Savage Reign

The game, much like Samurai Shodown before it, places heavy emphasis on the user's weapon. However, Savage Reign has a few particular elements that make it stand out from its predecessor:

The weapons can be thrown at an opponent from a distance for more ranged attacks. There are also two levels of playing field within the battles: The default lower one and the upper field, which both fighters jump to.

Savage Reign is set in the first half of the 21st century in the fictional city of South Town (the same city used in the Fatal Fury and Art of Fighting series), which has now been upgraded and renamed as Jipang City. A mysterious legendary fighter known only as King Leo has risen up from the shadows of secrecy and issued a challenge on television for the strongest of fighters to battle against him in a tournament known as the Battle of the Beast God, with the promises of immense wealth and legendary fame beyond imagination. Nine fighters have come to take part in this tournament, each with their own sole purpose and reason for battling against King Leo.

In Japan, Game Machine listed Savage Reign on their 1 June 1995 issue as being the seventh most-successful arcade game of the month, outperforming titles such as Baku Baku Animal and Cyberbots.

Reviewing the Neo Geo home version, GamePro summarized, "Savage Reign is one of those impressive fighting games that's likely to disappear soon after it surfaces. It looks great and the sound is dynamite, but in the end it falls short because it lacks an identity to separate it from the multitude of fighting games already out there." The same GamePro critic reviewed the Neo Geo CD version with similar remarks, and noted that compared to the Neo Geo version "the three-button simultaneous attacks are more difficult to execute because the buttons are stacked on top of each other."