In this day and age, with games that let you murder hookers and punch grannies in the face, Samurai Shodown's pixellated face-chopping action is about as shocking as an episode of Teletubbies.

Its once-impressive pixel scaling has also lost its impact, and with characters' movements consisting of less than five frames of animation, Samurai Shodown V is no treat for the eyes, either. But these retro re-releases obviously aren’t about eye-melting graphics - they're all about old-skool gameplay and nostalgic appeal.

Let's face it - unless you're already a huge fan of the series there really isn't much reason to get this. But anyone who loved the originals in their prime will remember Samurai Shodown as one of the most stylised fighters around. Everything from the weird oriental music and animated background environments to the fighters’ moves and nutty victory celebrations are imbued with a genuine sense of character and individuality.

Even though the button commands barely differ from one character to the next, it's their brilliant, unique personalities that truly distinguish them. Ukyo is a sleek-looking samurai who coughs every now and then. It turns out that he's actually slowly dying from a nasty case of tuberculosis. He demonstrates how fast his super sword combo is by throwing a little ball a few feet into the air before he launches his attack. He gets several blows in before the ball hits the floor. Genius.

Kusare Gedo is a huge, nasty monster who simply wants to eat a little girl. During fights he summons zombie hands to grab his opponent by slapping the floor with a hysterical grin on his face. He even pukes on his foes, and celebrates victories by biting a chunk of flesh out of his own arm. This game is off its head, and totally cool

But if you've played it in the arcades, you'll have seen it all before, so what's the point in getting the Xbox version? As well as adding nine new fighters, the crazy guys at SNK have thrown in Xbox Live support to coax you into snapping up this re-release, which allows you to challenge players from around the world and enter online tournaments. If you liked to show off your ninja skills on the arcade version, now you can show the world, which is nice.

There's no doubt that Samurai Shodown V is a solid old-skool beat 'em up, with simple moves and great characters. But, as with most of the titles in the flood of retro re-releases we've seen lately, it's hard to justify dropping £20 on it. For that price we'd expect a compilation of the entire series to be in there, at least. For what it is, we'd be perfectly happy paying a cheeky fiver - but dropping a score on this is about as appealing as biting chunks of flesh from our own arms.

1. Nice large sprites that nearly fill the entire screen when the camera is zoomed in on the fight.
2. Even after all this time, the whole game still oozes character. The characters actually make us laugh aloud.
3. Most of these classic re-releases are released without charge. This hits Xbox with Live support and new characters.

1. Disappointingly poor animation, with most movements consisting of fewer than five frames. Eye pain.
2. Even with the extras, the £20 price tag is too high. We'd want a free KFC bargain bucket thrown in for that!

A great fighter, but not worth the £20 asking price. It's a really old game, and even with the new extras, disastrous value.