Back in the ’90s if you asked my young self to mention the first thing that came to mind after hearing “Capcom”, an immediate answer would be Street Fighter. It was the game that defined the fighting genre, and the most popular franchise that the developer had. (Young me was aware of Darkstalkers as well, but nothing else.) And if you asked young me to mention what came to mind after hearing “SNK”, at the time the answer would be different as compared with Capcom: King of Fighters, Fatal Fury, Art of Fighting, and Samurai Shodown. While Street Fighter defined the genre, SNK took a different approach, creating the first crossover game ever with the King of Fighters title. In my opinion, this was brilliant since they took characters from different IPs and made them fighting characters, like fan-favorite Athena Asamiya from Psycho Soldier or Ralf Jones and Clark Still from Ikari Warriors (and Leona Heidern being added later). During that era as I was growing up, the sleepovers I used to have with my friends included something we called “Fighting Game Saturdays”; it was a marathon of fighting game goodness, and a common factor was that we always ended with an SNK game (either Samsho or KOF). Back in the day, I always wanted a game in which Kyo would fight against Ryu or Lori against Akuma, and we actually got 4 of such games, including CVSNK and CVSNK2 on Capcom’s side – with the second game being critically acclaimed. On SNK’s side we got SVC Chaos (which wasn’t as popular as the ones developed by Capcom; I like SVC Chaos a lot as it had cool features like the intro conversations and the roster overall was varied), and SNK VS Capcom: the Match of the Millennium (we’ll call this one SNKVSC:TMM for short) on the Neo Geo Pocket. Now the lattermost title is the one I had the privilege to review: I never had a NeoGeo Pocket (I live in Honduras – a third world country – and while the SNK games were and are highly popular here, we never got any Neo Geo hardware for sale), so this is my first time experiencing this classic; I am impressed that this game was even possible, considering the limitations of the hardware at the time of release.
In SNK vs Capcom the developer pulled out all the stops to bring a cohesive and complete experience never seen before in a fighting game: most of the games of the era were developed in a mindset to include Arcade Mode to bring the arcade experience to your home, and a Versus Mode to duke it out with a friend (and some included a Survival Mode in a way to extend the replay value and a gallery mode to see character artwork). It was a simpler time. However, SNKVSC:TMM was developed with the mindset to be a love letter to both companies’ gaming legacy, and so it introduced its “Olympic mode”. In this mode, for example, you can choose to be on the SNK side with Rimururu from Samurai Shodown or Karin from the Street Fighter Alpha series. In this Olympic mode, you further have several sub-modes like “survival”, “1-hit blast”, and “time attack”; depending on which side you choose you can get access to two different minigames based on games from SNK and Capcom. On the SNK side, you have a Samurai Shodown minigame with Jubei, and a Metal Slug minigame with Marco. On the Capcom side, you have a minigame with Arthur from Ghosts and Goblins, and one with Felicia from Darkstalkers. This mode is a good way to extend the replay value because the minigames are fun and challenging, and you earn “VS points” that you can use to unlock super moves for all the cast. Also as per the era standards, SNKVSC:TMM also included a range of secret characters you can unlock by playing the “Tourney mode” (this game’s arcade/story mode) and, after several playthroughs, you will start unlocking the characters one by one. In the Steam version of the game, it’s easier, since in the original release the blocks to unlock were randomized; here you always get a guaranteed block to unlock the character).
As you can see by the pics above, the game is graphically impressive considering the limitations of the time hardware-wise, and it manages to capture the feel of a full-fledged fighting game with all the mechanics and charm of the characters represented. Let’s take my favorite character in the Street Fighter universe – Dan Hibiki – for example. If I was shown just the sprite in its idle stance with the name covered, I would say Dan immediately since it uses the same idle stance as seen in Alpha 3. Evil Ryu is a similar example: now let me tell you that this is THE BEST depiction ever of the character; just looking at its idle stance you can feel the fierceness of the character, someone that has lost control of his humanity and lives only to destroy. That is what I feel when I look at the character in this game (as a concept Evil Ryu is awesome, but the way Capcom has depicted him in their games feels like a boring palette swap). Or also consider Haohmaru’s stance, for example: it’s kind of like a wavy dance (for lack of a better explanation) in the Samurai Shodown games, and here the character retains that same stance and the smug facial expression that he is known for.
Overall in the presentation area, I have nothing but praise, and I wish I could’ve experienced this game and the hardware at the time of the original release. Gameplay-wise it is a solid experience with some input lag but, as I investigated in the Steam forums for this game, I discovered it was normal since the original also had it due to the way it was developed. It makes sense since I assume it’s not easy to make a 4-button game work with only 2 buttons, but once you get used to the two-button layout it works impressively well. I also enjoyed the level of difficulty the game offers: it was fun to fight Geese and Bison in a tag team match against my sole character. They were tough and, when I finally beat them, Orochi Iori was waiting for me. As a fan of fighting games, I couldn’t be happier to see all of my favorite characters in a battle for supremacy. The music is awesome, even if it’s 8 bits: I really enjoyed hearing some familiar tunes like Dan’s theme or Athena’s. I also enjoyed the different stages you fight in: I recognize some from Fatal Fury, KOF, and Street Fighter and I thought that was cool. The game also features coop vs mode and, with the Steam remote, you can play online (I wasn’t able to try this since I don’t game on PC, and so I don’t have any friends on Steam). For me, it’s important to see this game re-released on Steam (and Nintendo Switch) since it makes me hopeful that an SNK VS Capcom 3, or CVSNK3 could happen in the future – and if it is so, that is a future I want to be a part of.
The Bottom Line? Snk Vs Capcom: The Match of the Millennium is an outstanding fighting game that feels like it was meant for a home console instead of for a portable machine. I definitely recommend it to any fighting-game fan; this game is a love letter to both SNK and Capcom, the greatest fighting-game developers. Do not let its cute visuals fool you: this game packs a punch!!!
A Review code was kindly provided for this review.