Capcom vs. SNK: An Excellent Concept With A Mediocre Execution

It used to be that Capcom could do absolutely no wrong in my eyes. They could put almost anything out (except for Cannon Spike) and I'd snap it right up and praise it as another loving morsel of gaming goodness sent down from above. Lately, though, either I've been harder to impress or Capcom's level of quality has been diminishing greatly. I think it's a little from column A and a little from column B.

Capcom vs. SNK is the latest 2D fighting game based on Capcom's Street Fighter series. Yes, it's Capcom vs. SNK, but it's mainly a Street Fighter game with some SNK characters mixed in. Also, don't be fooled by the "Vs." in the title; this has nothing to do with Capcom's other "Vs." games (Like X-Men Vs. street Fighter and Marvel Vs. Capcom); Capcom just ran out of names, apparently.

So basically what we have is Street Fighter Alpha meets SNK's King of Fighters. You're not going to see any of either company's other characters in Capcom vs. SNK, which is a crying shame; I'd really like to have seen those little dinosaurs from Bust-A-Move mixing it up with Mega Man. But, alas, that was not to be. Given the limited pool to draw from, though, there are a little ver 30 characters to choose from, including secret characters which need to be unlocked.

Speaking of unlocking characters, this is an area where Capcom really fumbled badly. Much like in Marvel vs. Capcom 2, you can unlock characters, costumes, and other goodies by playing through the game and earning points that accumulate. There are around 75 secrets, all of which cost in the neighborhood of several thousand points. You get, at most, 300 points per time through the single player mode. So you need to play through 20 times, approximately, to unlock one character. Not only that, but these secrets are only even made available to the player after certain conditions are met in the game. This is just way too much work for too little reward, if you ask me. I was willing to unlock stuff in Marvel vs. Capcom 2 because it was possible to unlock things in a timely manner. Capcom vs. SNK just kind of dangles a carrot in front of the player's face and yanks it away. That's just not cool, Capcom.

That major gripe aside, however, what sets Capcom vs. SNK apart from other games of this type is that, while you choose a team to fight with, that team can be of variable size. Basically, you get four slots, and can fill them with as many characters as you'd like. To balance things out, each character has a ranking from 1 to 4, which corresponds to how many slots they take up. So, you could have four 1-point characters taking on one 4-point brawler. It's an interesting system, to be honest; I actually like the fact that there aren't any "bad" characters, per se, because even if a particular character is truly awful, you can have up to three other characters to balance out that deficit.

The other major difference is the Groove system. Basically, once you pick your team, you choose from either a Capcom or SNK "Groove". The main difference between the two is mainly in how super meters are handled. With the Capcom groove, the super meter fills up automatically when the character gives or receives damage, and can store up to three supers at once. With the SNK groove, the super meter is filled manually, but, when the character's life goes below a certain point, he/she enters "desperation mode", at which point the character can perform unlimited super moves. It's an interesting choice, but the two grooves are far too unbalanced. I really think that Capcom groove is mainly for people who aren't used to SNK at all and want the comfort of an automatically growing super meter. The fact is that, despite the slight inconvenience of having to fill your super meter manually, "desperation mode" just completely throws off the balance of the game. I like it when I'm using it, but from a gameplay standpoint, there's really very little reason to use the Capcom groove.

Other than those two differences, there's not much else to make Capcom vs. SNK stand out from a gameplay perspective. It's standard Street Fighter from that point on. Control is pretty standard as well, except that Capcom mercifully opted for a Dreamcast-friendly four-button control scheme, like Marvel vs. Capcom 2 has. For those of us lacking arcade sticks, that's a blessing.

The only real complaint I have about the control is that the SNK moves can be rather awkward to pull off. Anything that's not a fluid motion is a real chore with the standard controller, and there are a lot of those types of moves to be found among the SNK characters. That may be a matter of my not being used to the SNK crew, however.

As far as the audio visuals go, Capcom vs. SNK tries way too hard to be hip and fresh. The techno soundtrack is a bit over the top, as is the mechanical sounding voice that prompts you to "Choose the order of the bounce." (Translation: Pick the order of your fighters. I don't know where they got "bounce" from.) Other than that, sound effects are standard for this type of game, including the characters yelling at each other in Japanese, or what may be mangled English; it's very hard to tell given the poor quality of the voices.

The characters are, once again, noticeably pixilated, much like Marvel vs. Capcom 2, but with standard 2D backgrounds, unlike MvC2. There's really not much to see here; if you need a more detailed explanation, feel free to see any of my other Street Fighter game reviews; there's not much that's different here.

That's the msin problem with Capcom vs. SNK. Capcom had the opportunity to take an old idea and start completely fresh, and they squandered it. What we're left with is another Street Fighter game with different characters, and it's getting old. It feels like Capcom's just rushing all of these games out to market before the dwindling Street Fighter craze finally dies away completely.

Basically, if you really like Street Fighter or SNK's fighting games, you might like Capcom vs. SNK. It's not a bad game, overall. In fact, compared to some of the other garbage on the market, it's fairly good. It's just nothing that we haven't seen numerous times before, on Dreamcast or elsewhere, and it's nothing that's going to keep you entertained for weeks at a time, unless you're masochistic enough to try to unlock everything. Even then, Capcom vs. SNK doesn't have the staying power or entertainment value of its earlier, fresher counterparts.