SNK VS. CAPCOM

Written by and screenshots courtesy of  Big_D

SNK vs. Capcom: The Match of the Millennium

 A Review Written By Big_D

 First off, I’d like to say that this is a pretty good handheld fighting game. If you have always wanted to see your favorite Capcom and SNK characters battle it out on the Neo Geo Pocket Color, this is your chance. Also, if you don’t have the cash to spring for that Neo Geo AES System, this is for you. ;-) MOTM (Match of the Millennium) is a mixture of King of Fighters and Street Fighter, which can ultimately lead to a good result, if engineered correctly. Yet the game does have flaws… 

Basically, there are four modes of play, which are Tourney, Sparring, Olympic and entry. Tourney is your basic mode of play. You go through several matches until you get to the boss, or should I say…bosses. You can select either “Single” Mode, in which you play with one character. You can choose “Tag”, where you play with teams of two. In this style, if you select certain combinations of characters, it will result in team names, which are pretty cool. For example, Kyo and Iori as a team are called the “Anti-Orochis”. The last style of selecting character is Team, where you can select three characters.  In Tourney, before you select your characters, there are three options of fighting, which are Average, Counter, and Rush. Average Mode is the simplest mode of play. It is based on Capcom’s system of performing moves on other characters, which builds up your level bar. When you get to Level 1 and on, you can perform your special move, unique to each character. In Average Mode, when you reach your maximum level of special, one special move will take the opponent out instantly. In Counter Mode, it is a lot easier to perform chain combos, but you cannot perform a special move. Instead, by hitting the opponent, you build up your power and counterattack abilities. It is far easier to execute a 6-Hit combo in Counter Mode then when you are in Counter Mode. As for Rush mode, as you fighting, you Rush builds up, every time you level up your bar to max, a little square fills up, making it possible to perform a Wild Rush. When this happens the opponent dashes forward and you can chain off of that. Out of all of the modes, I like Average the best.

The Graphics: Honestly, the graphics are pretty good. The only disappointment is that the in-game graphics of the characters consist of two colors. Otherwise, the art is pretty nice. The special moves are pretty cool, as in nice to view. Most of the special moves are adaptations of what you would see in a KOF or Street Fighter game. The backgrounds on the levels are very nice, and really showed me what the NGPC was capable of. The frame rate is pretty good. The game is a bit flashy, but it isn’t at all distracting. The art of the characters on the “Player Select” screen (as seen above) is very nice and very detailed. The graphics receive an 8/10.

The Controls: The controls are very simple, and easy to pick up on. A is punch and B is kick. The special moves in this game are easy to pull off, almost too easy. You are still performing Quarter Circle and Half Circle motions, but they are very simple with the little joystick on the NGPC. Each character has their own, unique moves from the games that they were in. So basically, the controls are just fine, but you can beat the game easily unless you set it on Gamer Difficulty, and even then it is possible. The controls receive a 7/10.

The Sound/Music: The sound is pretty solid. When you hit the opponent, it provides a sound effect, which differentiate depending on the situation. When someone pulls a special off the sound effect is different from the sound when say…Iori performs a fireball. As for the music, I will say that it is cheesy, but hilarious at the same time. It’s actually nice to hear the versions of your favorite songs from Capcom and SNK games. My favorite is the revision of Dan’s theme. Some other mentions are Leona and Geese. They even put a sound test in there! The music is funny, so it doesn’t really hurt the game. The Sound/Music receives an 8/10.

Overall: I have a lot to say in this category. As I said earlier it is a very good game. All your favorite SNK and Capcom characters are here! There are plenty of secret characters, and even some from other games you love, such as The Last Blade. The area where the game really shines is in its several options of play. You can challenge your friends in battle. You can practice your moves against a CPU. You can even enter an Olympic mode, which is my favorite part of the game. In the Olympic category, there is Survival Mode, Time Attack, First Blast, and even little mini-games involving certain SNK or Capcom characters. Just to name a few, Jubei’s Blade Arts, Arthur’s Ghost Trick and Felicia’s Cat Walk. There is a lot to do in this game, so you shouldn’t ever be bored with it. Plus it has an automatic saving feature.   When you beat the game on Tourney Mode, after the credits role, this square appears on the screen. Every time you beat the game, little segments of the square will be taken out at random. Once you beat the game enough and they all disappear, a new character appears, and you are given the opportunity to play as him or her forever. But since it makes blocks disappear at random, sometimes, it will hit the same one repeatedly, and you get no blocks. Which basically means you have wasted your time beating the game. Another thing that is mildly annoying about the game is that no matter whom you choose to beat the game with, the story is basically the same, with names and rivals changed. There is a different ending each time though (from this I mean different dialogue at the end), which is pretty cool. That’s all I can really say about MOTM. It is definitely worth the money. The game has few flaws. So, this game gets a well-deserved Overall score of 9/10.

by Neon8

by Digi Punk - Courtesy of Kazuya's

by Kazuya_UK - Courtesy of Kazuya's

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