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| Developer |
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SNK Playmore |
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SNK Playmore |
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| Game Type |
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Fighting, 1v1 |
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| System |
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Arcade |
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| Release Date |
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Japan - 07.24.03
USA - 07.24.03 |
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SNK vs Capcom: Chaos (Arcade)
Review by: Campbell Tran (10.16.03)
<< PREVIOUS - Intro // Sound & Presentation
Innovation:
The return to classic 2-D fighting is no doubt an appeal to the hardcore
fighting fans of yonder, so SNK-Playmore decided to add a few new features to
spice things up a little and hopefully lure the new generation of players
raised on faster-paced games like Marvel vs Capcom 2.
The Front Ground Step is basically a short dash across the ground common in
many other fighting games. The only difference being that SvC's dashes are
cancellable at any time into attacks and jumps. This was obviously an
attempt to make the game fast-paced and offense oriented.
The Guard Cancel Front Step is basically what it sounds like: for the cost of a
tiny bit of super meter, you cancel your guard (block) into a Ground Front
Step, which is of course cancellable at any time into an attack or jump. Did I
mention the dash was completely invincible? Exactly how this was supposed to
enhance the game I'll never be able to even conjecture at, but more on this
"feature" later on.
Exceeds are the SvC equivalent of Capcom's level 3 "super attacks" and KOF's Super
Desperation Moves, meaning it's basically a more powerful super move. The main
difference between an Exceed and other super moves is that Exceeds
require you to have less that 50% of your life bar and, wait for it, can only
be done once per game. Yes, per game. Now, I can understand some of
logic behind this since most modern 2-D fighters generally revolve a little too
much around landing the super, but having access to a move only once in a whole
game seems far too restrictive to me. If it were up to me, I would simply make
the supers less useful if I wanted to shift a game's strategy away from supers.
Interestingly enough, Exceeds require no "super meter"!
For the combo aficionados out there, SvC gives you Maximum Mode. Similar to the
"custom combos" of certain Capcom games, it's almost exactly the same as
the Maximum Mode feature in KOF2002. Maximum Mode lets you cancel any normal move into
a special move or command normal at any point during the move, and it also lets
you cancel certain designated special moves into other special moves or command
normals. A peculiar twist on this system is that it activates automatically
when your super meter fills up entirely; other games have you hit a combination
of buttons to "activate" their custom combo systems to give you more control
over when you want to use it. While Maximum Mode is active, a timer that lasts
roughly twelve seconds will wind down. Every specially-cancelled move takes a
small chunk off the timer, and supers take half the bar. Once the timer is
completely gone, your bar curiously only reverts to being two-thirds full. This
can lead to a lot of abuse with certain characters: since you only need one
more level of super to get back into Maximum Mode you can in effect spend most
of the round exploiting its benefits: half-price supers and far more options
to fight with due to its special cancelling abilities. With the exception of a
few characters, Maximum Mode is used more for its ability to cancel normal
moves freely than for actual combos.
Every single one of these new features is simply a minor modification to an
already existing system in place in another fighting game. Innovative? You be
the judge. The only new feature that makes SvC play substantially different
than any other fighting game would be the Guard Cancel Front Step. However,
this isn't a good thing, since the GCFS single-handedly ruined SvC as a
competetive game Even if the game somehow fixed all of its other numerous
problems, having the GCFS in the game would still destroy it... but more on
that in a second.
Innovation Score: 3 / 10
Gameplay:
Any hardcore fighting game fan will tell you that a good fighter's graphics and
sound are totally irrelevant if the game has superlative gameplay. The question
is, does SNK vs Capcom Chaos fall in that category?
Unfortunately, the short answer would be "definitely not". A few incredibly
blatant programming bugs, a handful of extremely over-powered characters, and
some embarrassingly dumb game "features" all team up to piledrive this game
into the dirt.
SNK-Playmore took a big gamble when they created SvC's core fighting engine:
they opted to buck the over the top style of today's fighting games and go for
a more "old-school" approach. One on one fighting, no air-blocking, no rolling,
no running, just pure unadulterated classic fighting gameplay.
That's what everybody hoped, anyway.
The Guard Cancel Front Step is easily among the most dubious design decisions
of all time. At the cost of a tiny bit of super meter (about as much as you
would gain by making your opponent block a projectile) you can block and
counter 99% of the moves in the game easily and on reaction for free damage.
The free damage could range anywhere from a free throw all the way to
100% damage combos with certain characters. As a result, the game usually
degenerates into a huge stare-down contest to see who becomes foolish enough to
try to attack. This is hardly any fun at all for either player, but is also
undeniably the most consistent way to garner wins in this game.
The GCFS wouldn't be so bad if it were easy to counter, but the sole
counter-measure currently known is only accessible to a handful of characters
in the game: cancel the move that you think is going to get GCFS'ed into a
special throw move, which will grab your opponent right out of their dash.
Unfortunately, this is really only a consistent technique with one character -
Tessa. The major flaw in this strategy is that most special throw moves are
not safe if the opponent doesn't GCFS as planned ... which means the more
prudent tactic is to sit there and not run that risk.
Common sense dictates that the best way to beat someone sitting there and
waiting for a blocked move to GCFS would be to try to throw them. This doesn't
work for several reasons, the main one being that throws are nearly worthless
as an offensive maneuver in this game. First off, they do pitiful damage:
about 5% of the opponent's total life. Also, opponents in SvC may not be
thrown for a fairly long period of time after they've blocked something or
have been knocked down. This all but eliminates any kind of attack/throw
mix-up game. Throws also literally have no range in this game: you
have to be pushing against your opponent or the throw will miss. What happens
when you miss a throw? In yet another glaring design error not only are you
vulnerable to retaliation, but the game actually penalizes you by removing a
chunk of your super bar. For you people who like to actually attack every now
and then in a fighting game, SvC was not made with you in mind.
SvC has a very respectable roster of 36 characters; 24 initially playable,
eight unlockable with codes, and four more un-playable boss characters.
Ironically, the variety of playable characters in SvC is also one of the
biggest contributing factors to its downfall. Gameplay-wise, SvC has one of
the most unbalanced casts of characters you'll ever see in a fighter. The main
culprits are the eight secret characters, two of which are ridiculously
overpowered, five of which are grossly overpowered, and none of which
were beta-tested by the public since the codes to play them weren't leaked
until roughly a week after the game's official release date. These characters
are riddled with horrendous design errors: easy infinite combos, obviously
overpowered moves... even an invincible and unblockable move!
The two ridiculously overpowered characters, Zero (from the Mega Man
franchise) and Geese (from Fatal Fury fame), have such a gargantuan advantage
over the rest of the cast that every other character is practically
unplayable; no matter how many hours you've invested in perfecting your Sagat
or Ryo, you'll never even get close to beating an even moderately skilled
Zero player. This is a huge shame, as it flushes the great character
selection of the game right down the toilet.
The control aspect of SvC has been argued into the ground since the game's
release. For some people the game controls perfectly fine, but for many others
(myself included) special moves and super moves don't come out nearly as
consistently as we're used to. There's no reason why a motion I can do 100% of
the time in any other Capcom or SNK fighting title should be even remotely as
difficult to perform consistently as it is in this game. Also, dashing is
performed exactly how it is any other fighting game: tapping the forward
direction twice rapidly on the joystick. The window to double-tap the joystick
is much too large in this game, resulting in many accidental dashes when just
trying to move around. Bad controls will often ruin a fighting game outright,
but in the case of SvC it's just one of many contributing factors.
Aside from the abundance of misguided design decisions, SvC also sports a lot
of sloppy programming: the aforementioned infinite combos were found quickly
and are relatively easy to do. Glitches rear their ugly head now and then, with
characters getting stuck into a position and being unable to move for a while.
By far the most noticeable evidence of sloppy programming are the hit detection
issues arise nearly every match, with limbs and projectiles flying cleanly
through opponents' midsections.
Gameplay Score: 3 / 10
NEXT >> Extras, Lifespan, & Summary
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