"How Did I Ever Play This Game So Much?"

The majority of fighting game fans have grown up over the years with the Street Fighter series and even the Mortal Kombat series to some extent. While the fighting game fans embraced these mainstream properties, there was another, lesser known company making fighting games as well. This company was SNK.

Nowadays, SNK is well known due to their constant re-makes and upgrades on their fighting game series, which have branched out onto consoles other than the Neo Geo. Some of their noteworthy fighting game series include the Samurai Shodown series, the Fatal Fury/Real Bout/Garou series, the Last Blade series, and a few others as well.

One of their lesser known series is the World Heroes series. The first World Heroes game was released about a year after Street Fighter 2, and there was quite a bit of speculation concerning the game being a cheap knockoff of Street Fighter 2. Some of the World Heroes characters shared similarities to the Street Fighter 2 characters in design and moves, which garnered the speculation.

Years later, SNK released a sequel to World Heroes, which was similar to the first, with a few added characters and a new boss. The third release in the World Heroes series was World Heroes 2 Jet, which was supposed to re-balance the existing game cast, speed up the gameplay a bit, add two new playable characters, and add a new end boss.

However, much like it's predecessors, World Heroes 2 Jet fails to improve on most of the faulty aspects of the World Heroes series and leaves it a sloppy mess of a fighting game which will end up being good for a few laughs and that's about it. Even the most hardened SNK proponent will find this game hard to swallow.

I owned the original Neo Geo AES cart for this game, so the review will be based off of the Neo Geo version.

The World Heroes series has a pretty simple interface to get used to. The A Button is used for punch, B is for kick, and now the C button is used for a Taunt, which can be faked. The D button is not used. How you press the A and B buttons will determine if your attack is strong or weak. If you tap the button, your character will throw out a weak attack, but if you hold the button for a second, you will do a stronger attack.

This is an incredibly imprecise system which will leave hardened fighting game fans reaching for the reset button before things even get started. While I was not too wild about the control scheme, I must admit that I played my fair share of World Heroes 2 Jet, since I played a good amount of money for the AES cart.

Each character has many Normals and a few Specials which will require some simple joystick and button combinations. Most of the moves are fairly easy to pull off and you will be throwing out large Pirate Ships at your enemies in no time……………….yeah this game is weird sometimes. Actually, it's weird most of the time. The character designs are just awful, some of the worst I have ever seen in a fighting game. Each character seems to corner some niche stereotypical mindset that is almost insulting in a way.

Mudman represents the crazy witch doctor guy, Fuuma, and Hanzou are direct shoto clone rip offs, J. Carn is a brainless Mongolian fighter, Janne is the stereotypical woman fighter in a game who feels like no one takes her seriously, Kim Dragon is your typical Bruce Lee clone, etc, etc…etc…..seriously, the character designs are bad, and I won't even get into the giant football player or the Viking, or the M. Bison clone.

Joining the existing lame cast of World Heroes characters are Jack and Ryofu. Jack is a standard Vega clone that laughs too much, and Ryofu is actually one of the cooler characters in the game. He brandishes a spear, which pretty much makes him God tier if played properly.

Finally, my favorite part of the game, the new end boss: Zeus. This guy is incredibly cool, and the highlight of the game. He's about twice the size of your character and can kill you in 3-4 hits. I've spent lots of nights fighting Zeus over and over and over because I was just not satisfied losing to him. Fighting Zeus is a rather heady experience and IMO is the only thing that really makes playing World Heroes Jet worthwhile.

Other than fighting Zeus, almost everything else about World Heroes 2 Jet just feels crappy and poorly made.

Graphics 5/10

World Heroes 2 Jet holds it's own in the graphics department, but there are much better looking games on the Neo Geo. The animations look good, but the character models and designs are just incredibly stupid for the most part.

I hate to go on another rant regarding the stupid character designs, but it's just hard not to. Another example: playing as the Hulk Hogan look-a-like “Muscle Power” will just crack you up, and you will have trouble taking the game seriously.

Between matches you will see some poorly drawn cut scenes where the characters will throw down some pre-match quips which just fall flat and are horribly translated. It's more comical than intimidating when Hanzou resolves to: “Make sushi of your entrails!”

Some of the special moves such as Hanzou's double Rekko zan and Fuuma's exploding atomic crash are well animated, but they pale in comparison to the animations on Jack and Ryofu, the 2 new characters. Their animations just look a tad better than the rest and you can tell that they were the added characters.

So the graphics in World Heroes 2 Jet are mediocre and un-inspired.

Sounds and music 4/10

The music consists of constantly recycled tunes which often go un-noticed. The fact that the main game has a “tournament stage” to fight on, means that you will be hearing the same music over and over and characters don't even get their own music which is lame.

The sound effects are typical for a fighting game, and the character voices, while somewhat quirky, seem to fit their on screen counterparts fairly well. Zeus's voice in particular sounds great, it's deep, and overbearing as he pounds the crap out of you over and over.

While the characters not having their own dedicated music can be somewhat disconcerting, the sound effects and character voices make up for some lost ground, but the sounds are still average overall.

Controls 3/10

I'm adding a controls section here to replace my usual “Story” criteria, since the World Heroes story is non-existent.

Initially, the controls while using the standard Neo Geo stick were great, and I don't remember having any issues executing any moves. However, the slow pace of the game takes some getting used to and you will need to adjust your gameplay style if you are used to playing faster fighting games.

The main issue with the controls comes from the weak and strong button pressing scheme, which ruins the game. Pulling off combos with this system is a crap shoot every time, and you never seem to know what you are going to get. It's just too imprecise.

Gameplay 3/10

World Heroes 2 Jet just simply does not play well at all. The game is incredibly slow by today's standards and almost borders on being un-playable.

Characters are so poorly balanced that it's almost pointless to pick certain characters if playing in vs. mode. Dragon is a beast if played properly, and characters like Johnny Maximum are 100% worthless. It is possible to have some good matchups in vs. mode, but there will be a few characters that balance well and that's about it.

The game has no super moves or “last ditch” moves to speak of, so all damage is based on normals and specials. Another problem is that certain characters have reach advantages which will make them seem cheap in comparison to other characters.

With the goofy combo system and pressure sensitive attacks, this game is a chore to play and most people will not want to spend much time playing it let alone mastering it.

Longevity and Re-playability 2/10

I don't know why anyone would want to play this game for more than a few rounds when there are so many better fighting games out there, many made by SNK themselves. World Heroes 2 Jet is just a poorly made game and really offers no exonerating factors that will make you want to play it for an extended period of time.

I spent my fair share of time with this game since I bought the AES cart, but I'm here to save you from suffering the same fate that I had to go through. Don't bother with this game, there are plenty of better fighting games out there. Go play one of them.

My review score 3/10

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 07/17/08, Updated 05/13/09

Game Release: World Heroes 2 Jet (US, 06/10/94)