SNK Heroines: Tag Team Frenzy Review

SNK has always admired its history and legacies, no matter how old or forgotten.  This is the company that brought back Hwa Jai for KOF 13 after being in just one game decades before and callbacks to the first Art of Fighting game are omnipresent, both visually and in gameplay. With SNK, you never know what they’re going to dig up next and I can definitely say I did not expect a follow-up to SNK Gals Fighters.

SNK Gals Fighters was a silly fighting game on the Neo Geo Pocket Color where a bunch of SNK’s girl fighters compete to win a wish in the girls-exclusive Queen of Fighters tournament, spearheaded by the enigmatic-yet-familiar-looking Miss X.

At first I thought it was Iori in drag wearing Eiji's mask, but she specifically says "私は庵ではない!"

The roster was mostly KOF girls like Whip, Leona and Shermie, but with other SNK characters like Shiki and Nakoruru from the Samurai Shodown games and Kyo’s largely offscreen girlfriend Yuki.

Everyone in the game was drawn as chibis, there was a mechanic in which the fighters clashed in a big ball of violence not unlike the Persona games post-2 and the new characters Yuki and Miss X had moves that included hysterical slapping, tripping and tearing apart the opposition with a fork and knife.

Needless to say, it was not a serious game. It was fun and silly with simpler controls.  It’s a breed of game we don’t seem to see as much of anymore since most fighting games want to be the newest competitive affair. That’s why the spiritual follow-up, SNK Heroines: Tag Team Frenzy, being released on the PC was such a pleasant surprise.