"When you thought it couldn't get any better..."

SNK vs Capcom: Card Fighters 2 Expand Edition

I have recently just heard that there was a Card Fighters 2 expansion, and I freaked out because I never knew it even existed. I was a huge fan of the first Card Fighters Clash, and I literally spent an upwards sixty hours at the least on it, flushing hours like water.

To my disappointment, the game was very hard to find because it never made it out of Japan to be translated. But I managed to grab a partly translated version with all the cards and their data in english, but the text on conversations between characters in Japanese.

And with that, I was able to get pass the game without any trouble at all.

Graphics: 9/10

The graphics have seriously improved beyond my expectations. It was a complete overhaul in every aspect of the original CFC. It has a totally new menu design, smooth edges, and great icons. The character sprites have also expanded from not only a mere head portrait, but you can see their whole entire body sprite with much attention in detail and color. Speaking of which, the color is a lot more crisper and vibrant then the bland templates used in the previous.

Almost all the original art portraits on the cards from CFC were redone and look better than ever. The battles that you get into and the backgrounds look much nicer as well.

Sound: 7.5/10

The music for CF2 wasn't actually so bad in my opinion, but then again I don't really pay attention to it anyways while I'm playing. Overall, I think it sounds a lot nicer than before, and some of them are kinda catchy. Each location has a different tune, so it doesn't become unbearable by any extent. The sound quality is pretty good however, considering it's coming from a NGPC.

Game Play: 9/10

The important part of almost all games, because any game can have really nice graphics and sounds, but the game play can be just downright horrible to the point where you don't want to even get near it.

Fortunately, they threw the whole idea out the window of trying to imitate Pokemon's TCG style for the GB (not that it was bad by any means, just not original). The only time where you get to maneuver your character around is during the overworld where you can walk to different locations. From there, you are given options to either explore rooms or areas, or to battle someone else there.

The integration of the new Reaction cards gives the game a whole new level of strategy and can turn the tables in an instant. With the addition of the Reaction cards and some newer ones to both the Capcom and SNK collections, it totals out to 424 possible cards to get instead of 300 like before.

Another neat thing that I liked was that they skipped the whole scene where it individually shows your card being attacked or your card attacking. To make things faster and much simpler, they attack while your screen is still focused on the entire card field, rather than just the two individual cards battling.

Replay Value: 9/10

There's a lot to do in CF2, and it's bound to keep you coming back. Plus, collecting all 424 cards will take quite awhile.

Overall Rating: 10/10

If you had to play only one card game in Japanese this year, make it this one. I already thought the first CF was already the best, but CF2 perfects it in every way. I would seriously collect them if they were to actually print them out as real cards, and I'm not even a card game junkie.

Graphics: 9/10
Sound: 7.5/10
Game play: 9/10
Replay Value: 9/10
Overall Rating: 10/10

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 09/15/04