on September 3, 2010 and North America on September 6, 2010. Reception In Japan, Game Machine listed Samurai Shodown III on their December 1, 1995 issue as being the most-popular arcade game of the year. According to Famitsu, the AES version sold over 48,757 copies in its first week on the market. Samurai Shodown III received moderately positive reviews. Reviewing the Neo Geo AES version, Electronic Gaming Monthly remarked that the graphics are not as good as the first two games in the series and that the Neo Geo controller makes it difficult to pull off some moves, but they greatly praised the large number of characters and the two different personas for each character, and in general rated the gameplay as superior to the first two Samurai Shodowns. Major Mike of GamePro commented that impressive innovations such as the multiple personas and the sidestep ability are to an extent countered by the omission on some of the best characters from the previous games and the less impressive backgrounds. He concluded that "While Shodown III won't disappoint fans of the series, it isn't the jump that Shodown II was over I." A brief review in Next Generation similarly said that "Fans of the first two won't be let down by III, but there should be a much larger jump in quality in the sequel." Maximum assessed the Neo Geo CD version as "an excellently detailed and extremely playable beat 'em up, maintaining SNK's usual high standards." They particularly praised the fact that character alignment affects the gameplay instead of just cosmetic differences, the much improved balance of the characters, the constantly moving backgrounds, and the highly experimental soundtrack. They remarked that the game's one major problem is that it is irritatingly difficult. Scary Larry of GamePro described the PlayStation version as "a lousy port of an equally bad NeoGeo game", citing missing frames of animation, slowdown, and overly drawn-out fights. He scored it a 1.0 out of 5 in both control and funfactor, giving a 2.5 out of 5 to graphics and sound. GameSpot also commented on the missing frames of animation and slowdown in the PlayStation version, and additionally criticized the "excruciatingly long" loading times, but nonetheless concluded that "Those who loved the arcade game version of Samurai Shodown III will be happy with this conversion." A review in Next Generation assessed it as a faithful port (and in