SNK Vs Capcom Beta Draws Frenzied Fans

The Japanese arcade beta-test is in progress for SNK Vs. Capcom Chaos, the latest Playmore/SNK 2D fighting game, featuring both the Street Fighter and King Of Fighters characters, plus a whole host of guest stars from places as obscure as Samurai Shodown 64 and Red Earth/Warzard. There's now some good-looking videos of the beta-test up at the unofficial SNK-Capcom.com site, and an excellent hands-on impressions piece was posted at Insert Credit earlier in the week. Behind the frothing otaku, the Insert Credit article does sow some doubts, though: "..three years - probably more - in development or at least planning, and all they have to show for it is a standard Street Fighter engine with a predictable character roster"?

KoF / Samurai Shodown engine?

[The Moving Shadow]

I think a lot of people will complain that the fighting game is basically a 2D scrolling fighting game and not a fancy 3D enviromental fighting game. But judging from the videos it all runs very very smooth, the sprites are nice and big, the moves are good looking and the action is fast paced. Since i still play Samurai Shodown on my NeoGeo with i enjoy even more so than most 3D fighting games (Street Figher EX, Tekken, Virtua Fighter) i certainly don't have a problem with using, what people might call, an

Re:KoF / Samurai Shodown engine?

[Momomoto]

I'm not sure if people will complain about it being 2D. SNK has always been about superior 2D fighting, and the market they're aiming forhard-core fighting game fansrealizes that. SNK don't have an interest in whiz-bang uses of technology; it's about depth, depth, depth.

IMHO, the only 3D fighting game that comes even close to matching an SNK game's depth is Soul Calibur, and the only 2D fighting game that comes close is Guilty Gear X2.

Re:KoF / Samurai Shodown engine?

[Canar]

Want depth? Try the Virtua Fighter series, the fighting game that cannot be won using button-mashing techniques. Period.

Unless, of course, your opponents /suck/.

Re:KoF / Samurai Shodown engine?

[Momomoto]

I do own VF4. Yes, it's deep, but I prefer the faster-paced fights of GGX2.

GGX2 is also a bit more forgiving w.r.t. button-mashing.

3 Years

[cgenman]

all they have to show for it is a standard Street Fighter engine with a predictable character roster"?

The idea that a capcom-level fighting engine could be running on SNK hardware is pretty amazing. No offence to Mark of the Wolves fans out there, but the Neo Geo has never been known for a high physics framerate. The new iteration of Street Fighter vs. Capcom is running on a 12 mhz 68000, with a Z-80 coprocessor! That's equivalent [mameworld.net] to the old CPS 1 board that "powered" the original Street Fighter 2 through Turbo. This was hot stuff when it was released in 1990. But eeking out an experience comparable to Capcom Vs. SNK 2 (on a 128 bit SH-4 with PowerVR)? If your graphics coprocessor used to be used on the Sega Master System, you have to do a lot of work to keep up. It's a testament to the programmers that people can consider it a standard Street Fighter engine.

Furthermore, convincing Capcom to re-do their artwork must have been a Herculean task. After being burned by rediculous art resources in Street Fighter 3, Capcom has seemed afraid to commit to any major overhaul of their character's designs. The gorgeous Capcom vs. SNK 2 suffered from 16-color flat cell artwork from Darkstalkers and 10-year-old versions of Street Fighter characters (has Dhalism ever been updated?), while SNK's characters looked characteristically beautiful. Convincing this art-risk averse company to redo everything must have been a monumental task, dwarfed only by the task of actually re-doing their ten-year-old characters.

And, of course, playbalancing fighters is incredibly difficult. Unlike computergames which can be patched after launch if an exploit is discovered, and home games where competition in your house remains friendly, Arcade games have to be uncheatable out of the door. If you don't playtest them mercilessly, horrible imbalances [geocities.com] can emerge. Why do Blizzard games take 4 years to make? Balance. Why do AAA fighters take 4 years to make? Balance.

In short, a 3 year development cycle for a competition-level arcade game is not surprising. If what they come out with is solid and plays well, they will have succeeded.

Re:3 Years

[OneEyedJack]

"That's equivalent to the old CPS 1 board that "powered" the original Street Fighter 2 through Turbo."

Correction: Capcom Play System 1(CPS) powered SF2, SF2:CE, and SF2:HF, the CPS2 powered Super SF2, and SSF2: Turbo

Re:3 Years

[cgenman]

The actual name given to the third game in the Street Fighter 2 series is still up for debate. This screenshot [webmagic.com] shows some of the reason for the confusion, as well as this clear and understandable marquee [webmagic.com]. On the street in the Silicon Valley we refered to it as "Turbo," and GameFAQS has "Street Fighter II Hyper Edition" listed as [gamefaqs.com] "Street Fighter II Turbo" under the release data. People also refered to it [gamezero.com] as "Turbo Championship Edition."

There is one thing that isn't debated, the SNES home conversion was t

You shouldn't use otaku to refer to other people

[eht]

It's ok if you want to refer to yourself as an otaku, but to many people it can be a very extreme insult, so you might want to watch how you use it.

Capcom with the same old formula

[quantax]

Is it me, or has Capcom been remaking the same damn games over and over again and just slapping on new titles/graphics. The Resident Evil series (directors cut? I might respect that...) got a little rediculous, and Street Fighter they've just been remaking since the originals. Seriously, look up how many Street Fighter derivatives there are from Capcom, its a little disgusting. I fully enjoyed the original games, but its rather dissappointing to me now that Capcom has failed to really do anything new and in

Re:Capcom with the same old formula

[OneEyedJack]

SNK is doing this game - Not capcom.

Re:Capcom with the same old formula

[evilhayama]

Well, let's just see what the Capcom America main page [capcom.com] has on it. Sure, there are remakes of Megaman and Resident Evil, but there's also Viewtiful Joe, Auto Modellista and PN03 on there, which are hardly unoriginal. Let them make remakes of popular games for people who want them, as long as they also make new innovative stuff too.