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: 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 Wonderful World of King of Fighters Ports

The King of Fighters is my all-time favorite fighting game franchise hands down, but I’ve never been what some would call a purist. Some fans spend a fortune trying to get original Neogeo hardware to play games on, but I have always played pretty much anything but the original hardware unless I come across it at an arcade.  KOF 11 has a great PS2 port and 13 and 14 have solid multiplatform releases, as KOF 11 is when SNK really started upping their game in bonus content for home versions.  The games before 11, however, have been all over the place over the years, with many different ports that can give a player a noticeably different experience and range of content despite the core games remaining, be it in presentation or bonus features.

I very much want people to play all the KOF games that don’t make you want to ram a nail through your skull (i.e. not KOF 94 & 95) and there are so many different ways to get them now that it can be tricky to know which ones gives you your money’s worth and is the best way to play them.  For the sake of helping with such decisions, and for an interesting little look at the differences, I have written this little guide on a few of the different ports available for the KOF games before KOF 11.