Samurai Shodown (Samurai Spirits in Japan) is a fighting game series by SNK. In Japan, the name of the series is officially in katakana, but is often written in kanji (侍魂, samurai tamashii), with the second character pronounced supirittsu, "spirits", to better reflect the game's setting.
Samurai Shodown, known as Samurai Spirits (サムライスピリッツ Samurai Supirittsu, Samu Supi in short) in Japan, is a competitive fighting game developed and published by SNK for their Neo Geo arcade and home platform. Released in 1993, it is the first installment in the Samurai Shodown series. 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 (similar to Kaneko's Shogun Warriors) and was one of the first fighting games to focus primarily on weapon-based combat.