Capcom vs. SNK: The King of Arcades: 2004-2006

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: 2004

Capcom laid low in the arcade scene in 2002 and 2003, but in 2004 they came out with two new titles for the arcades.  This is Capcom's chance to beat the likes of KOF 2002 and Metal Slug 5 for the next point.  This is also the year with what you might call a closure of a generation.  This year had the truly very last game ever made for the Capcom CPS2 and the last game released for the Neogeo.  After this year, both companies would move on to new arcade hardware for future games.  I'll have officially played everything in both Capcom Arcade Stadiums and my entire (digital) library of Neogeo games.  It has been a hell of a ride, but even with all of those exhausted for the sake of this series, I'll still have a ways to go because my access to the games from these companies don't end there.  This era of arcade gaming will now have its send-off as I judge which company was the best for the years 2002 to 2004.

Capcom vs. SNK: The King of Arcades: 2002 & 2003

I’ve reached the inevitable problem I expected to run into when I started this series was this point in time.  During the 7^th console generation, SNK was able to recover from their bankruptcy and continue making arcade games for a while longer in addition to some home console-original games and home ports of their older games.  Capcom went even further ham on the console games and set themselves up as quite possibly the best game company there was until they took to meth and thought making Devil Kings was a good idea.

"Y'know that cool Japanese game about Japanese figures in Japan? What if they WEREN'T?"

This means that in the arcades, SNK was largely uncontested from Capcom for several years, although other companies like Namco were still around with Tekken and Soul Calibur.  SNK did go uncontested for the first few years of this series before Capcom games started getting into arcades, but I obviously didn’t count those years as SNK victories because Capcom wasn’t there to be victorious over.  Now that we’re at the point where both companies are still around it’s fair game, but it wouldn’t be fair if I were to give SNK points for default because it’s possible a game company can use those years to make something so incredible that it’s better than any game the company made before it.

Therefore, for the rest of this series, I’ll be judging each company by a stretch of time between Capcom’s years of arcade game releases.  That means 2002-2004, 2005-2008, 2009 & 2010, 2012-2014 and then it will finish off with 2016 all the way to 2019 with the release of the arcade version of Samurai Shodown 2019.  Though they’ll have far fewer games, if Capcom’s games manage to be amazing enough to blow everything from SNK out of the water, they can get the points.  By the end of this, only one company will be declared the King of Arcades!  Now we’ll get started with SNK’s games of 2002, where they were still getting help from Eolith and recovering from bankruptcy.

Capcom vs. SNK: The King of Arcades: 2001

If 2000 marked the sharp decline of Capcom and SNK’s arcade days, 2001 practically marked the end of it, or at least the near-end because there’s more years to go.  SNK officially went bankrupt and was bought out by the South Korean company Eolith while Capcom put even more focus on console games, which worked out well considering they made Devil May Cry.

SNK’s dire financial situation meant they were only able to put out one game before they went bankrupt (presumably already long since in development) and then just one King of Fighters game in collaboration with Eolith, who had their own ideas and their own game developers on the scene, for better or worse.  Capcom’s new strategy meant they only put out two games as well.  I mean I guess it was that or be

It makes sense that arcade gaming would be on the decline.  I guess rising manpower requirement played a hand in it, but part of what made most of these arcade games so amazing when they came out was that they were on hardware much more powerful than what was available on home consoles and most ports of them were imperfect.  2001 was the year of the Xbox, Gamecube and PS2, and the Dreamcast was already on the scene.  All of them were not only capable of running both company’s latest and greatest games, but enhanced versions of them, which was a good thing for them to take advantage of, and I’m sure as hell happy with my PS2 copies of KOF 2000 & 2003, but it also showed that arcades no longer had quite the appeal they used to.

That doesn’t mean it was all over.  Through all the odds SNK was still able to make another yearly addition to The King of Fighters and Capcom made another game to throw down with SNK for cross-company grudge matches.  With two games from each company, both have an equal opportunity to win 2001!  Who will it be?!

Capcom vs. SNK: The King of Arcades: 2000

At last we reach the turn of the millennium.  The big triple-0.  Home console gamers that survived the Y2K virus were eating good.  The Dreamcast had a solid library built up with Resident Evil: Code Veronica now added, the Nintendo 64 got Banjo-Tooie, a bigger and better sequel and all the Pokemon fans like me were playing Gold and Silver while they went to the theater to watch Pokemon the Movie 2000.

In arcades, things could’ve been better.  Third Strike was Capcom’s last game on their short-lived CPS3 board and at the time it didn’t get the kind of recognition it gets today.  Capcom put a higher focus on console games, like the aforementioned Resident Evil: Code Veronica, meaning arcade game production greatly slowed down and they largely switched development from their own arcade systems to Sega’s NAOMI arcade board, which made porting games to the Dreamcast easier, though it looks like they had just one or two more games on their old reliable CPS2 system in the pipeline to put out.

One of these games happened to be another game in which oursettle their differences: Capcom vs. SNK.  This time it was actually in arcades and developed by Capcom instead of SNK, but as much as I would like to include it, I don’t have any version of it nor does any arcade have it.  My local theater used to have it many years ago and I remember thinking it was awesome, but that’s too far back for a proper analysis.  I’ll make up for that with the sequel.

SNK wasn’t doing so hot thanks to the abject failure of the Hyper Neogeo 64 and various instances of overspending.  This resulted in them being bought out by a fairly vile company that wanted nothing more than to shut the company down and use their properties for pachinko games until SNK would officially go bankrupt the following year.

They weren’t out completely just yet though!  Before the original SNK could go under, they had a few games already in development they finished up and released.  That means we only have 2 games from SNK this year versus Capcom’s 3.  That these companies used to make 6-8 games a year previously shows how down bad arcade gaming was at this point, but that doesn’t mean the games themselves are bad.  Capcom and SNK were still going at it and now we will determine who was the best arcade company of the year 2000.