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. 

Ghost Pilots(SNK): This game is often seen as a rip-off of Capcom’s 1942 games and if that’s the case I have to ask why SNK would even do that.  Those games have been consistently unimpressive.  Maybe SNK just thought they could do it better and to their credit, it is better than most of them.  The game looks nicer and plays nicer, but not a whole lot else.  You only have the default gun weapon and some different bomb attacks you get to choose at the beginning of each stage.  Its main problem is that the premise of being an air force pilot means it isn’t allowed to get too outlandish like the best shooters have been.  The only real difference in the premise is that you’re fighting the Nazis instead of imperial Japan.  The more pervasive problem is that it’s very long for an arcade game and doesn’t consistently keep things interesting like Carrier Air Wing did last year.  It still has big explody bosses and is fun enough on its own merits for a while, but there are better shooters out there.
 

Military budget well spent.

King of the Monsters(SNK)
 

A wrestling game featuring kaiju fighting in big cityscapes should evoke a primal joy, but King of the Monsters does everything wrong in the gameplay department.  Right off the bat a big problem is that the game doesn’t tell you the most important parts of the game, like how to win, nor are these things obvious based on the genre.  You do not win by simply reducing your opponent’s life to nothing; you have to pin them down for the 3-count after you do so.  If you want to play this game at even the base level, you need a guide.
 
It’s peculiar that it’s not a game you can pick up and play because you would think this game is for the casual players.  Even if you know exactly how to play, it’s shallow.  The basic attacks are short ranged and have no strategy to them beyond button mashing and sometimes you can grab the enemy also by button mashing.  It’s a game that’s button mashing and little else.  All you have beyond button mashing is a dash attack that doesn’t work most of the time, a useless jump with no jumping attacks and a charged special attack.  That last one is the only move with real strategy to its use and it’s unwieldy to use anyway thanks to the delay and that anyone with eyes can get out of the way of it.
Single player mode is just fighting the limited array of monsters more than once across the same few maps and they eventually start cheating, making an already brainless experience even worse.  King of the Monsters is a major stain on SNK this year.
 
Street Fighter 2(CAP)

The first Street Fighter game to not make you want to pull your hair out and the big revolution in arcade gaming.  Street Fighter 2 is what made fighting games what they are, really.  8 playable characters with their own ways to play is mind-blowing in an era when having 3 ships to choose from in your shoot-em-ups was still uncommon.
With 6 buttons, every character has many different punches and kicks to throw with differing properties alongside special attacks that really make the character stand out.  With the exceptions of Ryu and Ken, every character only has 2 special attacks, which might not seem like much, but in practice certain character’s basic attacks have properties that are like super attacks all their own, like Chun-Li’s head stomp and Dhalsim’s stretchy limbs.  The soundtrack also has some evocative tracks that get your hyped up for the fight and a good smack on your opponent has a loud and gratifying sound effect to let you know just how clean of a hit you got in.  It also makes them frequently puke, which is even better.
 

Never eat before a match.

It’s no wonder this game was such a hit.  I just wish Street Fighter 2 built around that fighting was a little better.  Apparently this game originally didn’t even have a proper story set up.  To my knowledge, the only introduction to the plot and characters was in a Japanese gaming magazine and was not provided to English speakers.  I could only find the story and character profiles in the Super Nintendo version’s manual that came out much later.  With that you get a better idea of who everyone is and why they are entering this martial arts tournament.  After beating everyone else the winner of the World Warriors tournament gets to fight the 4 grandmasters, all of whom are left a mystery until you actually reach them, making for a fun change from the usual fighters other players can use once you actually reach them.  I wish character establishment didn’t end at the manual and endings.

Up to this point, story in arcade games has been pretty minimal, but even games like Carrier Air Wing and Mega Twins have had some dialogue and character expression in them.  Street Fighter 2’s story should lend itself to an epic one, but instead all we get are characters fighting each other, bragging when they win with the same badly translated line every time and then you fight the big crime lord in charge, who comes in with little fanfare, but at least is an intense final boss.  Some of the endings each character gets can be a satisfying close to the experience, but I would have liked more character in a game focused around the characters.  I can’t deny how fun the gameplay is though, so it’s easier to overlook.

Blue’s Journey(SNK): If it weren’t for the continue feature and one hit deaths indicative of an arcade game (which can be made into 2 hit deaths), Blue’s Journey feels more like a console game than one made for arcades and it’s pretty good.  The central mechanic of throwing enemies is simple and the option to shrink the character allows for a slightly different approach to some obstacles.  The game does a good job of making the planet of Raguy come alive, with cutscenes, characters to talk to and a shop, all with dialogue in need of proofreading.
 

The items all have a different function, including story ones.

It actually reminds me of a Kirby game, with its bouncy music, colorful themed worlds and fighting bosses by using enemies as projectiles like before Kirby got his copy abilities.  Kirby’s debut game even came out the next year after this game and knowing Masahiro Sakurai has experience with the Neogeo, I have to wonder if he took inspiration from Blue’s Journey.  If he did he chose the right game because it’s a fun ride, especially for 1991.  I recommend playing Blue’s Journey at least once, but with different paths to the end and multiple endings, there’s replay value beyond that single playthrough.
 
Three Wonders(CAP): I guess Capcom looked at how neato it was that the Neogeo could hold a bunch of different games at once and wanted to give it a shot themselves.  On a single arcade board with much less power.  It’s either that or they made the first game, Midnight Wanderers, and then saw they had some space left and slapped on a couple more.
Of the three games, Midnight Wanderers is easily the best and most complete.  Capcom brought their experience from Mega Man and Strider to make a solid action platformer with the arsenal of a shoot-em-up and a barebones plot told with short cutscenes peppered throughout.  The pacing and speed at which you can clear  the stages almost makes the game feel like it goes by too quickly, but that also means it holds your interest and never overstays its welcome.  You can do a lot worse for your action platforming fix than Midnight Wanderers.
 

Capcom shows off their artistic style and sprite skills.

The other two games in Three Wonders do not get the same recommendation.  They are the very definition of generic.  Chariots is a traditional ship-based shoot-em-up that re-uses many of the enemies from Midnight Wanderers.  There are no cutscenes except the ending, generic bosses, generic level design and, while there is an interesting mechanic with your machine’s tail unit that can be used for attack and defense, the gameplay is generic otherwise.  It’s not bad, but plenty of shooters by this point do it better.
Don’t Pull is a generic, barebones puzzle game.  True to the title, all you do is push blocks in strategic ways to defeat enemies and/or protect yourself.  It’s reminiscent of Pirate Ship Higemaru and I didn’t like that game either.
 

In this game you push... That's it.

Overall, Three Wonders is only one third of a good game and the other two generic thirds weighing Midnight Wanderers down prevents me from giving very many props to Capcom.
 
King of Dragons(CAP): If anyone played Final Fight and wished it was more like Dungeons & Dragons, this game answers them, at least at a base level.  It is indeed a beat-em-up game starring D&D classes fighting legally permissible D&D monsters in classical fantasy settings straight out of D&D and for that it does its job well enough, but King of Dragons doesn’t have the same level of polish as Final Fight did.

So much about it just screams cheapness.  Animations are choppy, there are no combos like the Final Fight trio had, characters don’t feel very distinct from each other, the music is almost impressively forgettable and stages feel thrown in with little rhyme or reason.  You beat a boss, the game says you beat the boss and then with one or two exceptions you just go to the next level, as opposed to Final Fight, where you felt like you were making progress and bosses got a defeat animation.  King of Dragons is fun to play with a friend if you’re into the aesthetic, but it’s half-baked.

 
Block Block(CAP): It’s a Breakout clone.  Sure there are a few power-ups and 2-player mode, but at its core it’s just Breakout.  It doesn’t even have a distinct visual style or a significant spin on the formula to set it apart from Breakout.  If you like Breakout you’ll like this, but it’s just one in a practically infinite number of Breakout clones.
 
Captain Commando(CAP): This game is a true follow-up to Final Fight in spirit if not in canon, although the ninja commando of the game does use Bushinryu.  Captain Commando takes all the best aspects of Final Fight and adds to it.  Instead of 3 characters there are now 4, who are even more diverse in playstyle, and instead of only 2 players, up to 4 players can play this one.  There is now dashing, throws are easier to do, going from one combo to the next is now also much easier, there are more enemies onscreen, animations are better and there are even more of them with details like specific death animations for different weapons.
 

To go from the visual fidelity of King of Dragons to this is jarring.

Objectively Captain Commando is far superior to Final Fight as a beat-em-up, but I can see some people preferring Final Fight simply because of the aesthetic differences.  Regardless of which one you end up favoring, Captain Commando is a must-play.
 
Crossed Swords(SNK): This is the same situation as The Super Spy.  Everything Crossed Swords has should be great.  Like The Super Spy there’s a medieval action story going on with dialogue and a combat system all about blocking and striking at the right moment to defeat enemies.  Also like The Super Spy and King of the Monsters earlier this year, it does everything wrong.
 
The core of the game is reading an enemy’s attack and whether it hits high or low, blocking it accordingly and then countering it.  There are spells and some special moves, but those become more and more useless as the game goes on.  You would think that means they would make this central mechanic fun and varied, but it’s anything but.
 
The problems start as soon as the game does.  I know gamers are expected to have fast reflexes, but the time between an enemy positioning themselves to attack and then doing the attack isn’t even a split second; it’s more like a quarter of a second, meaning the only way to get anywhere is guessing where to block or pausing on the home version for an extra half second before you block, which you can imagine gets tedious, even moreso because in the home version you only get one continue before having to start a level over.  Some enemies just plain won’t telegraph at all and oftentimes when you get hit you get hit multiple times in an enemy combo.  You can block during these combos, but you have to once again rely on guesswork because when an enemy wales on you like that they telegraph for even less than a quarter second.
 

You can play with another player, but I hope you remember who's who in the heat of the moment.

Maybe it would be easier to read their attacks if they had more animation frames, but this is a very poorly animated game, even if the spritework itself looks ok.  Enemies switch from their normal pose to their striking pose with nothing in between and your character doesn’t swing so much as he does switch between different sword positions while enemies get hurt.  The Neogeo is supposed to be stronger than Capcom’s tech yet Captain Commando runs circles around this game in every aspect of its presentation.
 

This enemy has no animation for its flamethrower before it uses it.  You have to guess.

It only gets worse from there.  These problems become apparent within the first few minutes of playing.  Later, enemies (of which there is little variety) start blocking practically everything that isn’t a counterattack and they get to become such damage sponges that the pace of the game slows to a crawl in a game that for most players is at least an hour long, another thing to compare to The Super Spy!  Crossed Swords might be worse than King of the Monsters and this game is another blow to SNK’s chances of winning this year.
 
Robo Army(SNK)
 

Ninja Combat fell rather flat in delivering a satisfying beat-em-up, but Robo Army is where SNK got it right.  True to its title, you play as a couple of robots/cyborgs and beat your way through Neo Detroit against an army of robots led by a bodyless mad scientist.
 
Gameplay-wise it’s not very different from its beat-em-up peers, but it does do a few things better.  There’s a back attack, powerful limited-use robot weapon special attacks, and more subtly, continuous combos.  What I mean is that in Final Fight and Knights of the Round you do a combo on an enemy, which knocks them down, which gives you a chance to take care of other enemies for that moment, but if they were the only enemy you have to wait for them to get back up.  In Robo Army, you continually punch enemies until they’re dead, so there’s a lot more attack button mashing, not that I’m complaining about that.
 

I'd like to see those Metro City guys do this.

The game uses the Neogeo’s power to make the action satisfying as hell.  Enemies always explode into small metal pieces when they die, leading to a veritable shower of them when you’re on a roll, and sound effects of clashing metal and shattering glass accompany the carnage.  Enemies and environments are both varied and nicely detailed, with no part of the game feeling artificially lengthened or repetitive.  Anyone who likes a good beat-em-up should play Robo Army.  It’s a winner.

Knights of the Round(CAP): While King of the Dragons was all about sword and sorcery action, this one puts much more emphasis on the sword part.  You play as Arthur and his companions Lancelot and Percival as they travel to defeat the evil king Garibaldi and retrieve the holy grail.

There are a few enemies that use magic, but even what little magic is there might actually some form of trickery using gunpowder or something.  For 90% of the game you slash through enemies armed with swords, axes and daggers.

Mashing the attack button like any other beat-em-up does the trick and there's the standard 360 attack done at the cost of health, but a new dimension is added with just two extra moves.  One is a heavy attack that blows enemies away to give you some space and the other is a parry.  Pressing the attack button quickly followed by the opposite direction you are facing puts you in a defensive stance for a moment and if an enemy hits you in that stance, you get a second of invincibility.  It's a little unrefined;  facing the way you don't want to happens a lot and sometimes enemies don't have a predictable pattern or telegraph, but when you have something down, parrying mid-battle and striking back feels great.  It's a simple mechanic that elevates the gameplay by making you feel like your skill with the sword levels up along with your character.  Beyond that the game's design is a perfectly fun medieval adventure, if unremarkable.  It's definitely better than King of the Dragons.

Fatal Fury(SNK)

While Capcom was leaning harder on the competitive side of fighting games, SNK leaned into the single player side.  Unlike Street Fighter 2, Fatal Fury, or at least home versions, came with a user manual that better set up the story, establishing the main trio and the villain, though descriptions of everyone else is the game are brief.
 
Just like in Street Fighter 2, there’s a massive martial arts tournament going on, but instead of taking place all over the world, the King of Fighters tournament takes place all over a single city, Southtown.  You might think that means it’s less exciting, but having it all take place in this one city with all the different locations goes a long way in building it as a fully realized place rather than a random series of stages in different parts of the world unconnected from each other.  Fatal Fury also has actual cutscenes showing the villain and a proper introduction to the fight with him.  They’re all still images with badly translated text, but it’s more than Street Fighter 2.

Since the single player experience was the emphasis, there are only 3 playable characters, but rather than make the game seem like there’s less content, Fatal Fury actually has just as many characters in the enemies you fight and since they aren’t made to be playable, they aren’t restricted to the player’s rules, allowing for fun gimmicks like Richard Meyer hanging on the rafters or defending champion Billy Kane getting a new quarterstaff when he loses one after being thrown.  It’s like a series of boss encounters in which each one has some kind of quirk you can find to exploit as you observe their behavior.  Since there’s only one punch and kick button, landing a hit really feels like a hard one, almost like every hit is a fierce hit in Street Fighter 2.  Using them with your grabs and each character’s special moves is the key to victory and it’s gratifying when you catch on to the enemy’s quirks in conjunction with your moves to the point that you can get a perfect on them.
 

Zaneiken is really good in this game and using it right is the key to victory with Andy.

It helps that every single music track in Fatal Fury is an absolute banger.  Street Fighter 2 had a few great tracks, but Fatal Fury only has a few not-great tracks.
 

Comparing the two big launching points for both company’s fighting games isn’t a one to one comparison because they’re such different beasts.  Fatal Fury doesn’t even turn into a competitive fighting game until after it’s done being a cooperative battle game.  I know that even Fatal Fury’s creator said Street Fighter 2 is the better game, but I put them at a tie.  Both are just too good in their own way to say one is better than the other.  If we’re talking company-wide though…

The Winner

Both Capcom and SNK both had a few bangers and a few duds.  Capcom had its winners Street Fighter 2, Captain Commando and Knights of the Round, but SNK had Fatal Fury, Robo Army and Blue’s Journey.  What once again decides this year is who was consistently good.  Capcom didn’t have any truly bad games this year.  Three Wonders was one third good while the rest was run-of-the-mill and Block Block was as generic as you could get, but neither was unfun to play.  SNK had the trash Crossed Swords and King of the Monsters to go alongside its mediocre shooter Ghost Pilots, putting them in a lesser position.  Therefore, Capcom wins.
 
Next time in 1992, I hope you like fighting games because now that they were proven a hit, these companies were going to keep that ball rolling.