Capcom vs. SNK

"A solid and enjoyable compromise between the 2 companies"

BACKGROUND: SKIP THIS IF IT GETS BORING!

Good golly miss Molly, it looks like it's review time again for me. And now to a game that I bought about a year ago, played a little bit, and picked up again. This game is perhaps one of the more interesting concepts within the videogame world: two rival companies team up in order to make a fighting game.

Even more interesting is the fact that these two companies are Capcom and SNK. SNK, who's Ryo Sakazaki looks and plays exactly like a Capcom shoto-clone, and Capcom, who's character Dan is a blatant slam on the SNK art of fighting characters, especially with his tiny fireball and Robert-Garcia hair.

So miraculously, Capcom vs. SNK comes into existence from the land of zero-possibility. Is it good? I think so. Read on... IF YOU DARE!

STORY: WHY THE FIGHTERS MAKE WITH THE FIGHTING!

I don't know why this isn't more of an issue with fighting games. See, I actually think that certain characters have a reason for hopping into their background stages to beat the hell out of the other nice characters. The problem is that Capcom vs. SNK is one of those ''dreamland'' games, where because two parallel universes of fighters clash, there isn't any more explanation needed outside of that. Ryo vs. Ryu for battle of the true shotokan anyone?

Basically, there is no story. If you play mostly as Capcom characters, then you fight Geese, and if you use mostly SNK dudes, you fight M. Bison (US version). After you beat them, you see a screen of the winners, Joe Higashi and Dan (both interestingly NOT IN THE GAME), and then a news description of how Geese / M. Bison are now defeated. All it needs now is that ''Winners don't do drugs'' screen that comes up after really bad arcade game endings. ''You defeated the monster! Challenge again to save the world from evil space creature! Winners don't do drugs!''

I mean, come on people, it can be as simplistic as the SFA endings, where the character says, ''I must still train in order to become the best!'' Or god forbid, make endings for certain teams that might feasibly work. It's gonna be hard to explain a team consisting of Blanka, Kyo, and Cammy, but ones like Rugal and Vice might perhaps... WARRANT AN INTERESTING ENDING? Hmm?

The only traces of story come from special character intros, but it's stuff as meager as Ken throwing Terry his hat. How did Ken get it in the first place? Other ones are stuff like Iori throwing a fireball at M. Bison and him jumping over it. Hold up! This is getting interesting! Let's delve into the psyche of WHY Iori is attacking M. Bison! How did Ken come to get Terry's hat? Left over at Ken's apartment after a night of intense summer passion? Granted, I don't want that level of sickening depth, but at least SOMETHING.

Story: 1 / 10
Even events ''fictitious'' by both game world standards should have SOME story.

GAMEPLAY: DERIVED FROM GAME AND PLAY TO MAKE ONE WORD!

Capcom vs. SNK is actually a pretty well-playing game, aside from a few things that really make me boil over in anger. it's a solid fighting game, most characters are useful, and the game can be enjoyable. Settle in fellas, because this section is gonna be a while.

Essentially, there are a large number of characters to choose from, half Capcom and half SNK. I think Capcom has one more character than SNK, but that's a negligable difference. If you're a fan of either Street Fighter Alpha, or the KOF games, you'll be attracted here. Even some of the more fringe characters from the two game worlds (like SNK's psychotic Yamazaki, thank god they put him in more games!!!) are represented here. I was actually a little concerned about the choice of characters in the game, but the included ones are very good characters (okay, Vega grew on me, and that's the American Vega mind you-Mr. Claw dude).

The game is separated into two ''grooves,'' called grooves because I think Japanese game makers have a few asinine ideas of what ''cool'' is over in the States. One is the Capcom groove, which builds exactly like what you'd find in the street fighter games. 3 levels, unleash in fury at people. The SNK groove is a hybrid of the Extra and Advanced modes in the King of Fighters games (which I happen to like more than SFA, but that's me....) where holding down heavy punch + heavy kick charges a super bar. When it fills all the way up, you can jump back from the game and say, ''WOO HA!'' or you could use a super move. Either one.

Another Capcom vs. SNK innovation is the character ratio system, which makes characters ''worth more'' than others. You have 4 slots for a team, and characters range in value from 1-4. So, mathematically, you could have 4 weak characters, 2 medium characters, 1 mega character, or a weak character and a more powerful ratio 3 character, etc. Basically, your team adds up to 4, all the characters have set values. Most of the time, you get two-man teams against two-man teams. Sometimes, people will do the 4-character royal flush, but as most of those characters are proportionally as powerful as the point values it's pretty balanced.

Now, the problem lies within the balance between a few characters and the two grooves. Certain ratio one characters can fight at the same level as a ratio-2, (Blanka vs. Kyo, per se). Likewise, Vega has few moves and takes a lot of damage, yet is clumped with the ratio 3 folk. Against the computer, it's fine, but you'll usually see a lot of teams with Iori, Blanka, and Terry, as they can sweep teams because of their sheer power and versatility within their move sets.

One nice thing about the game (I think), is that it has 4 buttons! I LOVE 4 BUTTONS! There's a guy here on Gamefaqs that kept saying ''I love 6 buttons!'' in a Capcom vs. SNK 2 review / FAQ, so my message to him is ''...SHUT UP! 4 IS BETTER!'' While I respect his opinion *rolls eyes* I think that medium attacks are pretty superfluous. Either hit the guy hard or soft, bash or poke, you know? On a dreamcast controller, it makes things nice not having to fumble with an analog trigger when I want to hit someone.

Additionally, the SNK groove allows for unlimited super combos when your life is critical, or flashing, rather. If the bar ''happens'' to be full, the super combo is equivalent to a level 3 capcom super, which usually take about a round and a half to charge. If you knock the guy down, you can pretty much charge the SNK bar in the time it takes for him to get back up and try and hit you. Balance? Where did you go..?

Capcom vs. SNK has an interesting way of keeping score, whereby you get a grade-judge system from your fighting. More points are yielded for certain moves than others, and you get tons of points if you counter-attack the other guy, or use a super move, as opposed to just attacking. Nice concept, but they (Capcom?) fail to realize the usefulness in ''poking'' with standard moves instead of Shoto-cheesing (Hadoken! SHORYUKEN!).

As an SNK fan, the most irritating thing for me is the fact that they (I blame Capcom) royally screwed over the SNK move sets, by either altering the commands, changing certain moves, and altering the actual actions of the move itself from past versions of KOF games. It's little things, but things that I'm used to: Benimaru's shinku katategoma is not a knockdown, Kyo's serpent wave and R.E.D. Kick should have much greater priority than they do, and Yamazaki should have his entire moveset and double-hit crush kick back.

The irriating thing about this is that they (I still blame Capcom) ''tried'' to rectify this by making ''EX'' versions of characters with the omitted moves from the regular ones. Example, EX Benimaru has a multi shinku katategoma with no knockdown, as well as his ''missing'' electrigger. Unfortunately, most EX characters lose moves that they had before, and require points to unlock within the game, of which the game DOES NOT GIVE ENOUGH OF. Example: beating game unlocks an average of 400 points. Average EX character costs 3,000 points. EX Iori costs 7,000 points. I've been playing the game for.... 2 months on and off. I have altogether 9,000 points. If I want to try an EX character, I pull out my memory card, because I can't afford it otherwise.

Speaking of EX characters, the Capcom ones really suck. Because Capcom characters have a moveset of 3 moves on average, while SNK ones can have over 5 (Yamazaki, off the top of my head), there really is little difference between Capcom characters and their EX counterparts. Want to know about EX Vega (the clawed one, still. This is America.)? He loses TWO super moves, and gains an additional kick. WHAT A F*CKING DEAL!

And maybe it's just me, but certain moves are utterly sadistic and impossible to pull of with certainty. The two worst offenders? Guile's charge down-back, then down-forward, down-back, and UP-FORWARD, coupled with Geese Howard's down-back, half-circle forward to back, and down-forward. What in the holy hell is wrong with the traditional double quarter circles?!? Essentially, these moves seem like thumb gymnastics rather than a way to hurt my opponent. As Thoreau said, simplify, simplify. Do we really need an albatross of a controller motion?

Finally, I would have liked to see a little more of the characters from both sides. Sodom and Rolento, for starters, or perhaps Alex or Dudley from SFIII, as well as K' and Billy Kane from the SNK side of the fence. Essentially, Capcom vs. SNK is more like Street Fighter Alpha versus The King of Fighters, but I'm fine with that.

Although the balance is off, the one major admirable thing that I can say for the game is that it really seeks its own style. Although a ''versus'' game, it eschews the 74 hit combos in favor of more meticulous and tactical 2-d gameplay.

Holy Jesus this dragged on. Time to end this part. For being so critical of what the gameplay balance lacks, I really do think that the combo system and moves work well within the game, and the rolling helps to avoid the corner-cheesing that computer characters are guilty of while at the same time actually being more effective than SNK's own dodging.

Gameplay: 7 / 10
Extremely fun and interesting despite resounding balance and character issues.

GRAPHICS: THE GAME'S WAY OF SAYING, ''OVER HERE.''

Capcom vs. SNK has an odd way of seeming half-and half. Half of the characters are all new, nicely done pieces of work that flow about as well as those in newer 2-d fighters. Unfortunately, the other half is recycled street fighter alpha sprites. I've been seeing that godforsaken Sagat sprite for HALF A DECADE. Too long. Even newer (sort of) SFA sprites like Balrog (US version) and Vega (US, again.) were designed for SFA3, so they have that same look that Sagat does against the sea of very nicely animated SNK characters. I read before CVSNK came out that they were redoing the SNK characters to fit into the game better than the SNK graphics would, which is understandable, but most of the Capcom characters look like crap. Really, they do. Put Sagat next to Iori and let them do the idle animation. Good god. Certain Capcom characters look great redone, like M. Bison (US VERSION!), as well as Ryu and Ken, surprisingly.

The backgrounds are sweet. I like them an awful lot. Certain stages are kind of boring, but all are well animated and have more in common with the SNK character sprites than the 1995 SFA ones. So in essence, no recycling. My favorites are the Sakazaki stage (Takuma from AOF), which falls apart as you fight, as well as the Burning car stage, in which the character sprites are backlit with fire.

Also cool are character cameos that you just offhand are able to spot. I think the best example of this is Edge from Rival Schools in the back of Takuma's stage, or possibly Goro Daimon showing up whenever Kyo and Benimaru fight. Little touches, but overall it's the little things that add up.

The special moves look cool. It's that ''new-millenium'' computer graphical stuff, as opposed to the 2-d sprites that you usually see. It's laseriffic, really. So hadokens glow blue, hits are illuminated in orange, fist ripples (Yamazaki only to be honest) have concentric rings like the railgun shots from quake. So everything is in order there, and looks very good to boot.

One thing I think is funny is the difference between the Capcom and SNK artwork from the main screen. I really like the guy that does the SNK art, as he (I'm going out on a limb here, obviously) has an ability to blend reality with an anime look, whereas the Capcom guy's art is hung up on giant ripplinh muscles for characters like Kyo. Okay... they look way too characaturey compared to the SNK guy's work (Vega is a great example).

Aside from those godawful SFA sprites, the graphics in the game are absolutely top-notch, but silly me expecting that they (Capcom!!! DIE!) might give a graphical makeover to say, oh I dunno, maybe every character in the game. Even the Fatal Fury games from years back had different looking characters from year to year. Other than that MAJOR COMPLAINT though, no complaints. :)

Graphics: 8 / 10
Excellent... except for the SFA abortions.

SOUND AND MUSIC: CHOCOLATE FOR THE EARS!

Most of the time, games have sound and music on the same generic level. Unfortunately, this consists of usually ultra-simplified and the most basic techno beats or rock power chords. Yeah! Rock out or rave on, brother! ...no. Likewise, most fighting game sound effects sound muffled and unrealistic.

What I like about the Sound and Music in Capcom vs. SNK is that it's quite ahead of the competition. The music is very good, or so I think. Lots of almost-techno, and that's a good thing. It also has some generi-rock, but when it does the music is done pretty well. Although obviously this is a game review and not a music review, everyone's gonna have their own opinions, some people will blast the music and some people will mute the game in favor of Metallica or something. At any rate, the music is clear, and shows some real talent and work for a game soundtrack. I've heard a lot better, but then again about 99% of CVS's music is above the competition. Take a listen to the music in the Tokyo, Sakazaki, and Geese stages.

The sound effects are actually stereotypically fighting game fare: unrealistic hit sounds, lots of ''whoosh''ing noises, and that familiar fire sound that sounds nothing like anything bursting into flames. It's not a bad thing when you hit someone, and the sound effect is ''PFSSSSH!'', but some people may expect more than I do.

The real nice part of the game's sound is the voices, which are all heard clearly. Unlike a lot of games in the genre, you can actually hear the voices over both the soundtrack and the other effects in the game, which gets an A in my book. Guilty Gear X, another 2d-fighter released around CVS time has the unfortunate error of masking all voices with the sound and music, which really makes CVS stand out here.

Finally, you get all sorts of broken English from characters like Guile, Geese, and Terry! I love Japanglish! I swear to god, I think Geese says ''I stain my house wish your bread!'' We also have Terry's ''Rising Taco!'' and the ''Ah you okay? Bussssta Wooooolf!'' I could go on at length pondering why Terry and Geese never get American voice actors, despite the fact that they're about the only non-standard ''big American white guy'' characters out there in fighting game land. Other characters fluent in their native tongue *rolls eyes* have nice voice acting as far as fighting games go. It's no metal gear, obviously, but Iori sounds cocky and angry and Yamazaki sounds crazy. All of the fighting game names sound good, so you never really get tired of any moves you hear uttered over and over.

Overall, it's a very good combo of workable sound effects, crystal clear voices, and a very good soundtrack.

Sound and Music: 9 / 10
Good tunes, clear voices, better than most everything else in the genre.

COMPROMISE FACTOR: MORE CAPCOM THAN SNK?

Here's my whole deal on this. The game is supposed to be half capcom, half SNK. At first, I thought the game was more Capcom than SNK, and me being an SNK fan that turned me off of it for a while. When I picked it back up again, I realized that the game was pretty evenly balanced between the two companies, but the omission of moves from the SNK side screwed over the familiarity of some of my favorite characters. So really, it's split down the middle in terms of being a compromise between Capcom and SNK, but I would have rather had them (Capcom!!) thinking of NEW moves for the 5-year old characters rather than taking ones away from SNK characters to balance things.

However, I'm sure Street Fighter purists (''I LOVE 6 BUTTONS!!'') would say that going to a 4-button system would screw things up because medium punch and kick ARE actually useful. Also, they might say that the rolling system and reversals some SNK characters have screw up their playing style. Okay. The fact is that I realized in a game like this, certain sacrifices had to be made. Other options might have been more palatable, like 6-buttons for the Capcom groove, 4 for the SNK crowd, hmm?

Overall though, it really is a good effort of making the game feel half-capcom and half-SNK, as the name implies. More SNK innovations, like the rolling and SNK groove, but in return less SNK character moves. Capcom characters remained mostly unchanged (damn you, old-looking Sagat!), but now must contend with rolling and other tricky SNK trickery.

So for what it was trying to do, whether I agree with it or not, I liked the outcome and respected the path that the game took.

Compromise Factor: 10 / 10
Will piss some people off, but fair is fair when it's split evenly.

OVERALL: READ THIS IF NOTHING ELSE

Capcom vs. SNK was an ambitious undertaking for 2 Ultimo-corps of videogames (although SNK don't count anymore, eh? HAAHAHAHAHAH! *sob*) that all of us thought would never happen, ever. It happened, and the results should be pleasing to you if you happen to be a Capcom or SNK fan, or one of those fighting-game-equivalent bisexuals that's been batting for both the SNK and Capcom teams.

Gameplay has some significant problems, although it's not a significant deterrent to the fun. The graphics are mostly nice, and the sound and music are really well done. You won't be able to unlock much of anything unless you really want to get the most out of the purchase, but what the game comes with is enough to be more than entertaining and none of the secret characters are worth the hefty price.

Also, the game strikes a good balance between both Capcom and SNK after you get over the fact that your characters don't play as they rightfully should. It's all about adjusting to things, so don't expect everything to be Capcom + SNK. Compromises were and had to be made.

What do these things all add up to? A fighting game that for the most part is a little bit problematic, but delivers a solid experience that gives a lot of replay and eschews a lot of the irritating problems that other fighting games are full of. ''POWA... GAYEZA!''

Overall: 8 / 10
Try it and you'll like it, be you of Capcom or SNK descent.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 12/31/01, Updated 02/18/02