God, Samurai Shodown is consistently my favorite series.
I met someone at Combo Breaker 2019 who showed me the basics of 5SP with patience. I don't remember his name but he played Tam Tam lol, I started out playing Jubei because I thought Gaira's command grab was hard and he was a bit of a struggle character. I couldn't have been more wrong. Now I play a few characters, Gaira, Haohmaru, Jubei, Tam Tam, Hanzo...
I think 5SP has such a deep sense of balance with all its defensive options, every move you make has some sort of counter. Even someone running at you turns into a quick series of reads because you can expect a throw and hop or duck, but they can throw out an attack which you can dodge or deflect.
Samsho 3 also has a special place in my heart. For better or worse I ran tournaments for that game starting April 2020 through Feb 2021. Before I took over, the community was super welcoming and I still talk to the regulars, but I kinda kept running these after it was clear most people had fallen off. We were at Quarantined Rapport TWICE.
Here's a playlist of all my Samsho 3 tournaments:
!<
Looking forward to playing these offline at Frosty Faustings XIV