SNK VS CAPCOM technical quality

ysselcneogeo

Fio's Quartermaster
10 Year Member
Joined
Jun 8, 2012
Posts
484
I often hear people talk about the super high quality of animations that 3rd strike has and in general about the level of quality the Capcom in general has.

People talk about how much more powerful the cps2/3 are than the neogeo. I question though is there any merit to that. Yes I get that the cps3 surely is more powerful and has better colors but I don't feel like Capcom ever proved anything with the better hardware.

The biggest area I'd like to point this out is in animations. Not character animations though. Background. All SNK later neogeo games seem to have so much movement and animation in the backgrounds. Crowds moving, flowing water, wild wife etc. Everything that Capcom has are static pictures. 3rd strike is super boring when say compared to Garou, Last Blades and hell even SVC:C.

Am I the only one who thinks SNK was vastly superior at animations?
 

Heinz

Parteizeit
15 Year Member
Joined
Feb 13, 2005
Posts
22,330
SNK's backgrounds in many instances have been more artistic in nature you could say, there's more attention to detail but that doesn't really equate to being better animators. I think there are quite a few links in the chain when it concerns design and development of a game, perhaps they were going for a different style? you may never know.
 

ysselcneogeo

Fio's Quartermaster
10 Year Member
Joined
Jun 8, 2012
Posts
484
SNK's backgrounds in many instances have been more artistic in nature you could say, there's more attention to detail but that doesn't really equate to being better animators. I think there are quite a few links in the chain when it concerns design and development of a game, perhaps they were going for a different style? you may never know.

What i'm saying is a lot of Capcom backgrounds are static and have nothing going on even if they're highly detailed and using a system with better color.
 

Xian Xi

JammaNationX,
15 Year Member
Joined
Dec 1, 2005
Posts
27,748
Compare Capcom's Street Fighter 3S (CPS3(64bit)) to SNK's MOTW (NeoGeo(16bit)). You can see how much SNK really knew their hardware and knew how to push it. If SNK had the CPS3 hardware, you'd see some serious shit once they hit their groove.
 

ysselcneogeo

Fio's Quartermaster
10 Year Member
Joined
Jun 8, 2012
Posts
484
Compare Capcom's Street Fighter 3S (CPS3(64bit)) to SNK's MOTW (NeoGeo(16bit)). You can see how much SNK really knew their hardware and knew how to push it. If SNK had the CPS3 hardware, you'd see some serious shit once they hit their groove.
Yeah thats my point. MOTW in every way impresses me more than 3rd strike accept maybe the sound track and its on hardware thats vastly weaker.

FeSYDlT.gif
3rd strike

garou-markofthewolves-background-gato2.gif
MOTW
 
Last edited:

Morden

Somewhere in Europe.,
Joined
Jul 5, 2005
Posts
711
Compare Capcom's Street Fighter 3S (CPS3(64bit)) to SNK's MOTW (NeoGeo(16bit)). You can see how much SNK really knew their hardware and knew how to push it. If SNK had the CPS3 hardware, you'd see some serious shit once they hit their groove.

Ask me about Street Fighter 3's music and backgrounds, and you'll always get the same answer. New Generatio rules. Comparing 3rd Strike against SNKs Neo Geo titles is a bad idea. 3rd Strike's backgrounds seem rushed in general. They're extremely inconsistent. Some of them are touched up renders, some look like concept art that was simply digitized, and some are genuine pixel-art.

Now take a look at New Generation. In many cases, it's proper pixel-art. Even if these were digitized, they got the pixel-art treatment, unlike those blurry 3rd Strike stages.

I guess this is what happens when you're doing "new everything" for the third game. 2nd Impact came in late '97 and 3rd Strike was released in the first quarter of '99. Maybe they didn't have enough time to give this one the attention it required. Who knows. I don't know that much about 3rd Strike's development timeline. What I do know is that these blurry backgrounds always bugged me and I thought they were a major step back from New Generation. 2nd Impact doesn't really count since most of the stages were color swapped versions of the original ones. I mean ... This is New Generation:

glade.png

... and this is 3rd Strike:

3rdstrikeremystage.png
 

oliverclaude

General Morden's Aide
Joined
Feb 3, 2013
Posts
7,688
All SNK later neogeo games seem to have so much movement and animation in the backgrounds. Crowds moving, flowing water, wild wife etc. Everything that Capcom has are static pictures. 3rd strike is super boring when say compared to Garou, Last Blades and hell even SVC:C.

Yeah, SNK backgrounds. Animation is a part of it, but mostly SNK has a trademark on designing backgrounds with depth of focus, a sculptural perspective that is unmatched, like the Korea Stage in KoF '96. The ancient Hollywood studio policy demanded to create the most possible three dimensional frames, to suck in their audiences. Hell, even their logos emphasized this fact, just look at the sculptural WB of 20th Century emblems.

Part of why it's working so well is, that those backgrounds are less comic-like, as opposed to Capcom's style, but more realistic with mostly exact proportions and accurate depictions of country-specific landscapes. Following the rules of genius loci, they created their own unique background style, that I prefer out of any other.

Think of the two- and later even three lane concepts for their flagship, the Fatal Fury series. They always starved for depth within the 2D worlds.
 

Heinz

Parteizeit
15 Year Member
Joined
Feb 13, 2005
Posts
22,330
Hey, I simply love Lacaton et Vassal: 90% of what you need, you'll find on site. The Osaka BG in '98 is a splendid example.

Couldn't agree more, Neo Geo Land in '95 also comes to mind. Plenty of other examples within the library too.
 

Jarofmayo

Morden's Lackey
Joined
Apr 3, 2013
Posts
368
Kof '99 is another fighter on the neo geo that had some good backgrounds as well.
kof99 rain.gif
 

Neo Alec

Ned's Ninja Academy Dropout
20 Year Member
Joined
Dec 7, 2000
Posts
11,923
Kof '99 is another fighter on the neo geo that had some good backgrounds as well.
View attachment 46655
KOF 99 backgrounds were amazing. The one shown here is my favorite.

For all of KOF 2000's faults, the presentation was like classic SNK's fond farewell. Love the desert stage where the buggy jumps the stage. To me that was the pinnacle of SNK backgrounds.
 

Heinz

Parteizeit
15 Year Member
Joined
Feb 13, 2005
Posts
22,330
KOF 99 backgrounds were amazing. The one shown here is my favorite.

For all of KOF 2000's faults, the presentation was like classic SNK's fond farewell. Love the desert stage where the buggy jumps the stage. To me that was the pinnacle of SNK backgrounds.

I agree about the '99 backgrounds and 2K's were classic in that it was SNK's farewell but the buggy jumping the stage was a Capcom VS. SNK 2 stage. It was pretty cool however ;)
 

Lee Gray

SSVS Special Plz..., Buying & Selling that, Never
Joined
Sep 21, 2001
Posts
7,506
i do like all incarnations of 3rd strike and although some of the music is great i really dont feel some of it fits in to a beat em up
 

Neo Alec

Ned's Ninja Academy Dropout
20 Year Member
Joined
Dec 7, 2000
Posts
11,923
I agree about the '99 backgrounds and 2K's were classic in that it was SNK's farewell but the buggy jumping the stage was a Capcom VS. SNK 2 stage. It was pretty cool however ;)

I don't know why I'm misremembering that now. I don't give a damn about CvS2 backgrounds. I guess I meant the steam shovel that busts through the wall on the dump stage.
 

fluxcore

Another Striker
Joined
Nov 4, 2013
Posts
324
Also take into consideration that almost any CPS2 fighting game stage with a modicum of animation is hated by the players for introducing lag :D
 

ysselcneogeo

Fio's Quartermaster
10 Year Member
Joined
Jun 8, 2012
Posts
484
Not only is that 99 stages one of the best but, Am I the only one who actually enjoys 99 as a game too?
 

donluca

Ninja Combat Warrior
Joined
Aug 19, 2015
Posts
529
Not only is that 99 stages one of the best but, Am I the only one who actually enjoys 99 as a game too?

I'm with you on this one. Loved '99 more than anything else for some reason. The game just felt right.
 

Morden

Somewhere in Europe.,
Joined
Jul 5, 2005
Posts
711
The more I think about SNK's backgrounds, the more it becomes clear they're the absolute kings of pixel art and background animation. Sure, Capcom is still enjoying a wide mainstream success, but one should give credit where credit is due. The KoF series alone has produced more backgrounds than I can name off the top of my head. Still, I really do think SF3 New Generation backgrounds are damn good. Too bad I can't find any animated ones online, because they do have a fair amount of animation [most of them, anyway].

E9xKn.png
Sf3si-dudley-1.png
UndergroundCaveGill.png
M6iE7.png

Dudley's stage has, like many of these stages, a pretty nice morning, noon, night cycle. This isn't something out of the ordinary, but New Generation does such a good job or balancing everything out. The stage colours, the characters, life-bars and everything else. It's vibrant, it's pleasing to the eye, it's just great all around. It kind of went downhill from here, with 2nd Impacts palette swaps of the NG stages, and I don't even want to talk about 3rd Strike. Gouki's original stage from 2nd Impact is nice, though:

Sf3si-akuma.png
 
Last edited:
Top