While SNK Corporation just launched their Samurai Shodown reboot, a handful of folks are still questioning design choices the developer made decades ago.
Samurai Shodown producer Yasuyuki Oda sounded off on the themes and character designs in the series, in an interview with Polygon.
When asked how they felt about having sexualized female characters in the series and somewhat in the new game, Oda responded.
“There are obviously going to be people that are critical about these types of things. But the fans really wanted characters like Shiki.” Oda noted.
He added, “They wanted characters like [male fighter] Yoshitora, you know? A very sexy playboy. So it might seem like it clashes with what we originally had in the early games, but each game is its own different iteration of a series.”
Lastly, he reaffirmed their commitment to their fans by giving them what they want. “We decided that these are characters that people want, so we’re going to put them in the game,” he said.
Samurai Shodown is now available for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. The Windows PC and Nintendo Switch versions are planned for a release in Q4 of this year.