Breakers

"Street Fighter style combat on your Neo Geo"

SNK's success with fighting games in the early 90's is unquestionable; Samurai Spirits and Fatal Fury Special are still praised today as classics in their respective genre, and the King of Fighters series has developed such a huge following that it's anybody's guess to why SNK hasn't work to advance the series any further from the dated Neo Geo console. To be honest, there have been so many brawlers on the system that quite a few have gone to be unfairly looked over. Waku Waku 7, Voltage Fighter Gowcaizer, Ninja Masters and even Double Dragon have all recieved just but a little attention by only the most dedicated of Neo Geo fans. Unquestionably the most cruelly forgotten title had to be Breakers. Developed by Visco/SNK in 1997, Breakers is a standard side to side fighting game, with a four button control layout and Street Fighter 2 play mechanics. What the game lacked in innovation it certainly made up for in design and playability.
The game's graphics are definitely a strong point. All the characters are large and move with fluid animations. The backgrounds are standard fighting game fare; you have your dojo, your jungle, your transtation, ect., and everything is makes good use of the system's pixel crunching power. The visuals are extremely detailed, but because the game's look does get a bit generic every once and a while, seasoned gamers won't be impressed much by the eye candy. The game's music seems to be particularly inspired by the older Street Fighter games (I could have sworn I heard Ken's USA stage somewhere in there!), which is definitely a good thing. The musical score is really motivates the battle. Sound effects are your typical wak, slap and bash, but they blaze through the tv speakers usually very loud and very clear (it doesn't affect the game at all, but sounds will become redundant after a while).
As mentioned before, gameplay consists of a four button control layout, with the fighters given to punches and kicks at their disposal. There is a special meter at the bottom of the screen that can be filled up to 3 times allowing to execute various super moves. The controls in the game are excellent. Button taps respond perfectly and special and super moves are a breeze to pull off, especially if your familiar with Super Street Fighter 2. The game also has a 2 in 1 combo system that I found the easiest to get into out of every Neo Geo game I played (Kazuna Encounter also has a similar system, but that game plays more like Capcom's Versus games). You're even able to link consecutive super moves together to inflict even more damage on your opponent. The only thing that drags the gameplay down a bit is the meager character line up. There are only eight characters to choose from, and though they all have totally unique techniques and different strategies to use in a fight, you'll still be able to master the entire game in a few weeks or so. It's a shame there is no code (that I no of) that let's you play as the final boss. Oh well.
There was an update to this game in 1998 called Breakers Revenge. Visco really didn't add a lot to upgrade except a new, really cool, ninja character named Saizo, a new background, some remixed music and much better art work. It's a shame there was no sequel to this game because this game has the potential to join the ranks of the mighty Real Bout and King of Fighters games. As it stands, Neo Geo AES and CD owners should definitely look for a copy of this game considering there isn't much new coming out for the system (except for King of Fighters 2001 and Rage of the Dragons, the sequel to the above mentioned Double Dragon game ironically).

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 05/16/02, Updated 05/16/02