Capcom vs. SNK: The King of Arcades: 2017-2019 (Final Round)

This was the period where both company’s arcade releases truly came to a near-close.  That this round starts in 2017 says it all.  Since 2011, neither company made a single game for arcades that wasn’t an updated version of a previous one.  As I stated last time, there were ports, mobile games and console games, but the previous round set a precedent for both companies moving forward: now the console versions of their fighting games would come first.

It’s a damn good thing Capcom followed that precedent in particular because holy shit.  The release of Street Fighter 5 can be debated for being worse than The King of Fighters 12.  Compmared to the low bar that is KOF 12, Street Fighter 5 had fewer characters, fewer features and fewer modes to play, all at the price of a full retail game.  Street Fighter 5 became the target of such mockery and ridicule that people almost forgot about KOF 12.  Almost.

As if to rub it in Street Fighter 5’s face, SNK brought out a new King of Fighters game with a massive 50 characters and a fully featured arcade mode with substantial story content.  I heard stories about Street Fighter players jumping ship to KOF 14 because of how much of a rip-off Street Fighter 5 was.  There’s footage of a pro Street Fighter player telling Capcom representatives to their faces that he was going to go play Guilty Gear instead of Street Fighter 5.  It was really REALLY bad.  It’s the stuff of legends.

That is not the version being judged though.  Capcom continually added to Street Fighter 5 with overpriced DLC until they finally got a feature-rich and complete game re-released as the Champion Edition, which is what came out in arcades.  SNK had already released KOF 14 for arcades with all its DLC included by that point, plus a little spin-off.  With the release of SNK’s 2019 Samurai Shodown game later, we’ll have reached the last arcade game released by either company.  We will finally see if Capcom will cement their lead as the best arcade game manufacturer or if SNK will tie the score.

Live and let die!  Fight!

The King of Fighters 14(SNK)

As much as The King of Fighters 13 is the greatest fighting game ever made, it’s also one of the least newcomer friendly.  There’s a lot inherent in the franchise’s gameplay you’re expected to know as the game moves at a very fast pace and you need to play 2 previous games to understand what’s happening in the first place.

KOF 14 turns that around by being one of the MOST newcomer friendly games in the franchise and a good jumping on point.  Its combat pace is a little slower and more manageable, comparable with the older games, and thanks to the events in the previous game, knowledge of the previous games isn’t even entirely known by the KOF mainstays, meaning newcomers are just as unaware as they are.  14 also introduces a huge number of new characters mixed in with the old ones, giving newcomers characters to latch onto without needing prior knowledge, but also providing returning fans with less-seen characters like Tung Fu Rue and Oswald.

Even the plot is easy to understand for newcomers.  A new character named Antonov buys the rights to The King of Fighters and hosts it as a legitimate sporting event, but the team stories hint that something is amiss, especially according to Nakoruru, who senses a weikamu, which is an entity that disrupts nature, as established in the Samurai Shodown games.  Returning fans will have more insight into the plot, but it doesn’t go so hard on the continuity that it leaves new players in the dark.

For some reason SNK decided to drop the perfect visual style from the greatest fighting game ever made and instead went 3D, like Capcom, to mixed success.  The in-game character models are the worst of it.  They go into the uncanny valley, don’t emote very well and have a slick, almost plastic sheen to most of them that looks out of place after the darker color shadings of previous games.

That’s just the models though.  The animations and backgrounds all look good and 14 takes advantage of its new dimension.  The 3D cutscenes are pre-rendered, meaning they are outside the limitations of the game engine and thus have dynamic camera angles and more motion the actual game might have trouble handing.  Level 2 and climax attacks also benefit from the 3D space with dramatic close-ups to get the best view of the action, just like Street Fighter 4 did.

Shots like this are the advantage of 3D.

Also just like Street Fighter 4, there’s full voice acting, albeit only in Japanese regardless of the version.  As a consequence of the better animation, full voice acting and crap tons of characters, the pre-fight dialogue is only for select characters, but to make up for that, certain characters fighting each other will now trigger awesome new renditions of classic SNK tracks to override the music already playing.  Endings are still done with artwork and text without voice, so SNK hasn’t dropped their traditional presentation entirely.  It takes a little and gives a little.

The presentation of the franchise changed so much that discussing the gameplay is almost an afterthought.  The King of Fighters 14 plays like a classic KOF game.  As stated before, it’s not as fast-paced as 13 is and is closer to KOF 98 or 99 in terms of game speed except now it seems tweaked to facilitate combos.  The game isn’t as strict in how you need to time input commands, making combos substantially easier to do, and blowback attacks now either bounce the target off the wall or slam them against the wall to leave them open to a follow-up attack.  Despite the extra opportunities to comboing, it’s back to the game being picky about what can cancel into what and there’s no hyperdrive mode for more freedom.

The max mode that replaces hyperdrive mode is the worst part of the game for me because EX moves can only be used while in it.  The designers probably thought that max mode gives players a time to go crazy like with hyperdrive mode, but what it really does is make the player have to spend a super stock just for temporary permission to do moves that are supposed to be used in the heat of the moment.  It’s the exact same problem I had with crush counters.

That one misstep is the harshest thing I can say about KOF 14.  I know people don’t like the auto combos, but I think they’re a nice little one-two combo that are situational enough so as to not to be something that can be abused.  KOF 14 is a solid entry that made the transition to 3D in the mainline games with an at least passing grade and it’s impressive how it’s designed so new players can enjoy it without the old players feeling like the new ones are favored, something that doesn’t happen often in fighting games.

SNK Heroines: Tag Team Frenzy(SNK): I miss games like this.  I miss the spin-offs with the funny stories like SNK Gals Fighters, which this game is clearly a follow-up to.

As a fighting game, it’s very simplified and made with practically no serious competitive play in mind.  There are two basic attack buttons and dedicated buttons for special attacks, super attacks, grabbing and even blocking.  There are no motion inputs or ducking.  Combos are done using combinations of easy button presses plus potentially tagging out.  A complete fighting game noob could pick up on how to play in just a few minutes.  It’s going for something similar to Super Gem Fighters: Mini Mix.

Though simplified, the gameplay has enough to keep a player’s attention, but it’s the story and presentation that makes it so joyful.  Kukri traps the SNK girls and even a few boys-turned-girls in a world of his creation where everyone wears silly and gaudy outfits.  Your tag partner can throw wacky items to trip up the opponent and the hit effects are all ridiculous explosions of colorful objects, each one different for each character.

Sometimes there are wacky sound effects to go with it and equally wacky are some of the character’s dialogue with each other.  Since there are far fewer characters this time, each one has a special victory quote for every other one and there’s a special intro cutscene for the start of the game for every team combination, excluding the characters that were DLC in the console version.  All of this concludes with a trippy ending followed by character-specific endings closing out the story for the two winning characters, which are some of my favorite fighting game endings ever.  The endings are a beautifully drawn series of artwork full of funny character moments and references for longtime fans that tell a story purely through expression and framing.  Playing the game to the end is a fun experience.

I know I said SNK Heroines was so easy that even a noob could play it, but ironically it’s clearly targeted squarely at the SNK fans.  New players coming off of 14 will have some fun with the new characters introduced in that game, but they’ll be in the dark as to who Miss X is or what’s going on in Yuri and Terry’s endings.  As the game’s target audience, I love it.  It’s a game to play when I need a break and a laugh from all the serious fighting games.

 
Street Fighter 5(CAP): The best part of SNK’s games for this round thus far has been the stories and Street Fighter 5 does have one, but none of it is in the version released for arcades.  There isn’t much of a plot in the arcade mode of the console version either, but at least in that there’s artwork endings for each character across several different arcade modes based on each mainline Street Fighter game, including one for Street Fighter 5.  The arcade version of Street Fighter 5 doesn’t even have those.  You just fight a series of opponents and that’s it.  Would it have been that hard to transplant the ending art from the console version?  This is already off to a bad start.

Outside of the lack of story presentation, my feelings on Street Fighter 5 are actually similar to that of The King of Fighters 14.  Like KOF 14, Street Fighter 5 has plastic-looking characters models that at least look good in motion, there are new renditions of character themes that more often than not kick ass, combos are far easier to do, there’s a massive selection of characters and the core game takes a little and gives a little for a different, but familiar experience, though in Street Fighter 5's case it's taking and giving to the gameplay rather than the presentation.

It took away the two ultra attacks and instead made the super attack the ultimate hard-hitting attack, now with a smaller super meter that fills faster.  Instead of choosing between ultra attacks, the choices made before a match are more important to the moment-to-moment gameplay, with each character now getting two choices for both a V-drive, a special move activated at any time, and V-trigger, a more powerful move that requires a meter to be filled.  What the V-drive and V-triggers do can vary wildly, with some V-triggers effectively being another super attack and others being a temporary powered up state.  It can be satisfying when you can turn the tables by using a good temporary boost effectively, but I’d frankly rather have kept the ultra attacks.

The V-skills and ease of forming combos makes Street Fighter 5 lean closer to the feel of an Arc System Works fighter like Guilty Gear or Blazblue.  Successful strikes cause more recoil than usual, ESPECIALLY on a counter hit, allowing for plenty of time to follow-up with another attack and that’s combined with the much more lenient timing for connecting attacks with each other.  This leads to Street Fighter 5 rewarding aggressive play a lot more, a big departure from the feeling of landing one good gratifying hit, as I’ve described in previous games.

In what is also comparable to an Arcsys game, V-skills can be downright gimmicky and ill-fitting of martial arts action, like Rainbow Mika powering up attacks by trash talking or Birdie dropping trash for the opponent to trip over.  That’s not necessarily a bad thing because that means all the characters have more variety and slightly bigger move sets, but they can drift away from the straightforward street fighting the series is known for.

Those are all things that are different, but not anything that detracts from the game.  What detracts from the game are some of the aspects that I don’t really notice until it causes problems every once in a while.  For whatever reason, letting go of a button is registered by the game as pressing it for a special move command, which leads to attacks being used when players don’t want them to, which is a big problem when it makes me accidentally blow all their meter on a super attack.  It’s hard to get used to and completely unnecessary.

It’s way too easy to get stunned too.  Hits make the now-visible stun gauge go up much higher and when the player on the receiving end doesn’t do any damage, it takes so long for the stun gauge to start going down that it might as well not at all.  With how much more aggressive play Street Fighter 5 allows, that means it’s more likely a character will get stunned by the opponent’s onslaught and not be able to fight back.  It’s like they didn’t realize how much faster players could fill the stun gauge and never bothered to adjust it.

Street Fighter 5 is fun even with its problems, but for the arcade version the lack of anything beyond the combat doesn’t give it the extra push to make the playing experience stand out.  Regardless of which version is played, however, there is one more comparison to be had with The King of Fighters 14: I like the previous game more.

Samurai Shodown 2019(SNK): This is the last game that either company has released in arcades and what a high note for SNK to end it on.  After a decade since the last Samurai Shodown game, SNK, against all expectations, came out with the very best in the series.

After the middling visuals of KOF 14 and Street Fighter 5, and the downright dull presentation of Samurai Shodown Sen, I would have never expected Samurai Shodown 2019 to look this damn good.  It has a papyrus drawing look, with high-res, detailed texturing and even hatch shading for each character’s darker bits.  Facial animations are expressive and that fake plastic look of SNK’s previous two games is a thing of the past.  Backgrounds are as beautiful and immaculately designed as the best stages in the franchise’s history, pre-rendered CG cutscenes present the story as well as KOF 14 did and endings are still images as per SNK tradition, but with the twist of a woodblock-like art presentation.

It’s not enough that it’s the best-looking Samurai Shodown game.  It also has the best gameplay.  The only thing it takes away from Samurai Shodown 6 is that attacks don’t do quite as much damage as they used to, but they still do more than in that game.  Unlike 6, the weight of the blade is back and the pacing of battle is much more in line with Samurai Shodown 2.  There is a satisfying, brief stop when you land a clean heavy slash, characters can be bisected if you finish them off with one, blood flies everywhere and some of it can even get on the characters themselves.

The violence never quite reaches the gore fest that was the overkill moves in Samurai Shodown 5 Special, as those have been replaced by new super moves.  These moves are separate from the disarming moves and much harder to successfully land.  They have short range, more startup, leave the user wide open when they miss and the game briefly pauses to warn the other player it’s being used.  Either the user has to read their opponent super hard or the opponent has to be a reckless idiot to successfully pull one off.  When it lands though it will usually take off 3 quarters off the health of the target.  It takes the concept of landing the perfect hit to a whole new level and that makes it all the more gratifying when it works.

All this top-tier gameplay and presentation is housed in a sizable character selection.  All the essential Samurai Shodown characters are present and accounted for alongside some of the less-seen ones like Earthquake, Wan Fu and Shiki.  The handful of new characters are some of my favorites in the franchise, even if this is the only game they’re in, and all the characters get their own story intros, rival battles, character-specific victory dialogue and endings.

Since the story is set between 5 and the first game, all the returning characters get lead-ins to their first appearances, with several call-forwards and developments.  There’s an explanation for why Shiki isn’t seen again until Samurai Shodown 64, why Wan Fu was using a Schimitar in the first Samurai Shodown instead of his pillar and Basara’s story at least plants the seeds for his vendetta against Zankuro in Samurai Shodown 3.

With top-notch presentation, story, characters and gameplay, this might be one of the best games ever released to arcades, let alone the best Samurai Shodown game.  This is game of the year round hands-down.

The Winner

After Samurai Shodown 2019 I think it should be obvious that Street Fighter 5 didn’t carry Capcom for this round.  It was better than SNK Heroines by having deeper combat and more characters, but even then SNK Heroines had a fun story to it when Street Fighter 5 had none.  The King of Fighters 14 also had a fun story, but even if I were to put Street Fighter 5 on roughly equal terms with it in terms of gameplay, Samurai Shodown 2019 was better than all of them this year, handing the win to SNK.

The Final Winner

After over half a year of writing this series, playing over 100 different arcade games, the final score has been reached.  I shall now go over the winner of each year/round one more time.

1985: Capcom
1986: SNK
1987: SNK
1988: Capcom
1989: Capcom
1990: Capcom
1991: Capcom
1992: SNK
1993: Capcom (originally SNK, but later retroactively given to Capcom)
1994: Capcom
1995: Capcom
1996: SNK
1997: SNK
1998: Capcom
1999: SNK
2000: SNK
2001: Capcom
2002-2004: SNK
2005-2008: SNK
2009-2010: Capcom
2012-2014: SNK
2017-2019: SNK

Capcom and SNK are tied at a score of 11 each!  When I started this project I expected it to be close because both companies have such a history of both great and awful arcade games, but I never would have guessed it would end in a perfect tie!  I guess in the end you could say that when it comes to arcades, we’re all winners because in the end we got a lot of great arcade games over the years and I loved getting to see how they evolved along with technology and gaming culture.

I hope that this series has helped some readers learn a little bit about the arcade history of these companies and maybe helped them find some great arcade games they never knew they liked.  I know I found some.

Now there are (almost) no arcade games left from either company.  They have exhausted their weapons and they cannot carry on the battle.  Not in the arcade space, at least.  Unless one of them comes out with a new arcade release, this series is over, but the war will rage on.

Capcom and SNK being sworn enemies is a constant in this world.  As long as they exist there will always be conflict.  Until the end of time the two will fight each other again

and again

and again.

War... War never changes.