"What was Playmore thinking?!"

A few years ago, prior to the release of Capcom's Capcom Vs. SNK, the thought of a game in which the biggest stars of Capcom and SNK's fighting universes coming together in a melee of old school 2D fighting goodness was nothing but a wet dream had by fighting game geeks who've dreamed of duking Ryu against Terry since the first Street Fighter II and Fatal Fury. When Capcom brought such the novel concept to fruitation on the Dreamcast, gamers ate it up; Kyo, Ken, Bison, Mai, Chun Li, Ryu AND Ryo all on the same roster, along with many other veteran warriors, were finally able to butt heads to see who truly was king (or queen). Sure there were some balance issues, but with the bevy of options in the core game and extra modes, plus the sheer joy of relishing such a diverse cast of characters made these flaws easy to look over. Shortly after there was Capcom Vs. SNK 2, adding a larger roster of fighters from both developers' portfolios and creating a 2D game play experience that was tweaked to perfection. These two games however, were developed by Capcom, what if SNK had added there own flavor to this concept? Well SNK as it was is no more, but the Neo Geo's new daddy, Playmore, was more than stoked on the idea of milking the worn out concept. I truly believe the original SNK could have made this game work, but as it stands Playmore's SNK Vs. Capcom: Chaos is by and large a terribly mediocre game on a system that prides itself of hosting the top of the line brawlers. While not awful, there are so many basic things wrong with this title that I'm sure a developer so well versed in the genre wouldn't let such obvious flaws off the shelf until everything was ironed out. Sigh...read on...

Graphics-
First and foremost, if you compare this game to either both of Capcom's efforts, SVC's look is without question inferior. This is understandable when considering this game is running off of hardware that is way past it's prime. So I'll be fair and compare it to some of the Neo Geo's best looking fight fests: Mark of the Wolves, Samurai Shodown 4, Last Blade 2, or how about even Playmore's own Matrimelee. Surely Playmore would want to pull out all the stops on this game to at least make the Neo Geo look admirable? This is not the case unfortunately as SVC looks severely dated, even by Neo Geo standards. Characters animate poorly in comparison to Mark of the Wolves, and while their sprites are sized decently, they all have a rather limited color palette. The stages they fight on are uninspired fighting game cliches that look flat and lack detail. Though Playmore's distinctive art work is nice, all the characters here lack the personality that was afforded to them with Capcom's diverse portrait stylings. Even some of the bigger special moves look recycled.

Sound-
Playmore's soundtracks have ranged from abysmal (King of Fighters 2001) to tolerable (Matrimelee), but never exceptional. SVC fits in the tolerable category with generic samplings that aren't unique to this game; sound is distant and muted and hard to decipher if you don't pay extra close attention. Other effects like collision and voices are sound fine. In fairness I prefer SVC's mildly flawed generics over the headache inducing techno fests that pervaded Capcom's games; it's the lesser of two evils I guess.

Game-
When I first plugged my cart in and started playing I said to myself "ok, svc looks old and sounds washed up, but it the game play HAS to be awesome!". As I finished my first hour with SVC I realized that if I had waited for the Xbox edition, I would have been a whole $250 richer and a lot less aggravated. SVC feels like a King of Fighters 94 engine. The game is slow, has that old chunky feel that I thought was left behind with Fatal Fury 3, unbalanced and worst of all...boring as all hell. There are no groove selects, team options, ratio match ups, or anything like that in this cart. What is here is a fighting game that would have been great back in 1995, but has awoken my senses to see that my beloved Neo Geo (along with the REAL SNK) is dead, and Playmore is just cashing in on selling overly priced cartridges to dedicated fans. Maybe that's a little dramatic, but seriously, I can't remember a time when I bought a Neo Geo AES cart and felt ripped off. To get an idea of SVC's game play, think back to King of Fighters 94. Action moves at the same speeds and combos require the same timing. But where as KoF94 had character balance and depth, SVC features a roster of warriors that feel pretty much the same yet some have serious advantages and disadvantages. Damage control feels inappropriate and for god's sake there are problems with collisions! Don't be surprised if you throw a punch at your opponent and you miss while your standing right next to them. There are some nice game play techniques such as guard cancels and super move variations, but all this is useless when players are unequally matched. You can argue that Capcom's original CVS had the same balance problems, but this was a misstep, not programming laziness, as the balance issues were for the team playing element; there is no team playing or ratio meters or anything like that here, just a flawed game. There is an interesting character line up at least. Obscurities like Shiki and Tabasa are welcome editions, as well as the much missed Earthquake, a playable Goenitz and a hidden Demitri. Shame that none of them are particularly fun to play with.

Overall-
It saddens me that I have such a negative feeling towards SVC. I just know that if the original SNK worked this project it could have been awesome. As it stands Playmore's effort is less than noble considering the platform it's made for. There is some short term fun in this game, the endings are decent enough and the hidden warriors up the replay a little, but as serious fighting game, this is a mess. If you had to physically judge which legendary developer was the true king of fighting games based on both versions of this Vs. franchise, you'd have to be blind if you didn't say Capcom. Unfortunately we will never know who the real king is as SNK never had a chance to mold this project, and Playmore has proved that no one can work the Neo Geo magic like its creators. The long spark that was unique to the Neo Geo video game system finally died out with this game.

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 11/29/04