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.

Bermuda Triangle(SNK): Step aside Side Arms, this game is now the champion of the shoot-em-up.  Fluid controls utilizing the second stick for the second turret, great graphics and a serious sense of power as you gather energy that both acts as health and builds your ship up into a boss-level death machine that mows down enemies by the dozens.  Its only flaws is that it goes on a little longer than it needs to and the sound design needs some work.  The music is barely there and there’s a dull, droning voice telling you every little relay of how your energy is doing, which gets annoying, but at least the nonstop explosive spectacle helps to drown it out.  This is how you do a ship shooter.

Bionic Commando(CAP): Bionic Commando has a cute idea for a platformer with its claw grip being able to grapple in 8 directions.  It’s in the action where the game falls apart.  You get one weapon that can only fire straight forward, a dire lack of any enemy variety and a great many instances where simply being able to jump would help avoid death.  Instead if an enemy soldier shoots you at close range, you’re dead because you also die in one hit.  If you could jump and use the grappling arm in tandem that would probably make for a smooth ride that rewards dexterity, but even if you can get used to how the claw arm works, it’s a short game with a pathetic anticlimax against a complete non-boss.  Skip this one.

Psycho Soldier(SNK): This game’s claim to fame is using a vocal track for the Psycho Soldier theme and it’s great.  Get used to it too because it’s not going anywhere.

When I say it’s great though, I actually mean it’s great in the Japanese version.  Unfortunately for SNK, I’m trying to judge games by their English versions when possible because that’s the version I’d see in the arcades and the English version is botched in every aspect.  Instead of a popular and professional singer for the main theme, they got some unnamed employee who’s off-key and sounds like she was pulled aside in the middle of work to rush it out, which carries over to the voice clips.  To top that off, instead of the adorable girl depicted in the actual game, the English art shows what I assume is Bad Box Art Megaman’s sister, who doesn’t even remotely look like Athena.  It’s like SNK went out of their way to make the English release as bad as they could!  I know they’re notorious for badly translated text, but this goes far beyond some meme-worthy dialogue!

Where's Athena?

Play this one in Japanese.  Regardless of language, the game itself combines the auto scrolling and 4-lane shooting action of Sonson with the block-breaking and power-ups of Athena.  Unlike Sonson, Psycho Soldier has more environmental navigation and actual jump physics, allowing for more diverse level design where all 4 levels of a stage might not be there.  The game consistently introduces new obstacles and enemies and the different ways the Psycho Balls can change the trajectory of your special attacks adds to the depth.  It’s a fun little action romp that’s worth playing at least once.

Guerilla War(SNK): In this game you play as Che Guevara some guy and Fidel Castro some other guy as you overthrow the evil dictator Fulgencio Batista with no name and liberate Cuba their country that shall not be specified.  They could’ve just had the main characters be Ralf and Clark because it’s effectively another Ikari Warriors game going back to the tanks and infantry of the original.  It’s the same run and gun action, same rotating stick aiming, same types of enemies and same brutal difficulty, just substantially more polished.  You move faster, it looks cleaner and it has actual bosses, unlike the first game.  It doesn’t do a lot to stand out, but it’s fine enough on its own.  If I didn’t know any better I would say it was made so SNK would have another shot at making a decent run n’ gun port for the NES, which, judging by what I’d heard about this game prior, they succeeded.

This one introduces hostages you have to rescue without shooting.

World Wars(SNK): This game is essentially an alternate take on the core gameplay of Bermuda Triangle, but instead of traveling through time, you travel across the world and instead of energy making your ship a flying death machine, only your gun is upgraded.  This was done so that it’s easier to dodge attacks while you can still have your impressive weapon, which is emphasized more here because you die in one hit.  Personally I prefer the dreadnaught you could get in Bermuda Triangle, but this makes it more in line with bullet hell shooters that expect you to squeeze between volleys of enemy fire.  Apart from those changes and new ground-based enemies, everything good I said about Bermuda Triangle applies to this game as well, but World Wars has a better soundtrack.  You can’t go wrong with either, but if you play them both you’ll get some deja-vu.

1943(CAP): It’s just another shooter.  It improves the graphics and gameplay of 1942, but just like that game, the same enemies and visuals repeating themselves gets repetitive after a while.  It’s average.

Black Tiger(CAP): Capcom tries their hand again at an action platformer, this time taking more inspiration from Castlevania as you whip at enemies through platforming obstacles.  With hidden items and shops for upgrades, there’s a fair bit of depth to this one, but like the NES Castlevania games, it can be one hard sonuvabitch.  Even on lower difficulties it will sometimes resort to Ghost n’ Goblin-style cheap shots, but once you get into the groove of it, it’s a fun adventure.  The whipping weapon is satisfying to use, the obstacles keep up the variation and for a 1987 game, the gothic visuals aren’t half-bad looking.  If you’re into old-school action platformers you might want to have a look at this one.

Street Fighter(CAP):

Why are we still here?  Just to suffer?  Just to die?

I thought maybe playing through the games of the era would give me some context that would cut Street Fighter 1 some slack, but I was dead wrong.  This game is broken in every meaning of the word.  Shit piled on top of shit.  The graphics are unappealing, even for the time, the music is grating and characters all have the same voice with godawful acting that seriousuly sounds like the person talking was inebriated.  I know this was before voice acting in games was common, let alone good, but even the voices used in Ikari Warriors 2 were better.

What's game balance?

What really takes the shit cake is the controls and game feel.  Hit detection is way off, frames skip, nothing feels like it flows, your special attacks only work when they feel like it and when they do they’re so overpowered that everything else is worthless and even your basic attacks are the stiffest I’ve ever felt.  I get that heavier attacks are supposed to have more windup, but since there’s barely any windup animation, it looks like Ryu instead pauses for a moment before his punch or kick, which is not good for visual perception.  Matches become button-mashing messes to see who can get the most shots in first because trying to use any finesse is a wasted effort.

Simply put, there’s nothing good about this game except ironic enjoyment from pointing and laughing at it.  Some call it the worst fighting game ever made, but that would have to mean it’s a fighting game when it’s really a jumbled mess of code held together with scotch tape.  Even in the context of arcades at the time it blows chunks.  By this point I think games at least understood what hit detection is!  It’s a shame that this crap is the reason the first Street Fighter game is forced to have a 2 in the title.  It doesn’t deserve to be associated with that name.

Time Soldiers(SNK): Another twin-stick run & gunner, this time with the gimmick of traveling to different time periods.  It isn’t much different from Guerilla War in its gameplay, but the premise allows for more enemy and environment types, including more bosses, though the bosses largely play the same way and mainly differ visually, which gets repetitive.  Like Guerilla War, it’s a solid shooter game, but the premise is the only thing that makes it stand out.

Tiger Road(CAP): This game is awesome.  It’s another action platformer with one attack button like Black Tiger, but now you play in an adventure straight out of a Jin Yong novel as you go from castle to castle and fight various bosses on your way to defeat Ryuken, who has gone bad and gotten Goku and Fudoh on his side, I guess to scare off Raoh.  Every castle you go through has unique obstacles, enemies and bosses.  The bosses all have a unique gimmick to them like one-off Fist of the North Star villains and an attack pattern to learn as you take every opportunity in between dodging to mash that attack button until they go down.  Nothing ever repeats itself in Tiger Road.  You could almost call it martial arts Mega Man with how much thought went into the stages and even the main character’s walking speed kind of reminds me of the blue bomber.

Capcom really upped their game on the environment art.

What makes it even better is that it has a little bit of storytelling, something rarely seen at this point in time.  Between every castle there’s a training stage where you try to complete a challenge for one of your masters with a brief dialogue exchange showing the main character’s respect for them and before every boss there’s a brief bit of dialogue exchanged showing his disrespect for his enemies.  It’s not much, but for the time just a little bit of character interaction goes a long way.  This is the 1987 game of the year, but if you play it, play it on easy difficulty.  It’s still challenging on the easiest difficulty and even unfair at times so you really need the leeway to afford to make some errors.  It's discovering games I never knew I loved such as this one that makes this whole arcade history exploration especially rewarding.

Raiga and Fuga are here too!

The Winner

Determining the winner of 1987 is a bit closer than the previous year.  Both Capcom and SNK brought out some baller games.  SNK had Bermuda Triangle and its solid run & gunners Guerilla War and Time Soldiers while Capcom had the decent Black Tiger and game of the year Tiger Road.  Unfortunately for Capcom they also had the epic failure Street Fighter, the disappointing Bionic Commando and the unimpressive 1943.  Once again SNK delivered a more consistent quality in their games and for that, they win once again.  Will SNK get a 3-year win streak in 1988 or will Capcom make a comeback and start their own streak?  We'll find out in the next post.