SNK Vs Capcom: Match of the Millenium Game by SNK Reviewed by The Avardancer (Philip Wesley) Size: 32 megabits Save: Battery Released: 1999 Works with: Neo Geo Pocket Color ONLY **************************************************************************** Opening Snide Remarks: Well, welcome to my review. As you all know, I'm a skeptical person. And if you feel you will be offended by my nit-picking and nasty bashing of this game; do not read on into it. I've warned you. And if you read on into, I will be forced to ignore your feeble whines about the whole "Unfairness" of it all. Okay? Now that this is out of the way, let me begin the review. If you feel that you will become very ill while reading this review. You may leave now. **************************************************************************** Gameplay Descripion: This is the "Gran Turismo" of handheld fighting games on the Neo Geo Pocket Color. It's the "One ya gotta own" game for the NGPC. To be honest; most people will only recognize the Capcom fighters. All of my experience with SNK fighters is in the arcades and on Game Boy. And I will mention a bit on those. I would like to congratulate SNK first off, for making the Game Play in MOTM's Tourney mode SHORTER and SLOWER than King of the Fighter's 1995 and 1997. That's my criticism of the fighting aspect in a nutshell. The main game is too short, a bit slow, and rather cliché. All the text seems to have been translated by SNK USA, and as usual, they seem to be hard at work with fantastic grammar errors, stupid jokes, and etc. But, I LIKE SNK's ritually whacked up translations. The only difference in the game difficulty levels is the amount of damage that you and your opponents do to each other. At higher levels, you do less damage, and your opponents do more damage. See how that works? Anyways, there are a few nice options; but I'll just address the two MAIN aspects of the gameplay here. I'll leave the other sections to game design, etc. The two main sections of the game are "TOURNEY" and "OLYMPIC". The best part of the Tourney mode is being able to choose from three different fighting styles, power modes, and many characters. All of that said; the three modes are a single fighter, tag team, and a "group" fighting team. Not much difference between them. And, sadly, no team-up moves to use. Like I mentioned before, the fighting can be a bit slow. It plays more like an SNK fighting game than a Capcom one; but recently, both companies have been putting out weak fighting games and it shows. It seems to me that my opponents have no "substance". This means that you *need* to use special moves to win. I can't just get in there and kick butt with punches and kicks; because those will usually not connect to my opponent. Which is weird. It's a little like King of the Fighters 1995 on the Game Boy, where I HAVE to use special moves to actually hit someone. It's "Flash Dependant". I can live with that; but I don't like it as much. If I had an option to turn off all Special moves and throws, I could get into the real "meat" of the fighting game. Overall, it's a decent fighting game. It's more of an SNK fighter than a Capcom one though. As a fighting game, it's just decent. The real good game play starts with OLYMPIC. The Olympic is divided into Capcom and SNK, there are seven different modes, a Survival Mode, where you fight 100 opponents, almost non-stop. That's cool. A Time Attack, and First attack mode are also included, those are well done. The SNK games are both "whack a mole" type games. One has you shooting aliens, one has you slashing straw dolls. Both are pretty okay, nothing special. The Capcom side has a horrible beatmania clone. I'm sorry, but that stick.. with it's beautiful inaccuracy, truly screws up the rythm game. If you have bought Pac-Man for the NGPC, you may already have the nice "ring" that makes this mini-game bearable. But if you do not, don't even touch this one. The other Capcom one is a rip-off of the classic Game and Watch game: "Turtle Bridge"; but with Arthur from Ghouls and Ghosts. This is an awesome little mini-game. I would say that it is at least worth HALF of what you paid for the game. It's deriative and very unoriginal; but hey! It's FUN. And that matters. You can create your own "fighter" in a way; although all you can change is their background music, and what they say when the close-up shot is shown. If you edit a "team", you can choose their team name. Overall, that's pretty useless. I would much rather be able to RENAME the fighter at least. The game is fun in two player mode. And it can "link" up to the Dreamcast to download data and it can link to Card Fighter Clash for VERSUS. Liked: The Olympic mode is fun and the fighting is fairly decent. Hated: The tourney is too short, and a bit slower than some other fighting games. No team-up mode, a few of the Olympic games are not very thought out and it shows. **************************************************************************** Graphics Description: This is good looking for a Game Boy game. Oh, wait. My bad. Here is where the game takes it's lumps. One, we have recycled sprites and animation from other games, still in three colors. We also have a few VERY pathetic backgrounds. Some of the backgrounds are cool, and we have a hint of parrallax scrolling in two of them. The backgrounds have static animations that are fairly nice; but a lot of the backgrounds are almost monochromatic. Some of the "cut-scenes" and sections of the game are VERY monochromatic. (Read: One color. Like GREEN, or RED.) The close-up "Money Shots" for each character are nice; but upon closer inspection.. they make me a little upset. They are LAYERED. You know, like in those Hi Color Game Boy Color games? Where the colors are seperated into tiles that are layered onto each other and continually refreshed to give the illusion of more colors being shown on-screen. So, it's not the NGPC doing it. Which is suspicious at best. Pathetic at worst. It's that color trick in use. And if this is all it can give us now in those close-ups, it's not going to get much better. I hope that it can get better; but I fear it might not. The characters are done in a cutesy Super Deformed look. Which is cute. A lot of the "right" female animations made it into the games and I should probably not type that in to this review. The Special Effects are very nicely done and add to the game. Liked: Mai. ;) Some of the graphics are pretty cool! Those Special Effects. Hated: The new Street Fighter sprites will most likely be used again many, many, many times to create new games. When what SNK NEEDS to do, is try to make a new fighter with a DISTINCT look. Not a recycled look. **************************************************************************** Sound/Music Description: There is no voice. Oh, well. The sounds are accurate and borrowed from other games as well. The real highlight in this section is the variety of music. And it's all pretty cool music. Everyone has the proper themes, and the mixes seem a LOT more thought out than Sonic Pocket Adventure's mixes. Overall, keep the volume UP. The music is immaculate and just so awesome. Nice stereo tricks and effects too. Aww yeah. This music is just too good. Liked: There is a SOUND TEST in the options menu. Hated: But the "Ghost Trick" music is not selectable from that sound test. **************************************************************************** Play Control/Game Design: That control stick.. it makes me jump sometimes, when I try to throw a fire ball. That never happened with a digital pad. But, oh, well. Good Play Control. The Game Design is a bit.. odd. One complaint: The characters that didn't make it and some that did. I mean.. seriously. We all want to see Mega Man unload the smack on Marco. And I want to fight as Arthur, or Billy, or Vega, or at least the other to Lone Wolves. It's a cookie cutter fighting game; but it is fun. Liked: Play Control? Hated: Cookie cutter fighting engine dough starting to smell funny. **************************************************************************** Improve: New graphics engine. More characters, some more Olympic Mode games that build on the NGPC's strengths. For example, some Mario Party style spin the Control Stick type games? RIYL: Fighting. **************************************************************************** Final Words: One of the better games for the NGPC, and if you own an NGPC... you better have this one. It may have some flaws; but it's fun. **************************************************************************** Score Gameplay: **** Graphics: *** Sound/Music: ***** Play Control/Game Design: *** Personal Opinion: **** Total: 19 out of 25 Final Score: 76% **************************************************************************** Currently Known Codes: If you change the language option in the NGPC, the text in the game changes too. It's neat.