Samurai Shodown, known as Samurai Spirits (?????????, Samurai Supirittsu?) in Japan, is a 1993 competitive fighting game produced by SNK for their Neo Geo arcade and home platform. In contrast to other fighting games at the time which were set in modern times and focused primarily on hand-to-hand combat, Samurai Shodown is set in feudal-era Japan and was one of the first fighting games to focus primarily on weapon-based combat. [source:wikipedia]