Last updated on January 4th, 2026 at 06:01 am
SAMURAI SHODOWN II – Action Game Review
SAMURAI SHODOWN II is a Action/Entertainment/Casual game from SNK CORPORATION, first launched in 27th June 2013.
It’s rated 12+ and currently has 260+ ratings on the App Store.
What Makes SAMURAI SHODOWN II Stand Out
Spread the word and don't miss out on this unique opportunity to play "SAMURAI SHODOWN II" with your friends!
SAMURAI SHODOWN II, the sword-based fighting game masterpiece has finally cut its way to iOS devices!
Slash the powerful adversaries standing in your path, and put a stop to Mizuki Rashojin's evil ambitions!
Features:
The fan favourite installment in SNK's highly acclaimed series!
The 2nd episode of the SAMURAI SHODOWN Series, is still beloved by fans of the series all across the world.
Preserving the charm of the first game, its sequel brings the characters, world, and game system to the next level.
An incredible cast of 15 charismatic master swordmens head to the battlefield in order to fulfill their destiny.
Haohmaru, Nakoruru, Ukyo Tachibana, Hanzo Hattori, Jubei Yagyu, and the rest of the 11 original characters return.
Genjuro Kibagami, Cham Cham, Neinhalt Sieger, and Nicotine Caffeine come into play to complete the cast as the newcomers!
A new and expanded move list! Disarm your rivals by unleashing a Weapon Smash Attack!
Forward Somersault, Backward Flip, Crouch, and even more moves have been added. A Weapon Smash can be performed when your Rage Gauge reaches its MAX!
Finesse, or brute force? Let your hidden techniques express your fighting style!
A perfect port of this NEOGEO classic, adding new features for an even better experience!
In addition to the original 4 button arcade experience, a 6 button layout and SP button allow you to easily pull off strong slashes and special moves by simply using the Touch Screen!
Challenge your friends via Wi-Fi!
Dual with your friends in a match through Wi-Fi Multiplayer Mode!
This Action game offers engaging gameplay and regular updates for mobile players.
Player Feedback
As a newer release, SAMURAI SHODOWN II is building its player community. Early feedback suggests .
Recent Updates & Development
Latest Update: 19th April 2022
Recent improvements include:
Compatible with iOS14 or higher
Download & Availability
SAMURAI SHODOWN II is available through the official App Store for iOS devices.
Get SAMURAI SHODOWN II on App Store
Requirements: Requires iPhone 5s / iPad Air / iPad Air (Cellular) / iPad Mini 2 (Retina) / iPad Mini 2 (Retina, Cellular) / iPhone 6 / iPhone 6 Plus / iPad Air 2 / iPad Air 2 (Cellular) / iPad Mini 3 or later.
Compatible with iPhone and iPad devices.
Player Experience Highlights
Community Insight:
What an awesome game, there's a lot more depth to the fight mechanics than you may think. RE complaints about controls obscuring the view, select "window" mode in settings. Perfect.
Having blast playing this game! We used to love playing it in the arcade as a kid. It's awesome that you can adjust the size and opacity of the controls! Kudos to the creators of the iPad SS II port, but… MY ONE WISH is that controls PLACEMENT could be arranged. We understand from a UI designers perspective that there is limited screen real-estate when playing on a tablet, but we think having the four buttons placed on the bottom of the screen, as well as lower the joystick, would be ideal., at least on the iPad version.
If the game was compatible with powershell would be great.
We have been waiting for this game since day 1 after we bought our first iPad. Perfect port. Thanks a lot.
Great game. Almost a literal translation of the arcade version. Update the blood spray bacc into the game. That'll make it the # 1 game in the store.
While the game its self its great fun, has good character designed, and its a Fighter (our favorite genre). The fact it was ported to the iOS makes the game play very stange, even though it has that SP button. Another observation would be the Menu is pretty nice and it has art from the character and then sound of the sword gives the Menu a bit of uniqueness. Over all this game not meant be here, because this game is very prestigious Neo-Geo title. BECAUSE IS THIS SNK.
It's all here. Everything you may have liked about the arcade or Neo-Geo SS2 is here, intact. Blood, mildly hilarious English translations, every beautifully animated 2d sprite is here. Training Mode is very useful and welcome, you can adjust your sparring partner's behavior thru the menu, accessed by dragging down from the top of the screen. Our one wish? The developer announces iOS 7 external game controller support on iOS 7 launch day. Use a real controller with real buttons, and get the onscreen joystick and buttons out of there! Then, this port will be utterly perfect. C'mon, dev! The tools are right there, the bones of the game are terrific. Unite them with controller goodness, please. Oh, and love is the best strength.
We won't tell u anything, anyone else hasn't said here. Great port, control is difficult without actual joystick but, if you played n the arcade n the day, it's almost exactly the same. Some have said that's it too hard! It's exactly as hard as we remember to beat certain characters (Genjuro & Hanzo to name a couple),.
It is a good game. Now maybe it's user error but this game is super hard; even on level 1. And touch controls definitely don't make it any easier. If u want a game u can't beat, this is the one.
We've always enjoyed the Samurai Shodown games and we were pleasantly surprised to see it available for the iPhone. It is still fun to play but with that said, this is not at all very easy to play because of the controls which are very, very sensitive since all the movement is like a joystick you'd use for the actual arcade version of the game. It will take a lot to get used to because of the sensitivity, but on the plus side all of the special moves, are done with the aid of a "special move" button, so you just have to move the joystick in a particular direction and then you press the special move button which we liked. So if you're a fan of the Samurai Shodown series, you should definitely give this version of the game a try, you just might enjoy it the same way we did.
This is a great game and brings back the golden age of arcade fighting. The controls are not bad but they cannot quite replace the feeling of mashing buttons in a controller or arcade game so it might appear that they are unresponsive. Whoever thinks the resolution is poor on this game has obviously never played an old fighting arcade game before the age of polygons. The graphics are a great example of what games used to be and how fun they can be even without the latest and greatest graphics. The only thing that prevents us from giving it a 5 star rating is that it is incredibly difficult to beat even with the special move shortcuts. Even at level 1 difficulty it makes quite a frustrating experience. All around it is a fun old school game.
The reviews are right, level 1 is very hard! We don't mind it, but it took twenty tries to beat Siegar and after taking a break and reopening the app, we were back at square one.
It's on sale. We bought it. It's a great memory of days gone by, feeding quarters into a machine. But as many reviewers noted and we didn't quite believe, it's too hard. That's on level 1 out of 8. It's tough enough getting used to the virtual control, the ai engine is ramped up a bit too much. The practice round helps, but then fighter 1 is good, the next one is impossible. When you'd cuss or beat up on the machine in the old days, it weighed 300 lbs and was made out of laminated plywood. It could take it. Now we have to play this freakin game where our kids won't hear us and we have to remember not to punch our iPad. There's nothing like having that joystick and buttons for nailing those key moves. You can adjust the size and placement on the screen of the joystick and buttons. That helps. We look forward to future updates. At the same time, we'll keep practicing. The port is phenomenal.
Great port. Fun, and unlike others, we don't have problems with the controls on the iPad. However, we don't see the difference in difficulty settings. Level 1 is the same as level 8. We keep getting to the third fight and it's too impossible to beat on level 1 or 8. Please fix! Such a tease that we can't go on.
We ignored the control complaints and went and got it anyways. We regret it. As one of our fav games we can't get the controls to work. We made them super small so they don't interfere with the gameplay but it seems impossible to move them around, only 2 move. The rest are glitchy. Please fix this ASAP so we can enjoy this.
En mi iPhone funciona perfecto, pero en mi iPad Air no se pueden configurar los controles.
We love this game. It's a great port of the original, but the difficulty settings need to be adjusted. It will be a 5 star game when this is fixed.
1.- Add widescreen support. Please look Sonic and Sonic 2. 2.- Work the difficulty. It is so hard to play. Fix it please. Thanks. This can be one of the best games in the App Store. Please make it right.
While at first it's fun to play we like the characters, but we have a lot of complaints about this game, it's too hard, even at level 1 difficulty, that. Needs to be fixed, also fix up the resolution, and add in a type of multiplayer were you actually get to play with your friends on the same device, ultimate mortal Kombat did that on the iPad version, maybe you should try it out, in fact this game was a waste of money in some parts that is all we have to say… Good day to you SIR.
We were so excited when we saw this game but after playing it we had to delete it due to poor unresponsive controls.
We tend not to write reviews but thought this game deserved one so others might know what they are buying. As other reviewers have mentioned the AI is incredibly difficult, even at level 1. It's almost impossible to win at this game.
Others have said it, and we completely agree: it's an absolutely brilliant port of the original game. The only problem is the controls are just ineffective. Overlaying the controls does maximize screen real estate for the game, but it means obscuring critical areas you need to see in order to play the game. The developers tried to aid this by making the controller configuration extremely flexible and adding shortcut buttons, but the option to devote the bottom of the screen to controls is absent so you have no choice but to cover the gameplay. In addition, the virtual joystick lacks the ability to adjust the sensitivity. Out of the box, the joystick is too sensitive: your character ends up jumping around too much unintentionally. External joystick support would be fantastic, but the developers could do a bit more to make up for that deficiency. Right now, it's almost impossible to play the game effectively without a joystick.
Excelente juego, aunque los controles no son tan precisos.
Our coworker brought in a neogeo to work recently. We had a lot of fun so we looked up the game on iPhone. The port is good, but like many other comments, it's way too hard. We can beat the game at level 4 on geoneo but we can't get passed 4th or 5th guy on level 1. Very frustrating.
The buttons and controls are unresponsive.
Overall the game is ok. Game play is pretty good so is the sfx, but the resolution of the game is a different story. The resolution is horribly low. If you play it on an ipad it looks like a bad joke. You really need to bump up the resolution on this game. We would give it 5 stars but the image is to pixelated. SNK please bump up the resolution.
Buttons by default are huge and covered the entire screen. So, you would think changing buttons size would fix it. Nope! It is broken as long as the buttons are overlapped with the direction keys, you are out of luck. Can't believe SNK can release a game without testing the basic one. We know this is an emulator, but doesn't mean that they even have more time to test the basic functions.
We see people complaining its too hard, well boohoo to that, ive never remember this as an easy game arcade always had it on hardest level, but the fact the controls are just horrible is frustrating! Cant do anything no matter how we try to fix the button size and position, fix and upgrade, you are ruining the nostalgic moment with horrible control settings will 2 star this until fixed.
This game plays okay on an iPhone. On an iPad, the controls are so large that you cannot use them. When you try to reconfigure the controls, buttons get stuck under the joystick and they cannot be moved. This essentially renders the game useless on an iPad.
We grew up in the 80's and 90's playing these arcade titles all the time. They're classics and we consider ourselves pretty adept at these types of fighters, but when we can't beat the second opponent on a difficulty level setting of 1, something is wrong. If you're playing on the lowest difficulty setting, it's basically because you are asking for mercy so you can better learn the game. You're opponent should be nearly comatose and you should be able to button mash your way through the entire game. This is the opposite, it becomes utterly impossible by the second opponent no matter the setting. Please fix this, we really want to love this game.
This app is an excellent port of a great classic game. However, it has been unplayable since its purchase because we're unable to reconfigure the button and d-pad layouts. The default setting makes the buttons too big and the d-pad overlaps over 2 buttons. When we adjust their size somehow more buttons end up under the d-pad. Due to this, we're unable to relocate the buttons to another position on the screen and makes the game unplayable. We would love to give this game at least a 4-5 star rating but for now just a 2 star (for all our frustration) until the app is updated with better button configuration options.
Loved the game in the arcade, and we're not sure if there's some left over coding from the arcade version to keep you pumping in quarters; but this game plays unfair. Single player blocks every hit and never misses. What's up SNK at least make single player fun.
Look and feel wise it's a great port of the orig but its too hard. Controls are useless…the joystick just doesn't flow well at all.
This game level is set too hard, which we don't mind. But a save mode would us nice. So we don't need to keep fighting from the start and never hv time to finish this game. We wish you guys bring back SS IV & V. Graphic in this game need major improvement.
Controls has a certain time to work not very accurate in general it all about a positioning and counterattack we wish to be close to street fighter 4 but noting at all we love it but this is ridiculous to be so hard at lv1 and soo smile for iPhone screen need bigger screen to be able to watch what's happen exactly.
The game is too difficult. We remember playing this in the arcade and it was nowhere near this difficult.
Setting on easy is set on hard and it gets harder from that. Worthless and not worth the money!!! No stars.
We loved this game in the arcade when we were younger, and was so excited to see it when it came out on iOS. However, the port is horrible. The controls are not responsive at all, and when we press back we would actually jump. The game is a very hard game even at the easiest setting. Actually, the settings don't do anything at all. It is the same difficulty no matter what you do. DO NOT BUY THIS GAME! IT IS UNPLAYABLE.
SNK, you need to update and fix this game immediately. The AI is extremely difficult, virtually impossible and unplayable to beat, like everyone said even on level 1 setting. When you press on button such as the AB and CD buttons, all buttons are pressed. Do NOT recommend buying this game until an update resolves this game.
FIX YOUR DAM KEY CONFIGURATION NOW.
Don't waste your time and money-game doesn't even work-a total rip off.
Fix it please!!!! And bring to ios samurai shodown 1,3,4 y 5.
Loved the game when we were younger, looks like a perfect port. Unfortunately on our iPad the buttons are placed under the joystick making them impossible to hit and impossible to move in the setup, very frustrating and unplayable.
This is really bad! The control doesn't even work nor can be configured! Waste of money.
We like the game but the controls are really bad, graphics still prehistoric. It will be great to have an updated version.
The game itself is great, but the controls for iPad are completely useless, plus it is incredibly hard even from the first fight. Must update immediately.
This game was supposed to be a good time but was way too hard too enjoy. We strongly urge you to not buy this or other games made by this company. They ruined a game that we really liked by making the controls unusable and the computers artificial intelligence way too difficult even on level 1 of 8. It literally took us 30 minutes a piece to beat any of the characters. We have not made it past the 4th round on any difficulty. What does a company gain by making such a bad product? We think they should give a refund to the suckers like ourselves, who paid honest money for a disappointment. We advise the developers to not take the easy road in the future and make a crap product because consumers will find out who you are and will boycott you. SNK would be ashamed of this.
Playing on iPad Air… Controls take up the entire screen and the buttons won't work. We can't be the only person having this problem.
We don't know what happened but this game was virtually unplayable because when we booted it up and was excited to play, the buttons were configured in such a way that we couldn't press any of the attack buttons and could only move. When we tried to move the buttons in key configuration, we couldn't move them. It was like they were locked in place. We were really looking forward to this game as we played it in arcades as a child and we were extremely disappointed. If they fixed this issue, we probably would have given it a 4 out of 5 or a 5 out of 5. Probably.
NO IPHONE5 screen support!! Still shows small iphone3 screen size its toooo small!! Dont But! Level 1 UNREALISTICLY hard!! Come on DEVELOPER let us enjoy the game!! You can make levels >greater than 5 the Hard ones!!!!! Dont buy this game it is unplayable and unrealistcally hard on level 1!! ALSO MULTIPLAYER Falls Out oF SINC! It does not work so dont think you will be enjoying with your friends… Wast of money :(.
User feedback from Apple App Store
App Details
- Version: 1.2.1
- Size: 66.62 MB
- iOS: 14.0 or later
- Languages: EN, JA
- Content Advisory: Frequent/Intense Cartoon or Fantasy Violence, Infrequent/Mild Alcohol, Tobacco, or Drug Use or References
- Developer: SNK CORPORATION
Last updated: 19th April 2022 | Genre: Action, Entertainment | Developer: SNK CORPORATION