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!