place, than just a singular snapshot. The crashing waves of Gairyu Isle, the flaming sky at Yamagata, the rushing waters of Ixipalotal - you don't just see them, you watch them. If only there are more maps like this! (We've always wanted 3D maps on VGMaps.com, and while this isn't three-dimensional in the typical sense with the third being depth, we could bring in the fourth dimension, time, in place of it.)
So to recognize the effort put into mapping - and animating - the arenas of this fighting game classic, gRE3N744's Samurai Shodown (Super NES) maps will be known as VGMaps.com's Maps Of The Month for June 2019.
