Shonen Otaku Starts Streaming!

We all know I love sharing my games with others and I've always done that through my writing, but now I have another, additional way to show people all the different things games have to show us.

After figuring out the witchcraft that is streaming software, and after buying a capture card from someone in my local FGC community for cheap, I have started a Youtube channel to stream games on!  Be sure to take a look if you want to see how I play fighting games, how I survive horror games and how I rule the Sea of Thieves as a mighty meme lord.  It should be fun.

Clock Tower Rewind Review

12 years ago I wrote a piece on the original Clock Tower in what was only the 4^th post ever on this blog, where I called it the scariest game ever made.  In a way, that makes Clock Tower kind of special to me.  Since that post I’ve played several different kinds of horror games, from the David Lynch-like Harvester to the competitive horror of Dead by Daylight and the surreal maze chase scares of Dark Deception, so I have a much broader perspective on the genre than I did back then.  I also have a confession to make that affected my view on the game: at the time of that post my fear of Clock Tower was based on my viewing of someone else playing it.  I hadn’t played it myself.  I couldn’t.

Clock Tower was released for the Super Nintendo/Super Famicom in 1995, but wasn’t released in English, which I would normally question, but in this case it makes sense.  The game heavily features a pentagram and ambiguously satanic rituals at a time when Nintendo was very averse to religious symbolism in games on their consoles.  It also had some violence.  There wasn’t much in the way of blood and gore, but this was also a time when Nintendo got up in arms about the bloodless cheese fest that was Night Trap.  I’m not even sure how Clock Tower got a Japanese release, to be honest.

Nintendo got more lax as the years went on, but even Binding of Isaac over a decade later was initially rejected for Nintendo consoles because of its religious themes.  It’s funny how now they publish the Bayonetta games and a remaster of Night Trap is available on their console.

The original Clock Tower would be rescued from Nintendo’s nanny console and got a new version on the PS1 in 1997, shortly after its direct sequel.  The PS1 version added new content and changed some of the visual and audio effects for the worse, in my opinion.

You would think now that Clock Tower was on a system that allowed for more freedom of violence and religious symbolism that it was the perfect time for an English release, but no!  They translated the sequel instead, advertised the sequel like it was the first game and skipped the actual first game entirely!

This was such a baffling move!  Clock Tower 2, as it’s known in Japan, is so obviously a sequel!  It follows the plot points of the original game, directly references the events of the original game and one of the big twists only makes sense if you played the original game!

Sure, Persona 2 did the same thing, skipping the first of its duology, Innocent Sin, and only translating the second, Eternal Punishment, but at least in Persona 2: Eternal Punishment the ambiguity of previous events was part of the plot and in the context of the characters in the game it was a mystery to be solved that the player could follow along with.  Clock Tower 2 expects the players to know the original!  The first game was right there on the same system!

The Clock Tower games would consistently be released in English since the second game, but there was never an English release of the original.  It fell on the fans to make Clock Tower available to play for English speakers with English translated ROM hacks and bootleg SNES reproduction cartridges.  The illegal way was the only way to play, but even though they worked, some of these fan translated versions had the occasiona glitch, especially for the PS1 version, from what I’ve read.  They weren’t the most ideal way to play.

Now with Clock Tower Rewind, we finally have an official English release of the original Clock Tower.  We can finally play it for real and it only took

30

YEARS!

Well, 29, but who’s counting.

Capcom vs. SNK: The King of Arcades: 2017-2019 (Final Round)

This was the period where both company’s arcade releases truly came to a near-close.  That this round starts in 2017 says it all.  Since 2011, neither company made a single game for arcades that wasn’t an updated version of a previous one.  As I stated last time, there were ports, mobile games and console games, but the previous round set a precedent for both companies moving forward: now the console versions of their fighting games would come first.

It’s a damn good thing Capcom followed that precedent in particular because holy shit.  The release of Street Fighter 5 can be debated for being worse than The King of Fighters 12.  Compmared to the low bar that is KOF 12, Street Fighter 5 had fewer characters, fewer features and fewer modes to play, all at the price of a full retail game.  Street Fighter 5 became the target of such mockery and ridicule that people almost forgot about KOF 12.  Almost.

As if to rub it in Street Fighter 5’s face, SNK brought out a new King of Fighters game with a massive 50 characters and a fully featured arcade mode with substantial story content.  I heard stories about Street Fighter players jumping ship to KOF 14 because of how much of a rip-off Street Fighter 5 was.  There’s footage of a pro Street Fighter player telling Capcom representatives to their faces that he was going to go play Guilty Gear instead of Street Fighter 5.  It was really REALLY bad.  It’s the stuff of legends.

That is not the version being judged though.  Capcom continually added to Street Fighter 5 with overpriced DLC until they finally got a feature-rich and complete game re-released as the Champion Edition, which is what came out in arcades.  SNK had already released KOF 14 for arcades with all its DLC included by that point, plus a little spin-off.  With the release of SNK’s 2019 Samurai Shodown game later, we’ll have reached the last arcade game released by either company.  We will finally see if Capcom will cement their lead as the best arcade game manufacturer or if SNK will tie the score.

Live and let die!  Fight!

Capcom vs. SNK: The King of Arcades: 2012-2014

Curious things happened in the aftermath of The King of Fighters 13 and Super Street Fighter 4.  SNK wasn’t coming out with a lot of new games except mobile phone ones and ports of previous games.  There were some good mobile games and good ports, mind you.  I still love The Rhythm of Fighters and had some fun with Metal Slug Defense, which led into Metal Slug Attack and apparently Metal Slug Attack had so much of an audience that just recently they came out with a complete console version of it called Metal Slug Attack: Reloaded.  For ports, the Code Mystics ports for KOF 98 and 2002UM were made available on PC with online play, which for me was a huge deal.

On Capcom’s side… Well a lot of people consider it Capcom’s darkest time period and would lead into them becoming the evil fan-hating company they are today.  There were already a lot of contentious decisions and games like the Bionic Commando remake, Dark Void, DMC: Devil May Cry (it’s not THAT bad, guys) and of course Street Fighter X Tekken.  Street Fighter X Tekken was a disaster for Capcom because of on-disc DLC due to a deal with Sony and a gameplay customization system essentially kind of being pay to win.  I play Street Fighter X Tekken on the Vita, where all the characters are included, so I didn’t get as much withheld content and I think it’s a pretty fun crossover, but I am in the minority.

Capcom had one possible saving grace with Sengoku Basara 4, a game that was shaping up to be the end all be all for action gaming once it came out in English.  As long as Sengoku Basara 4 came out, Capcom would become immortalized as the greatest game company in the that could do no wrong.  Everything hinged on that one game as far as console games went.

Both companies were either too busy or didn’t care enough to make new arcade games after their last ones, but both of them did throw arcades a bone and released updated versions of their best, most recent fighting games.  Now we’ll decide which of the company’s best of their best is THE best.

Capcom vs. SNK: The King of Arcades: Bonus Round!: Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection

The Marvel vs. Capcom Collection is out and with its widespread availability, Capcom has some more ammunition under their belt.  While doing the Capcom vs. SNK series I’ve had to skip all but the last two games included in this collection, but now that I can finally play them, it’s time to fill in some gaps and maybe make it something of a review of the collection as a whole..

I had previously stated that when this collection came out I would go back and edit the included games into their respective year, but on further contemplation, that could cause a mess for consistency because there’s the possibility of these games elevating Capcom just enough to retroactively score a win for a year, which would make future posts referencing victories contradictory.  Therefore, this bonus round is going to give Capcom a few chances to reclaim a point in the competition and allow me to evaluate the 5 games I didn’t get to play before.  I will conclude each one by determining if it was good enough for Capcom to have had a better showing in its release year than SNK’s games.  In the case of years where Capcom won, all they have to do is not have the game be a disaster than brings them down.

Capcom vs. SNK: The King of Arcades: 2009 & 2010

2009 was the beginning of Capcom’s golden age.  It was when the far superior console version of Street Fighter 4 came out and got more fans into the franchise, since digital distribution of classic games wasn’t quite as available as it is now.  This gave rise to the “09ers”.  The newbies.  Capcom was hitting big.
 
It wasn’t just Street Fighter 4 either.  Capcom was also making tons of master works around this time, such as Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles, Devil May Cry 4 and Sengoku Basara: Samurai Heroes, the game with the distinction of having the single greatest English dub in the history of the gaming medium and one of the cornerstones of action gaming.  Capcom was the best company in gaming at this point in time.

However, that was all on consoles.  Another arcade version of Street Fighter 4 wouldn’t come until later on, giving SNK their chance to swoop in with their flagship franchise and claim themselves as the rulers of the arcades.  Once again Capcom has to play catchup and try to beat everything SNK comes out with with just one game.  Let’s see if they do that.

Capcom vs. SNK: The King of Arcades: 2008

SNK had an overall good few years for the arcades while on handhelds and consoles it was more of a mixed bag and very few of what they were putting out, like the Days of Memories visual novel games, were coming out in English.  What's more, after Capcom's complete and total absence in arcades for a good while, they at last came back to challenge SNK this year in 2008.  Will their new arcade games be enough to make up for all the strides SNK had already been making while they were gone?  Let's find out.

Capcom vs. SNK: The King of Arcades: 2005 & 2006

2004 was the end of an era for arcades.  The Neogeo had an astonishing 14 year run, a true testament to its power, but after Samurai Shodown 5 Special, SNK decided that it was time to move forward in their arcade technology so they started using Sammy/Sega’s Atomiswave, an awesome system that allowed for an excellent fusion of 2D and 3D visuals, not unlike the NAOMI system.  Outside of the games SNK would make for it, it had games like Dolphin Blue, Arc System Works’ Fist of the North Star game and DIMP’s The Rumble Fish.  All in all it was a great home for SNK to make bigger and better arcade games.

What did Capcom have?

Capcom was doing very well for themselves on home consoles and came out with some of the greatest games of all time, like the Viewtiful Joe franchise, Resident Evil 4 and Haunting Ground.  The arcades didn’t get any of the action from them during this time, partially for reasons I’ve already explained regarding home console hardware catching up and partially because as much success as Capcom saw, this was also an era of Capcom idiocy.

“People didn’t like our half-assed asset recycle bin fighting game?!  Clearly the people don’t want arcade games!”
“People didn’t like our already mediocre game about Japanese warlords?!  But we edited the entire setting with no context to replace it, made the music worse, changed the gameplay and even cut content!  Clearly those stupid Americans don’t want it!  What they want is Beatdown: Fists of Vengeance!”
“Hey, Hideaki Istuno!  I have some stuff here left over from the guy who bailed!  Make a sequel to Devil May Cry in a few months, will you?”

SNK didn’t release anywhere close to as many games as Capcom did, but since games on the Atomiswave were able to be ported to the PS2 and Xbox very easily (not sure why not the Gamecube), this means they could cover both fields..  With the increased memory capacity of PS2 discs, SNK was also able to dip into their arcade game library and make compilations like the Fatal Fury Battle Archives and Art of Fighting Anthology.

Finally and most notably, SNK made the King of Fighters: Maximum Impact games, console-exclusive 3D KOF games with their own continuities that for once actually got proper advertising and merchandise in English.  Ads for Maximum Impact appeared in magazines, there were TV commercials, the Hong Kong comic was released in English (as was KOF 2003’s) and Maximum Impact 2/The King of Fighters 2006 got its own sets of trading cards for the Universal Fighting System card game alongside Samurai Shodown 5.

Capcom would eventually make a big comeback to arcades with one game in particular, but that wouldn’t come out until 2008, so until then we got 4 different games on the Atomiswave for SNK to build their portfolio with for this stretch of time before Capcom entered the picture again to challenge SNK’s arcade dominance.

Capcom vs. SNK: The King of Arcades: 2004

Capcom laid low in the arcade scene in 2002 and 2003, but in 2004 they came out with two new titles for the arcades.  This is Capcom's chance to beat the likes of KOF 2002 and Metal Slug 5 for the next point.  This is also the year with what you might call a closure of a generation.  This year had the truly very last game ever made for the Capcom CPS2 and the last game released for the Neogeo.  After this year, both companies would move on to new arcade hardware for future games.  I'll have officially played everything in both Capcom Arcade Stadiums and my entire (digital) library of Neogeo games.  It has been a hell of a ride, but even with all of those exhausted for the sake of this series, I'll still have a ways to go because my access to the games from these companies don't end there.  This era of arcade gaming will now have its send-off as I judge which company was the best for the years 2002 to 2004.

Capcom vs. SNK: The King of Arcades: 2002 & 2003

I’ve reached the inevitable problem I expected to run into when I started this series was this point in time.  During the 7^th console generation, SNK was able to recover from their bankruptcy and continue making arcade games for a while longer in addition to some home console-original games and home ports of their older games.  Capcom went even further ham on the console games and set themselves up as quite possibly the best game company there was until they took to meth and thought making Devil Kings was a good idea.

"Y'know that cool Japanese game about Japanese figures in Japan? What if they WEREN'T?"

This means that in the arcades, SNK was largely uncontested from Capcom for several years, although other companies like Namco were still around with Tekken and Soul Calibur.  SNK did go uncontested for the first few years of this series before Capcom games started getting into arcades, but I obviously didn’t count those years as SNK victories because Capcom wasn’t there to be victorious over.  Now that we’re at the point where both companies are still around it’s fair game, but it wouldn’t be fair if I were to give SNK points for default because it’s possible a game company can use those years to make something so incredible that it’s better than any game the company made before it.

Therefore, for the rest of this series, I’ll be judging each company by a stretch of time between Capcom’s years of arcade game releases.  That means 2002-2004, 2005-2008, 2009 & 2010, 2012-2014 and then it will finish off with 2016 all the way to 2019 with the release of the arcade version of Samurai Shodown 2019.  Though they’ll have far fewer games, if Capcom’s games manage to be amazing enough to blow everything from SNK out of the water, they can get the points.  By the end of this, only one company will be declared the King of Arcades!  Now we’ll get started with SNK’s games of 2002, where they were still getting help from Eolith and recovering from bankruptcy.

Capcom vs. SNK: The King of Arcades: 2001

If 2000 marked the sharp decline of Capcom and SNK’s arcade days, 2001 practically marked the end of it, or at least the near-end because there’s more years to go.  SNK officially went bankrupt and was bought out by the South Korean company Eolith while Capcom put even more focus on console games, which worked out well considering they made Devil May Cry.

SNK’s dire financial situation meant they were only able to put out one game before they went bankrupt (presumably already long since in development) and then just one King of Fighters game in collaboration with Eolith, who had their own ideas and their own game developers on the scene, for better or worse.  Capcom’s new strategy meant they only put out two games as well.  I mean I guess it was that or be

It makes sense that arcade gaming would be on the decline.  I guess rising manpower requirement played a hand in it, but part of what made most of these arcade games so amazing when they came out was that they were on hardware much more powerful than what was available on home consoles and most ports of them were imperfect.  2001 was the year of the Xbox, Gamecube and PS2, and the Dreamcast was already on the scene.  All of them were not only capable of running both company’s latest and greatest games, but enhanced versions of them, which was a good thing for them to take advantage of, and I’m sure as hell happy with my PS2 copies of KOF 2000 & 2003, but it also showed that arcades no longer had quite the appeal they used to.

That doesn’t mean it was all over.  Through all the odds SNK was still able to make another yearly addition to The King of Fighters and Capcom made another game to throw down with SNK for cross-company grudge matches.  With two games from each company, both have an equal opportunity to win 2001!  Who will it be?!

Capcom vs. SNK: The King of Arcades: 2000

At last we reach the turn of the millennium.  The big triple-0.  Home console gamers that survived the Y2K virus were eating good.  The Dreamcast had a solid library built up with Resident Evil: Code Veronica now added, the Nintendo 64 got Banjo-Tooie, a bigger and better sequel and all the Pokemon fans like me were playing Gold and Silver while they went to the theater to watch Pokemon the Movie 2000.

In arcades, things could’ve been better.  Third Strike was Capcom’s last game on their short-lived CPS3 board and at the time it didn’t get the kind of recognition it gets today.  Capcom put a higher focus on console games, like the aforementioned Resident Evil: Code Veronica, meaning arcade game production greatly slowed down and they largely switched development from their own arcade systems to Sega’s NAOMI arcade board, which made porting games to the Dreamcast easier, though it looks like they had just one or two more games on their old reliable CPS2 system in the pipeline to put out.

One of these games happened to be another game in which oursettle their differences: Capcom vs. SNK.  This time it was actually in arcades and developed by Capcom instead of SNK, but as much as I would like to include it, I don’t have any version of it nor does any arcade have it.  My local theater used to have it many years ago and I remember thinking it was awesome, but that’s too far back for a proper analysis.  I’ll make up for that with the sequel.

SNK wasn’t doing so hot thanks to the abject failure of the Hyper Neogeo 64 and various instances of overspending.  This resulted in them being bought out by a fairly vile company that wanted nothing more than to shut the company down and use their properties for pachinko games until SNK would officially go bankrupt the following year.

They weren’t out completely just yet though!  Before the original SNK could go under, they had a few games already in development they finished up and released.  That means we only have 2 games from SNK this year versus Capcom’s 3.  That these companies used to make 6-8 games a year previously shows how down bad arcade gaming was at this point, but that doesn’t mean the games themselves are bad.  Capcom and SNK were still going at it and now we will determine who was the best arcade company of the year 2000.

Capcom vs. SNK: The King of Arcades: 1999

In the real world, not a lot of note was going on in 1999.  I think there was a guy who said he did not have sexual relations with a woman and some kids shot up a school, but the big impacts were being felt with our friends/enemies Capcom and SNK.
 
Late in 1998, SNK put out the Neogeo Pocket, a handheld system of their design not unlike the Game Boy.  SNK had already done some portable work on Nintendo’s handheld with a port of Samurai Shodown as well as KOF 95 and 96, but this time they made their own system to put their games on.  By that point, however, the Game Boy Color was out so it wasn’t long before they upgraded to a color system as well, the Neogeo Pocket Color.  The Neogeo Pocket Color had a selection of miniaturized SNK games that were effectively ports of their Neogeo games, retaining the core gameplay experiences with only 2 buttons.

It had all the SNK essentials like Fatal Fury, Samurai Shodown, KOF and even a few sports games plus its very own Sonic game.  In fact, the Neogeo Pocket Color games are where the Japanese game developer Dimps got their start, who would go on to make the outstanding Sonic Rush games on the Nintendo DS.  That’s all great, but one of the biggest and best games on the Neogeo Pocket Color was the one that would finally let Capcom and SNK settle things personally.

For the first time, SNK and Capcom would truly go head to head, as M. Bison and Geese team up to run a fighting tournament where all their company’s fighters would fight as a part of their evil plan!  Finally you could show those Street Fighter peasants or KOF losers that your company is better and use your skillz with your favorite character!

 
Technically SNK vs. Capcom: Card Fighters Clash came out first, but that game isn’t a head-to-head crossover of SNK and Capcom as much as it is a game where Capcom and SNK’s characters and creators come together in a friendly little card game where Capcom and SNK characters are able to support each other, which is just wrong!  Capcom and SNK are enemies!  I would review those crossovers, but neither were in arcades.  I will say both are absolutely fantastic games though.

This manpower being put into their handheld system is presumably why there aren’t as many SNK games for this year.  Capcom’s reason for fewer games was because apparently not doing as hot in the arcades and they put more effort into releasing just a few big games instead of the numbers they were pumping out in previous years.

That may have paid off because holy smokes is 1999 one hell of a year.  This year has both companies at their best and there is not going to be a lot of negativity  The year’s winner might be down to the wire.

Capcom vs. SNK: The King of Arcades: 1998

1998 was another big year for gaming.  Some of the greatest games of all time that are still revered to this day were coming out.  Resident Evil 2, Banjo-Kazooie, Metal Gear Solid, Half-Life and Spyro the Dragon and of course The Legend of fucking Zelda the fucking Ocarina of fucking Time.  It was a great time to be a gamer, particularly a console gamer.

Near the end of the year, Capcom and SNK would be introduced to one of their best friends: The Sega Dreamcast.  The Dreamcast was an incredible machine for the time, capable of 3D and 2D graphics neither the Playstation nor Nintendo 64 could pull off.  It’s best known for Soul Calibur, but the Dreamcast was practically a fighting game machine by all measures.  While the Playstation would struggle to run certain Capcom and SNK arcade games, the Dreamcast was able to handle enhanced ports of those games, including some packages with 2 games in one!  It was the only console that could run Street Fighter 3 at the time and some of Capcom’s 3D games like Power Stone would also get their Dreamcast port down the line.

3D backgrounds!

I sure hope that doesn’t mean home console gaming is going to supplant arcade gaming because there are some great arcade games this year, mostly from SNK.  Capcom seems to have slowed down their arcade game production, possibly because of the cost of making games for that beast the CPS3, and were putting more manpower into their console games, such as the aforementioned Resident Evil 2.  SNK meanwhile was still chugging along with the Neogeo while the Hyper Neogeo 64 dragged its feet.  Let’s find out who put their efforts on a winning horse.

Capcom vs. SNK: The King of Arcades: 1997

In the real world, 1997 was the year of Princess Diana’s death and the transfer of sovereignty of Hong Kong from the U.K. to China, resulting in Bruce Lee’s relative Chin wiping out all 1.2 billion of the incoming Chinese immigrants.

In gaming, 1997 was cementing the dominance of home consoles and PCs in gaming.  With polygons and storage space further evolving, we got games like Diablo, The Curse of Monkey Island, Tomb Raider and Final Fantasy 7, one of the worst games I’ve ever played, but would become synonymous with the Playstation because I guess standards were that low.  SNK translations may be bad, but holy shit Final Fantasy 7’s is even worse.  IT WAS THE MOST EXPENSIVE GAME MADE AT THE TIME?!

Anyway, Capcom and SNK apparently figured they had to up their game with brand new arcade hardware, both of which… Could’ve gone better.

Capcom came out with the CPS3 system, an arcade board that would allow for even more sprites and higher capacity memory.  It was a super powerful system that could outclass the Neogeo’s ever-increasing cartridge sizes.  It came out at the tail end of 1996 with Red Earth, but of course what they really needed to sell people on this thing was a new Street Fighter, leading to one of the most fascinating disasters of the era.

SNK made the Hyper Neogeo 64, a 3D system to try and replicate the success other companies were having with this new dimension of play.  From what I understand it was only marginally more powerful than the Nintendo 64.

Both of these new systems had almost no games for them.  The CPS3 only had 6 games made for it (half of which are updated re-releases) and the Hyper Neogeo 64 only had 7.  Both their miniscule libraries were also difficult to port to home systems.  In fact, only one Hyper Neogeo 64 game has ever seen any re-release and it’s rare, so I won’t be able to play any of them.

 
Regardless of the quality of the games, the fact is that neither company got a lot of mileage out of their new hardware and they made safer bets continuing to make games for their existing hardware.  Which company came out looking the best as a result will now be put to the test.

Capcom vs. SNK: The King of Arcades: 1996: Part 2

Continuing from the first half for this year, there are a couple games I was unable to play or couldn't include.  I was going to include SNK's Ironclad, but it was made for the Neogeo CD, a home console, and never got an arcade release.  To counterbalance that, because of health complications, I haven't been able to go to the arcades I need to, which is the only way for me to play almost all of Capcom's Marvel licensed games, meaning I can't include X-Men vs. Street Fighter.  If only the lawyers would let us have those games on home consoles again.

Yeah while I was getting this post ready, Capcom announced a new fighting collection with every Marvel fighting game and their Punisher game for good measure.  It's kind of cheating the premise that I'm playing each of these games by order of release, but once I get that collection, I'll edit my thoughts on each one into previous posts and try to get back into the mindset of their respective year when playing them.  I doubt any of them are going to change any of the winners of the year.

For now, we're in 1996 and SNK brought back their crossover fighting game idea in a big way.

Capcom vs. SNK: The King of Arcades: 1996: Part 1

In 1996 3D gaming was the hottest new thing.  Sure some 3D games started trickling out the previous year with the launch of the Sony Playstation and pre-rendered 3D visuals had been around for a bit longer, but now that 3D graphics could be rendered in real time with real polygons the sky seemed to be limit.  Several of the lesser-selling 2D consoles of yesteryear bit the dust and Nintendo came out with the Nintendo 64, making the 3D capable systems the dominating force.  All the big names paving the way for the evolution of gaming as were coming out, including Super Mario 64, Resident Evil, Bubsy 3D, Crash Bandicoot, Duke Nukem 3D and Wave Race 64.

For fighting games, the 3D train continued.  Capcom started to dabble in their own 3D fighting games beginning with Star Gladiator, which I won’t be looking at for this one because I can’t find a copy of it anywhere, though I do recall playing it once at a convention.  I don’t remember much except that I wasn’t impressed and it was right next to a cabinet with KOF 2002 Unlimited Match and that awesome Arc System Works Fist of the North Star fighting game was there too so those games overrode my memory.
 
With other companies, Sega released both Virtua Fighter 3 and Fighters Megamix, Namco released Tekken 2, the ever-popular Mortal Kombat Trilogy came out for home consoles and of course Tecmo began the Dead or Alive franchise with the very first game, building off Virtua Fighter’s foundation.  This all combined with smash hit fighters like War Gods, Pray For Death and Iron & Blood: Warriors of Ravenloft, which I imagine made it harder for Capcom and SNK to get people to their good old 2D arcade cabinets, which by all accounts had their own strengths that home consoles still didn’t have, as evidenced by still less than stellar home ports.
 
As for which among these two arcade giants did the best this year, I’ll be the judge of that.

Capcom vs. SNK: The King of Arcades: 1995: part 2

Now I can post part 2!

Capcom vs. SNK: The King of Arcades: 1995: Part 1

Much like in 1994, 1995 kept a lot of the crazes of the era rolling with continuing advances in both game design and technology.  On the Super Nintendo, Chrono Trigger came out with its intricate time travel plot, Donkey Kong Country 2 wowed audiences just as much as the original did and Yoshi’s Island put new spins on the Mario series with an origin story spotlighting the dinosaur sidekick from Super Mario World.

The big game changer of course came from Sony with what would become their CD-based juggernaut, the Sony Playstation.  With the 3D graphics possible on the PS1, the 3D gaming explosion got even bigger, with home consoles now being able to run their own versions of the latest Tekken and Virtua Fighter games, as well as console-exclusive games like Battle Arena Toshinden.  The possibilities offered by the extra CD storage space opened all kinds of possibilities for game developers, like Full Motion Video, something the PC had already been dabbling in.  In fact, on the PC side of things FMV games were at their peak, with Phantasmagoria, Psychic Detective and The 11^th Hour delivering experiences players had never seen before.

In the fighting game space, Capcom and SNK had possibly even stiffer competition than last year, thanks to the PC and console-made fighting games you didn’t have to go to the arcades for.  This was the year of Xenophage: Alien Blood Sport, Kasumi Ninja and a game still considered one of the best fighting games of all time, Expect No Mercy.

Neither Capcom or SNK was any worse for wear as there were changes coming this time, with each company’s biggest franchise making a major shift after their own periods of re-releases.  Let’s see who pulls off those shifts best and came out as the better company of 1995.

Capcom vs. SNK: The King of Arcades: 1994: Part 2

It's still 1994!  Let's goooooo!

Capcom vs. SNK: The King of Arcades: 1994: Part 1

If we weren’t there already, we have officially reached the peak of fighting game mania.  With Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter and Fatal Fury games bringing in the players, more and more companies wanted a piece of the action.  There were more fighting games being made than ever before, be it on consoles or arcades.

They didn’t even stay in the games.  Fighting games were being turned into major multimedia franchises.  Both Fatal Fury and Street Fighter got their own movies this year and Mortal Kombat was on the way to getting one in the following year.

With such a boom, Capcom and SNK upped their arcade production this year, so much so that I need to split it into 2 parts.  It was important that they did because in 1994 there was extremely tough fighting game competition.

Some of the biggest and best fighting games came out in 1994.  Games like Kasumi Ninja, Ballz 3D, Shaq Fu and one of the most highly regarded fighting games even to this day, Rise of the Robots.  There was also this one game called Tekken that Namco made, but who cares about that shit.

Truth be told, I don’t think either company can make a game that can surpass Rise of the Robots, but in the comparison of Capcom and SNK’s arcade games, that doesn’t matter.  Time to see what we got in this crazy, crazy year.

Capcom vs. SNK: The King of Arcades: 1993

In 1993, the fighting game genre had gone into full swing.  Mortal Kombat 2 came out with even better graphics, more violence and cheating asshole computer opponents.  Home ports of arcade games like it and Street Fighter 2 were topping the sales charts and other companies got in on the fighting action themselves, like Data East with Fighter’s History and Konami with TMNT: Tournament Fighter.

1993 was also a big year for 3D gaming.  The PC megahit Myst came out with its 3D pre-rendered backgrounds and full motion video, while on the console side, Nintendo made Star Fox, a game able to render polygons on a Super Nintendo cart.  For fighting games, Sega topped off the year by revolutionizing the genre by adding a 3D element with Virtua Fighter.  It was a year of major technological advancements for the medium of gaming.

I have to admit, 3D models having faces is pretty impressive too.

For arcades, one of the biggest technological advancements came with Capcom's new arcade hardware.  One that could, in some ways, even surpass the Neogeo: the CPS2 board!  This new technology would allow for more and bigger sprites, more colors and even better audio thanks to QSound technology (though Qsound was used in a less-used CPS1 variant called the CPS Dash).

Though 3D fighting would blow up in the coming years in large part due to Virtua Fighter, Capcom and SNK were still sticking with what they had in two dimensions, albeit with less releases this time.  In fact, this year Capcom only has 3 games to work with.  Even still, there’s a direct point of comparison with two of Capcom’s games.  Both have an updated version of their hit fighting games and, more uniquely, both have a wrestling game.

Let’s see who gets treated like Roman Reigns and who gets treated like John Cena!

Capcom vs. SNK: The King of Arcades: 1992: Part 2

Continuing on from part 1, there's a lot more fighting games to close off the year and that's a train that isn't going to stop rolling for a long time.

Capcom vs. SNK: The King of Arcades: 1992: Part 1

1991 started the era of the fighting game.  With some precendent established, 1992 had both companies start to pick up momentum on the craze Street Fighter 2 and Fatal Fury started the previous year and expand on what they could do with this new genre of games, all the while pumping out the sports, shoot-em-ups and beat-em-ups that had by this point proven to be a safe bet.  At least, SNK was pumping out the other games.

Something you’ll notice about this year is that Capcom’s arcade production is dwarfed by SNK’s.  This year I’ll be looking at 10 SNK games and only 5 Capcom games, 2 of which are Street Fighter 2 reversions.  It’s as if they put so much effort into their big monster hit Street Fighter 2 that they didn’t give as much attention to the rest of them.  Their continued home console development might have played a part too, I suppose, which includes a Super Nintendo port of Street Fighter 2 that made absolute gangbusters.

This was also the year Midway got into the fighting game genre with the first Mortal Kombat, starting a legacy that would last a lifetime, but let's not make this a 3-way battle.

What else happened in 1992?  Well, there was some cartoon that revolutionized television animation and continues to get merchandise and high praise even 30 years later, but nothing important.

There are so many games (from SNK) this time that it will be split into 2 parts.

Capcom vs. SNK: The King of Arcades: 1991

In the realm of gaming, 1991 was very significant for SNK, Capcom and Nintendo.  Nintendo released the Super Nintendo, their super powerful 16 bit system that would become home to SNK and Capcom’s fighting games, which started kicking off the same year with each company’s flagships and company mascots making their (actual) debuts.  Nintendo’s war was with Sega and their Genesis on the home console battlefield though, a separate one from Capcom and SNK’s arcade battlefield happening around the same time.  Judging home ports might be a neat idea for a future article, but for now I am deciding which company is the King of Arcades for 1991.  Naturally there’s a lot to say about the two big titles for this year.

The Final Days of Nintendo Online

It is once again a dark day for gaming.  Nintendo’s last bastion of online gaming, the WiiU and 3DS, has now been shut down like the Wii and DS before it.  The only thing keeping Nintendo in people’s good graces is no more and this time there’s no excuse like the shenanigans with Gamespy that I’m aware of.

Capcom vs. SNK: The King of Arcades: 1991: Part 1

We're a year in now and the 90s are in full swing.  This year may be the turning point for the arcade scene moving forward and there are going to be a lot of changes around here, one of which should come from you! If you like the article be sure to like, comment and subscribe!

Capcom vs. SNK: The King of Arcades: 1990

It is now officially the 90s!  It’s the time to wear flannel, parachute pants, sunglasses and hats on backwards, at least according to what pop culture tells me.

There’s nothing good on TV though so we go to gaming for our entertainment.  In the realm of gaming, technology was going into the next generation.  The Sega Genesis released in North America with the Super Nintendo getting ready to come out in the next year, but in the arcade, something big arrived.

SNK released the Neogeo.  This thing was a beast with some of the highest possible memory capacity allowing for the most detailed graphics and the best sound, all with expandable memory cartridges that would allow for even bigger and better games throughout its 14 year run, one of the longest in gaming history.  When it came to 2D games, the Neogeo was at the top of the line.

Capcom vs. SNK: The King of Arcades: 1989

It’s 1989 and even though it hasn’t hit the start of the next decade, you might consider this year to be 90s as hell.  1989 is when a lot of cornerstones of the era got their start as they continued into the next decade.  Tim Burton’s Batman movie changed the way people looked at comic book movies and a few years later lead to the creation of Batman: The Animated Series.

Disney’s The Little Mermaid hit theaters, leading to what is called the Disney Renaissance with several more iconic animated movies from the company in the following years.  In gaming, one of the games I’ll be looking at, Final Fight, also set a standard for beat-em-ups of the 90s.  It was the transitionary period to the new decade and both Capcom and SNK brought both their A-games and B-games.  Let’s see who comes out on top!

Capcom vs. SNK: The King of Arcades: 1988

It’s 1988 and the pop culture swing of the era wasn’t quite over yet, what with Die Hard, Bloodsport and even slasher icon Chucky in Child’s Play all hitting theaters.  Signs of the move into the technological advancement era of the 90s started to trickle in though, as a thing you might have heard of called the internet made its very first official connection and Capcom brought out their new weapon in the fight against SNK: The Capcom CPS.

It's more what you didn't see inside the cabinet that impressed.

The newfound power given by this mighty piece of hardware would allow Capcom to be on the cutting edge, with more and bigger sprites and better, clearer audio to make for gaming experiences not even the 16-bit consoles that would come out a few years later could match.  SNK, meanwhile, hadn’t quite made that leap.  Perhaps bigger doesn’t mean better and SNK can instead eke out a win this year with their charm and game design alone, but it’ll be some stiff competition.

Capcom vs. SNK: The King of Arcades: 1987

It's 1987 and out competitors are in full swing!  This year we can see the start of Capcom's drift away from the shooty shooty bang bang games that have dominated the arcades, but SNK was still going all-in on the shooting action so I guess you can say they stuck to their guns.  This isn't a competition for who made the most creative and genre-busting games though.  This is for who made the best games.  In other words, who is the year's King of the Arcades and

who's bad?

Well, Data East, but that's not until next year.

Capcom vs. SNK: The King of Arcades: 1986

1985 was a year of shooty shooty bang bang arcade games and that trend continues with 1986, but perhaps because they were aware of the saturation of such games, this year saw some new innovations.  The question then is who innovated and polished their games the best.

Ikari Warriors(SNK): Ikari Warriors has a lot of the same problems as its run n’ gun contemporaries of this time period, but makes enough significant improvements to make it stand out.  It’s viciously unfair and brutal like the others, but unlike TNK3, the Ikari Warriors can move a little faster and unlike Commando, bullets are bigger and easier to distinguish.  When the enemies thinned out in between impossible to dodge onslaughts of deceptive grenade blast radiuses and hails of endless machine gun fire, there were moments of fun.  Those 5-15 seconds of not dying, dodging bullets while gunning down enemies and the grenade trajectories cooperating gave me dopamine hits that were just frequent enough to keep me going.  It helps that it’s also one of the nicest-looking games yet and there’s only 2 music tracks, but the main one is long enough to make it not feel grating and it’s an impressive bit of music for the time, with the multi-layered music and backup drum beat.

SNK vs. Capcom: The King of Arcades: 1985

At last the clash of the century begins.  Capcom and SNK, having already established a portfolio of modest titles, but 1985 is when things start to get heated.  Something you may notice though is that their games of 1985 are very… Shooty.  In fact all of them are either space shooters or military shooters.  It could be a coincidence, but there was also a very shooty movie that came out that same year.

It’s entirely possible that the monster popularity of this shooty movie influenced what games they were wanting to make.  Just a hunch, but regardless of their intentions, what matters here is how good they are, so let’s begin.

SNK vs. Capcom: The King of Arcades: Introduction (1979-1984)

In a truly massive sale from the Humble Bundle, I recently acquired a wealth of classic Capcom arcade titles and before that I had already amassed a wealth of classic SNK arcade titles.  To add to that, I have access to a wealth of various classic arcade titles through a chain of arcades all within driving distance and I have coupons for them to boot.  With such a massive collection at my fingertips, I thought I’d do something fun.

I didn’t get to go to a lot of arcades back in the 90s and when I did, I was such a small kid that I could barely reach the controls.  Even when I could, I couldn’t really appreciate what was going on.  Now that I’m older and more experienced, I’m going back in time to the days of Capcom and SNK’s rivalry.  The days before Sengoku Basara 4 or Mohammed Bin Salman; the simpler times.  Both companies were innovating and making games of all types and genres, but now that I can assess the majority of their catalogues, I can answer the question of which company I would’ve considered the best of their day.

For this series of posts, I’ll be playing through both SNK and Capcom’s arcade games by order of release, year by year, and judge which company made the best games.  For each game I’ll be giving some of my thoughts.  Some brief, but some a little more in-depth as there are a few I have a bit of a history with to tell.  With over 100 of these games to play in total, I won’t be going in-depth on every single one and each one will be judged by how much fun I have, regardless of the time period.