World Heroes

"An excellent port of the SNK classic."

World Heroes was released during the summer of 1993 for the Super Nintendo as a port of the arcade classic of the same name. Many fans of the series (myself included) wondered if a near-perfect port of this game was possible on the Super Nintendo. I'm happy to report that one was, I don’t know how it was done, but it was, now on to the review.

Graphics-7/10- The characters are large, nicely detailed, and, for the most part, animate fluidly. The normal backgrounds are very colorful and feature numerous little touches. The Death Match backgrounds come in a variety of shapes and sizes, from 2 walls of spikes, to a flaming wrestling ring, they are all very unique and add some personality to the game. The only serious downside to the graphics is that some of the more animated moves were butchered somewhat (mainly the fancier throws, M. Power's Giant Swing comes to mind), are too choppy now. Overall, they are great, the good definitely outweighs the bad.

Pros- Large, fluidly animating characters. Colorful backgrounds.

Cons- The animation is choppy for some moves.

Sound-6/10- The music is rather bland and uninspired, the sound effects are nice and always fit the actions, the voice effects are a pleasant surprise, they’re still grainy, but nowhere near as bad as other games.

Pros- The sound effects are great, and the voice effects aren’t too shabby either.

Cons- The music is bland.

Story-2/10- A group of fighter fights to win a tournament sponsored by an evil madman , how original.

Pros- None

Cons- It’s been done in every fighting game since Street Fighter II and it never gets any better, a little originality couldn’t hurt.

Gameplay-8/10- You can choose between Normal and Death Match modes. Normal is the usual fight-until-you-beat-the-boss mode that’s in every fighting game. Death Match is a very unique mode in which you fight opponents in unique arenas; an arena with walls of spikes or on electrified wrestling ring are just 2 examples. The fighters in this game are truly unique, Rasputin is one of the most original fighting game characters ever, there are also the usual fighting game characters, the wrestler M. Power, the palette swaps; Honzo and Fuuma, and an M. Bison look alike who plays like Inspector Gadget in Brocken. There are also some bonus stages to keep things fresh, none of them are anything special, but at least they’re in there. The only downside is that the game does play a little slowly at times, a speed setting wouldn’t have hurt.

Pros- Diverse cast of characters, very unique arenas.

Cons- The slow gameplay.

Control-8/10- Most moves are easy to pull off thanks to the responsive control. Unfortunately , others border on the realm of impossible because of it (you must hit the commands perfectly, there is no margin for error.)

Pros- The tight control makes most moves a breeze to execute.

Cons- Unfortunately, it’s too tight, harder moves are nearly impossible to pull off, you must have pinpoint precision when attempting them.

Presentation-10/10- Excellent, everything about the presentation is arcade-perfect, from the characters to the menus.

Pros- It’s arcade-perfect.

Cons- If you didn’t like the arcade version’s presentation, you won’t like this one’s either.

Overall-8/10- This game combines great graphics, wonderful character design, good sound, and for the most part, excellent control to make one of the most original fighting
games ever.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 08/14/00, Updated 08/14/00