World Heroes Perfect

"World Heroes Strives for Perfection"

The final installment of one of the greatest (in my opinion) fighting franchises in history ended with its 4th installment, World Heroes Perfect. Weighing in at 226 megs, this game was far and away the one ADK put the most effort into, and it really shows. The backgrounds are excellent, with moving people, clouds, water, there is a lot of scrolling effects, and everything is huge, colorful, and detailed meticulously. The stages all look fantastic, as do the heroes themselves, with excellent animation, speedy responsive controls, and fast and furious gameplay. World Heroes Perfect addresses the speed issues that the original 3 versions had, even WH2: Jet was slow when compared to speedy games like SF2: Turbo. Well fret no more, World Heroes Perfect addresses all of the previous problems and gives us the game we should have had by the time the third installment came out. Maybe World Heroes Perfect was too late, it certainly didn't fare well in the arcades, and did not steal the lightning from Super Street Fighter 2: The New Challengers, but in my estimation World Heroes Perfect is better, and that's saying a ton.

(gameplay - 9)
The gameplay in this game is one of its best features. The controls are responsive and moves are easy to pull off. The World Heroes series has always had a fine control scheme, but this one is the best. The engine is now taking advantage of all the Neo buttons (4 of them) instead of just 3, so now there are two punches and two kicks to work with. By combining three buttons together you can pull off special moves, that take a hell of a lot of energy off your opponents life bar. There are new moves for everyone, like Desperation and HERO moves, this makes this game deeper than any previous Heroes title. With World Heroes Perfect it's hard to complain when there really is nothing to complain about. Overall the engine is solid and very user friendly.

(story)
Nothing much has changed, lots of fighters are here ready to dethrone the top dog, and compete in a series of one on one battles to reach him.

(graphics - 10, sound - 7)
The graphics in this game are awesome. I love the stages, and I love the huge characters, the lush, detailed scenery, the colorful backgrounds, the scrolling objects, it all gives me a warm feeling inside to think about it. The stages now take place throughout the history of the world, in places such as the Jurassic Period, Genesis, modern day, Ice Age, etc... all of the stages are done well, and are very impressive. The animation is great, and the feeling that you're watching a cartoon is still intact. I much prefer this style of graphics to games such as Mortal Kombat or Ultra Vortek. The music is nothing special as the sound effects and tunes are just decent enough to get this game by. I never enjoyed the World Heroes tunes much, but the sound effects have always been good. This hasn't changed. While the stage music is average at best, the sound effects are above-average. ADK (World Heroes creator) has always put good music in its games, but unfortunately World Heroes just doesn't impress.

(replayability - 9)
The replayability is high. I mean its World Heroes, and its nearly perfect. I think that there are 19 fighters in this game, which makes it huge. It is fun to play, and you'll keep coming back for more just to see the special hero moves and to beat the game with several different heroes. I just recently picked this title up for my Neo AES Cart System, and I've been playing it non-stop since. I guess it's just because it is new but still I already like it more than any of the other World Heroes games, so I imagine this game is here to stay in my game library.

Recommendations:
This game rocks. World Heroes Perfect is about perfectection and it comes close. The music is not enough to impress me and I don't think it will impress you much either. However the graphics are pure Neo, and impress me a great deal. The moves are easy to pull off and the game is just straight-up solid fun. I highly recommend this game to anyone who owns a Neo system. I also heard it is out for the Sega Saturn, and I figure its probably great so if you own a Saturn, pick it up, you won't be disappointed.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 06/18/04