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The Lowdown
Pros: Fun with a buddy, good character variety
Cons: Dated gameplay, downgrade from other "versus" games, poor graphics
 Purchase
at Play-Asia
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SNK vs. Capcom Chaos is the latest installation in Capcom's famous
"versus" series, which dates all the way back to Street Fighter versus
X-men. After losing the marvel license, Capcom teamed up with SNK to pit
favorite characters from their flagship games against each other. Fans
of both companies flocked to the first Capcom vs. SNK and ate up the
more balanced Capcom vs. SNK 2. All of the previous versus games were
primarily made by Capcom, but instead Snk vs. Capcom Chaos is made by
the SNK Playmore team. Did the fighting veteran SNK do a good job with
this game or did it's acquisition by Playmore yield less than expected
results.First of all this is a pretty tough game to judge, since SNK
vs. Capcom chaos had a tremendous amount of hype behind it. SNK
supporters were proud that SNK was going to lead development of the
game, while a lot of Capcom fans were hesitant towards this news. A lot
of rumors spread about this game about which characters were going to be
in it. Some fans wanted characters beyond the fighting games such as
Rockman, Strider or even characters from Metal Slug to be included. When
you first see the roster there's going to be some initial disappointment
not every one's favorite character is in the game. Of course no roster
(unless one that included every character in existence) would please
every player. However, the roster is heavily stacked on the Capcom side
with Street Fighter characters and heavily stacked with King of
Fighters characters on the SNK side. A little more variety would have
been a nice change to see. Another disappointment is the lack of "unlockable"
characters. What you see in the roster is what you get, except for
holding the R1 button over the first four characters on either side.
Doing that will unlock the mini boss characters like Violent Ken,
Serious Mr. Karate and everyone's favorite Maverick Hunter, Zero. One
thing that is nice to have in fighting game is unlockable characters,
which adds a little more reason to play the single player mode. On the
other hand it is nice to have all the characters available from the get
go so you can jump right into playing with two players.
SNK vs. Capcom Chaos like most fighting games is primarily designed
with a second player in mind. For the most part SNK vs. Capcom Chaos is
fun with a second player. Most of the characters in the game will be
immediately familiar to fighting fanatics. Ryu, Gouki (aka Akuma), Kyo,
and Terry play pretty much the same as they have in other games. There
are some new characters to master like Mars People or Zero, but if
you've played a fighting game before you'll be able to pick them up
easily. Instead of a classic six button Capcom set up this game goes for
the four button SNK set up where two buttons are punch and two are kick.
Attacking enemies charges up your super meter, which has three levels.
Each level allows you one use of a super move. Once the bar fills up to
the third level the bar flashes and you can continue to do super moves
until the bar drains to zero. Doing super moves and waiting both drain
the bar, but when it empties out the bar resets to level 2. Another
change is during each round has two life bars. The first bar is an
orange bar and the second one is red. When you're in your second bar you
can perform a super powerful exceed move. An exceed can only be done
once in each battle, not round. So you'll have to decide carefully when
you want to unleash it. The fighting system is pretty simple compared to
Capcom vs. Snk 2. No extra characters, no groove selection, no crazy
combos, no partners jumping in, just the basics. The engine is more
reminiscent of older fighting games like Street Fighter Alpha or King of
Fighters 98. After having such an advanced and diverse fighting system
as Capcom vs. SNK 2, Chaos feels like a downgrade.
Another problem with the game is a problem with character balance.
Capcom vs. SNK 2 was a fairly balanced game, but Chaos isn't. The mini
boss characters are way too strong. Zero has an easy infinite combo to
pull out, which makes playing against him almost unfair. Other normal
characters like Gouki are a little too powerful and are too versatile.
When you're playing against another player you can choose not to be
"cheap", but when characters are this grossly unbalanced it puts a dent
in the fun factor. One interesting note is that when you're playing
single player and you lose a new menu shows up. This menu allows you to
handicap the computer by lowering its difficulty and even lowering its
life to 1/3. With these options the single player mode becomes a joke,
even with the unbalanced characters.
Besides the gameplay problems SNK vs. Capcom Chaos isn't presented in
any special way. The intro shows a lame 16 bit scene of Ryu, Kyo and
Gouki that looks like an arcade intro from about seven years ago. The
sprites are the same reused sprites from their respective games. Of
course the new characters got new sprites, but for the majority of
characters you'll be seeing the same sprites for the hundredth time. The
sprites aren't even placed on the backgrounds well, they look like
sloppily cut paper dolls over a computer generated screen. The higher
resolution your TV is the more jagged the sprites look. Special effects
like fireballs and the classic shadowing of your character when you're
doing a super move are a yawn. All of the effects resemble older sixteen
bit fighting games and look quite dated in 2004. Heck the only thing is
halfway pleasing to the eye are the backgrounds, which have some
animation behind them. After seeing the crisp, clean animation of Naruto:
Narutimett Hero and the vivid character animations of Guilty Gear XX:
Reloaded, SNK vs. Capcom Chaos doesn't jump over the bar that those
games set. Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with 2D graphics,
but this game just doesn't do them right.
The music and the sound effects in this game are another giant yawn.
Gone is the cool jazz music or high beat energetic music seen in
fighting games. Instead you get a blend of pulsing drums and chanting in
what sounds like music from a Sega Genesis game. The sound effects in
the game aren't anything special either. The same "Hadoken" and "Shoryuken"
screams are reused again. The sound of getting hit is the familiar splat
sound, also reused from the dawn of fighting games. At least a little
work should have been put into remixing the sound or having some more
engaging music.
As a long time fan of the "versus" games, SNK vs. Capcom Chaos
disappoints on many levels since it doesn't expand upon the series.
Still, SNK vs. Capcom Chaos can still be a fun game to play with a
couple of buddies. If you look past the poor graphics, presentation, and
gameplay imbalances you still only have a standard fighter.
Import Friendly
Menus and character selection is in English. Yet, the coolest feature
in the game, the dialogue between characters before they fight, is all
in Japanese.
US Bound?
Update: Since SNK is planning a release of SNK vs Capcom Chaos for
the Xbox, with Xbox live support it doesn't seem likely that a PS2
version will come to US shores.
Overall
Long time fans of 2D fighting games might appreciate this
game. However, there are so many better fighting games in the market
Soul Calibur 2, Naruto: Narutimett Hero, Virtua Fighter 4: Evolution and
even the recently released King of Fighters 2000/2001 to name a few,
which makes this game pale in comparison.
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