Capcom vs. SNK 2 EO: Millionaire Fighting 2001

"Now are you r-r-ready to g-g-g-get it on?!?"

Capcom - in my opinion the best 3rd party developer out there. They've made the awe-inspiring Mega Man series, and the ever-violent Resident Evil games. But there is another trendy little thing they're responsible for, they created a genre and no one has come close to making 2D fighters as good as they have.

SNK - the closest company to making a great Street Fighter clone, they've made a ton of fighting games on their own that many American kids don't recognize, sadly. They have a ton of original characters and some great artwork and game mechanics thrown into the mix.

Capcom Vs. SNK 2 EO puts 44 characters together, hailing from both Capcom and SNK games. From Dark Stalkers/Rival Schools/Street Fighter and from King of Fighters/Art of Fighting/Samurai Showdown.

Some people have been quick to say that the novelty of two companies being put in a cross over game dies quickly, but I beg to differ. Think of all the crossover games you can:

-Kingdom Hearts
-Marvel Vs. Capcom
-Xmen Vs. Street Fighter
-Marvel Vs. Capcom 2

That's not all of them, but it might as well be, Capcom has had to be the forerunner in crossovers and even now no one is stepping up to push a growing genre. Hopefully Square's Kingdom Hearts will open some sleepy eyes.

Now in Capcom Vs. SNK 2 EO, I've noticed a big issue with many is the GCN controller. The Gamecube controller does have far fewer buttons than most consoles today, but in game I found this changed very little. I never find myself using all 3 strengths of punches/kicks, so if anyone has a real beef with pressing the digital buttons all the way down to execute an attack all they have to do is put their least used attacks on the shoulders. That's a much better solution than the one Capcom came up with.

Ok ok, so GC-ism sounded like a good idea but it turned out to be unpolished and very and extreme nuisance. The shoulder buttons 'L' and 'R' are your only punches and kicks, depending on how hard you hit the buttons you will get a better strength attack. This is actually pretty good for comboing as you only have to let off the button and then slightly press it in, then farther, then back out, to pull off a nice 3-4 hit combo. All your special moves are done with the C-stick, so if you have a super charged you can do an insanely powerful maneuver with one swift motion. This does help beginning players, but it isn't a big enough crutch to screw over the real gamers using AC-ism.

In my experience you can use some very cheap tactics, for instance using Blanka's rolling attack (a move that normally requires a 2 second long charge motion) instantly without a delay. Relentlessly cheap players may be able to do some damage with that, but in the end they just become predictable and someone with moderate skill can prevent the onslaught by launching a single projectile attack.

The game features 6 fighting styles or 'grooves' as they are referred to in-game. CAP & SNK are the grooves, accordingly with the abbreviations C/A/P are Capcom designed grooves that borrow from their earlier games. C groove plays a lot like Marvel Vs. Capcom you get airborne guarding and the ability to launch level 1-2-3 supers in whatever sequence you choose. A uses a custom combo system ala Street Fighter Alpha. And P uses a Parry system that although isn't as refined as that in Street Fighter III it bears some similarity to it. The S groove features a charging system that allows you to stand in place and build energy for your next attack, N groove relies heavily on patience it lets you store special moves and use them separately whilst using a lot of defensive moves. K groove is the anger groove, when you take a hit your super bar charges and when it is maxed out your damage increases and you can then pull off a super combo.

Just from the last paragraph you can tell that Capcom Vs. SNK 2 EO is a deep fighter, and for that reason I don't recommend it for a child that isn't a video game fanatic. The casual gamer with no prior Capcom/SNK fighter experience will drop this title quickly out of inability to play it.

The music isn't award-winning but it is worlds better than the garbage in Marvel Vs. Capcom 2. The game features 9-10 remixes that are exclusive to the GCN version. The sounds are great there are individual wails of pain and collision sounds for each character and attack. Everyone has a brief entry taunt, a midfight taunt, and a victory taunt. With all the characters in the game you'll be hearing a lot of different cool stuff, especially since some characters will have a special introduction when pitted against each other.

Unfortunately there isn't much to earn in this game, you start with all but two characters, that can be earned by playing through the Story mode skillfully. Once you've earned them all you can really benefit from singleplayer is the high score list (tallied in Groove Points) and from those Groove Points you can create your own groove by taking bits and pieces of different grooves and rationing off the features you use most into one ''EX'' Groove.

Color edit Mode lets you color your characters as goofily or as awesome as you see fit, without altering the standard colors just in case you want them handy as well.

Multiplayer is where the real action is, take it to your friend or friends in Ratio Battle, 3 on 3 battle, and Single Matches. There's no mid-match tagging, so alternating with your friends makes for a cool 6 player brawl.

DarkNightwing's BottomLine(TM):

Capcom Vs. SNK 2 EO offers a slew of characters, moves, and grooves, allowing for literally millions of different scenarios. There's an elaborate training mode, a color edit mode, and a short but sweet story mode. If you have friends that are fans of fighters this game rocks with or without an arcade stick, and at $40 dollars retail you're going to find it at a great price. Just don't get it for Little Joey, he probably won't understand this game at all.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 10/06/02, Updated 06/07/03