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
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 11th 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.
Night Warriors: Darkstalkers Revenge(CAP): Well I’ll be damned. They actually fixed it. What looks like an updated version of the first Darkstalkers is really more of a total overhaul to everything but the visuals.
Everything that made me hate the original Darkstalkers is rectified. Super and EX attacks are now a major and frequently-used part of the game because instead of having one single use it or lose it rage gauge-like super meter, multiple super meters are stocked to use at any time, which would come to be a standard for fighting games in the future. Instead of combos being highly situational and next to impossible, this game introduces chain combos that allow for combo strings of attacks of increasing strength, making the gameplay faster, deeper and more satisfying. Instead of cheating computer opponents, the computer plays fair.
All of this is combined with a lot of smaller tweaks to the gameplay and moves to make the combat flow much, much better for a solid fighting game. The two new characters are just a nice bonus compared to how much of a reversal the gameplay pulled. This game renders that first clunker obsolete.
Cyberbots: Fullmetal Madness(CAP): I guess Capcom thought the robots from Armored Warriors were too good to only use once so they repurposed them into a fighting game and that worked out nicely. While there are only 6 playable characters, they don’t affect gameplay. What you play as is 12 different robots, each with their own moveset, and more can be unlocked via code. Each of the pilots of these robots have their own story about a future with space colonies and Earth under the control of worldwide peacekeeping army. There’s a surprising amount of dialogue for a Capcom game from this time period and there are non-playable characters that join the plot as well. Unlike Armored Warriors, there’s more dynamic storytelling and character portraits have more expressions.
The gameplay is simplified from other fighters. There are only 2 attack buttons, a boost button for dashing and a weapon attack. There’s very little in the way of combos in Cyberbots and super attacks seem to all have the same command regardless of character, but that doesn’t mean it’s an easy ride. The fundamentals like blocking, spacing and knowing your arsenal of attacks are still as important as ever and the final boss in particular requires a lot of patience.
It has giant fighting robots, a big, epic sci-fi story and a fun combat system that doesn’t overcomplicate things. What’s not to love?
Fatal Fury 3: Road to the Final Victory(SNK): I love this game. The graphics took a major leap to top every fighting game before it in gorgeous backgrounds and character animation, with Hon Fu’s stage being a particular highlight. The music is also nothing but bangers. Fatal Fury 3 has one of the best fighting game soundtracks of this era.
All of this goes into a massive amount of character interaction and story content. Every character has unique dialogue with every other character in the arcade mode both before and after each fight. There’s also a sneak preview fight of the (potentially) final boss midway through with some twists and turns, depending on how you do leading up to it. The translation isn’t even awkward or bad this time, at least for the most part. They took localization liberties with the script, but the English dialogue reads like it was written by English speakers. Cyberbots was great, but Fatal Fury 3's presentation is even better.
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| Pretty sure that's not an accurate translation. |
Savage Reign(SNK): I love what this game is trying to do. It has a 2-lane system like Fatal Fury, but with more verticality and some gimmicks as well. It has weapons like Samurai Shodown, but with the faster pace expected of other fighting games. It even has character-specific dialogue for every pairing like Fatal Fury 3 does. It’s a recipe for success, but the gameplay doesn’t live up to the hype.
Even compared to some of the earlier fighting games, Savage Reign is jank. Animations are choppy and lack gratifying impact. There aren’t combos so much as there are rapid-fire pokes because even heavy attacks in this game feel like weak attacks with a longer range. Actually using attacks doesn’t feel quite one-to-one as it should because there’s a split second between pressing the button and actually doing it, which I normally wouldn’t mind too much, but like so many other fighting games of the time, the computer kills whatever enjoyment I could've had. The computer knows exactly what to do to counter your move the very instant you do it, even when the animation didn’t start, meaning they have no problem with that slight delay. The computer isn’t KOF 94 bad, but it is Darkstalkers 1 bad and makes an already unimpressive game less fun.
Savage Reign’s gameplay ideas make it a unique experience with some merit, but it plays like a middling game made in 1992 and isn’t particularly notable.
World Heroes Perfect(SNK): This game seems to have been made as a very back to basics entry in the World Heroes games. No stage hazards, alternate modes or even much of any story like Jet had. It’s just a straightforward fighting game except now all 4 buttons are used for attacks and everyone got new moves, including super attacks. You have to rewire your brain coming off of Fatal Fury and KOF though. The buttons in those games have A and B be light attacks and C and D be heavy, but in World Heroes Perfect A and B are the punches and C and D are the kicks. If you’re playing a version with adjustable controls you can just change it to your liking, but I wasn’t and it tripped me up for way longer than it should’ve.
Once you get into it, World Heroes Perfect plays about as well as 2 Jet did, but without the alternate non-traditional modes of previous entries, Perfect doesn’t stand out as much. The only unique aspect of this one is the stages, which are now all based on periods of human history, like the ice age or the creation of the world itself.
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| The modern age. |
Street Fighter Alpha(CAP)
This is where Street Fighter entered a whole new generation of games and put more emphasis on the storytelling. As a prequel, it adds backstory to the characters in Street Fighter 2 who only got a little bio to explain their origins while adding new characters to Street Fighter’s cast.The graphics are overhauled and look beautiful. Backgrounds look nice and characters are more expressive with cleaner designs. This one was made for the CPS2 from the ground up and it shows. For story, every character now has a dialogue exchange before their final battle with a member of the cast and the endings have even more substantial characterization than in 2 (and better translations).
The soundtrack is also awesome, featuring probably my favorite rendition of Ryu’s theme ever. Listen to that trumpet backing.
What really stands out for Street Fighter Alpha is the gameplay. The jank is gone. Now the game flows masterfully, in part thanks to inheriting Darkstalkers 2’s chain combo system. There is finesse with every hit, dodge, block and super attack, which, in addition to utilizing a super stock system of a sort, now have the kind of weight and impact you would expect of an attack you burn a built-up meter on.
Truth be told, Street Fighter Alpha has better gameplay than
Fatal Fury 3 does and which one I was going to declare game of the year was a
close call, but Fatal Fury 3 edges out by beating SFA in presentation. Street Fighter Alpha looks great, but, in
addition to less story content than FF3, the backgrounds in Alpha are largely
static and lacking in little details like many of Street Fighter 2’s stages
had. Frankly, a lot of them are boring
to look at, even if what they do show is well-drawn. You aren’t getting the aerial view of Hon
Fu’s stage or the immaculately decorated
Now let’s see what SNK’s got next. Oh dear.
The King of Fighters 95(SNK): I mentioned in the last post that people praised KOF 94 when it came out, but over the years that sentiment has changed because when people talk about their favorite 90s KOF game, not a lot of people go to bat for 94. It’s KOF 95 that gets recognition. Famed game creator Masahiro Sakurai and expert SNK youtube user Neogeonow both have gone in detail about their fond memories playing KOF 95 in particular. While I can’t agree with saying it’s better than any of the games to come after it, I now at least kind of understand why it’s held in high regard for gamers of the era. Everything that made KOF 94 the worst fighting game ever made has been improved in its sequel.
The graphics are less crappy. There’s more color and detail in the backgrounds, more frames of animation for characters (Takuma has an idle animation!) and the character portraits actually look great this time.
The sound is slightly less crappy. The weak and underwhelming sound effects are still there, but the mixing is better, voice samples are a bit better acted for some extra punch and the soundtrack is once again solid.
Even the gameplay isn’t as crappy. It’s still janky as hell, but hitboxes and detection aren’t thoroughly fucked this time around, which contributes to making the game feel more fair. The computer opponents are still cheaters, but now that the game isn’t a broken piece of shit they can’t take as much advantage of things that seem invisible to a human player and the difficulty level actually seems to make a difference.
With all that said, it’s still an updated version of KOF 94 at heart. It still feels stiff, there are still super attack motions expected of the player that are absolutely ridiculous, the computer still flagrantly cheats, just to a marginally lesser degree, and the graphics are passable, but they're a jarring downgrade after Fatal Fury 3 and Street Fighter Alpha.
Similarly to the first Samurai Shodown, KOF 95 isn’t as bad as I always remember it being and I actually found myself having a bit of fun this time, but it’s still not very good.
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