SNK vs Capcom
There's
just something about a good SNK brawler that Capcom couldn't duplicate
in the Capcom vs SNK crossovers. Kyo's fire punch combination felt a
little too stiff; the transparent flame effects just seemed to take
away from the feeling of the projectiles, and so on. Not to mention
Capcom's recycling of sprites for their side's fighters led to some
pretty weird clashes in design. (Read: Morrigan's surreal pastel ass,
put against say, SFA's version of Balrog.) The redrawn SNK characters,
on the other hand were pretty nice and more animated and expressive
than in their native series.
SvC
was supposed to come out on Neo-Geo MVS about the same time as CvS (the
first one) debuted. Remember that cool NGPC SNK vs Capcom: Match of
the Millennium? That was intended as the portable counterpart to the
arcade game that didn't come out- until this year.
The
first thing one I thought of after getting past the well-animated intro
and nice, 'streamlined' type title screen Playmore is so fond of, is
"Whoah. This game FEELS old." The background of the character
select screen is in that sort of colored crumpled paper look the early
KOF's had, divided down the middle into blue and red sides. The next
thing that comes to mind is the number of 'obscure' characters making
appearances here. We're talking about characters like Hugo (from Street
Fighter III) and Shiki (Samurai Shodown 64, SNK Gals Fighter.) Sure,
the old standbys are all there, Kyo, Terry, Ryu, Ken- but instead of
Haohmaru we get his macho-femme rival Genjuro Kibagami. The hidden bosses
and playable characters stretch for the 'out there' tier of Marvel vs
Capcom's Mega Man characters. The alien(s) from Metal Slug are in it
and the Red Devil from Ghosts
n' Goblins, for chrissakes. The massive delay in the game's
release also brought us the Wind Waker-esque-plays-with-fairies Zero
from Mega Man Zero. One appearance that impressed me though, was Goenitz.
And he's even playable without utilizing voodoo, dipswitches, or the
roulette wheel.
In
a somewhat disappointing turn of events, the fights are strictly one-on-one.
I realize that back in 'your day' that was the only mode fighting games
came in, but remember that 'your day' largely overlaps 'my day' which
kind of left-lane merges into 'their day', and I kind of like team battles.
And if that didn't make any sense, I'm sorry, clearly the CHAOS!! is
getting to me.
There's
pretty much only two levels of supers in this game, the ones that consume
one stock and the Exceed, a one-shot SDM that can only be used once
per fight. Yes, as in all 2-3 rounds. On the plus side, it's usually
very damaging and doesn't require you to use your meter, but it's still
annoying to lose your biggest attack in the first round. More annoyance-
the throw system. Not only do they turn the CD knockdown AB dodge moves
into your throws, if you miss with one it takes off of your gauge. There's
also a 'gauge consumption dash' which I don't use at all.
Remember
the earlier complaint about sprite recycling? Well, SNK is guilty of
that here. While some have been redrawn or at the very least given new
animations, most of them look almost exactly like KOF '96 characters.
I'd even go so far as to say Mai looks like herself circa '94. The new
ones like Shiki are awesome and given a lot of shading and detail. The
soft shade effect doesn't treat Zero as kindly, though, he looks like
a little kid who fell into a mud puddle. For the most part almost all
the Capcom characters are great-looking. Ken's skin tone looks a little
bizarre, and between Chun-Li's constantly bouncing chest (more so than
Mai, whose chest seems to be in 'censored mini-bounce' mode) and oversized
shoulder pads, she looks kind of unbalanced. One thing nice about this
game's look, though is just that- it actually HAS a look. CvS just kind
of took old characters and splattered them against random backdrops
and threw in some techno. SvC adopts a sort of bleak, washed-out look
throughout the game. Some stages (see right) approach a monochrome feel,
which for some reason adds a sense of 'desperation' that actually makes
the fights feel more intense.
The
sound's not so great. Mai's in one of those funny-accented modes she
gets into, and for some reason Geese is virtually silent. Maybe his
voice actor died. A side effect of one of Terry's supers being sped
up was them speeding his voice up appropriately. "AREYOUOKAYBUSTERWOLF!"
The music's decent. The sound effects, however are a little weird. Occasionally
someone falling down in the woods will make a 'metal crunching' sound,
or a fireball sounds like a punching bag getting hit with an aluminum
bat. Nothing nearly on the scale of Justice League Task Force, where
the entire soundtrack consisted of silence, occasionally broken up by
farting sounds and owls hooting.
Another
thing that definitely adds to the flavor of thing are the custom pre-bout
dialogs between fighters. Every fighter has a set of trash talk for
every other fighter, most of them are pretty well written and in character.
(I haven't noticed too many painfully obvious typos, except Zero's alternately
reporting to 'Ciel' as well as 'Shell' gets annoying.) In fact, aside
from the occasional macho rival garbage, most of it seems to be tongue-in-cheek
pokes amongst itself. Especially in that every SNK fighter mistakes
Dan Hibiki for Robert Garcia. There are some pointless sight gags tossed
in for good measure, for instance Goddess Athena's 8-bit win pose and
KOF's Bao popping out of Hugo's tangled afro.
The
consensus on Orochi Iori, both in and out of game is that at this point
it's more 'annoying' than terrifying. That silly, attention starved
glam rocker.
And
finally, I come to the bosses. The mid boss will vary with your performance-
sometimes it's Dan, sometimes it's Goenitz (still using the same damn
tornado attacks as his boss appearance, yippee) Geese Howard, the Mars
People, or Zero. The SNK characters have to fight the hard bosses- Orochi
Iori and 'Honto ni Katta' Mr. Karate. Orochi Iori is, as always, a blindingly
fast dervish of projectiles, grabs, cheap shots and rabid frothing.
The evil Mr. Karate is like regular Mr. Karate, only made even more
annoying by his ability to fire off a massive triple fireball at a whim,
and smash your guard from across the screen with some kind of invisible
chi attack. His Exceed is an unblockable super combo that finishes with
the aforementioned triple fireball and it takes off about a whole health
bar plus ten percent of the next. Yeah, that's fair. Capcom side bosses
are Violent Ken (all the fun of regular Ken- plus teleporting!) and
Shin Akuma. If you do well throughout the game, you'll then go to Heaven
to fight Goddess Athena (not the pop singer, but close) or Firebrand
the red devil, here called Red Arremer. With cameos by Lord (God or
Zeus?) and Satan!
Is
SvC the best versus title? Probably not. Neo Geo machines are way too
rare- Hell, Capcom vs SNK machines are rare. Marvel vs. Capcom 2, you
can't walk into an arcade without stubbing your toe on that epileptic
fit waiting to happen. Still, SvC Chaos is a pretty solid game despite
looking about twice its age.
Also:
it doesn't have anyone named 'Johann,'
which automatically gives it a boost in my eyes.