The announcement of an “SNK vs. Capcom” remaster was an interesting surprise. It’s not one of the overlooked gems of its era, and those who played it tend to agree it’s nothing special. Of course, there’s there possibility that the game has aged well and could shine in the modern era.
As the name suggests, this is a crossover fighting game featuring characters from SNK and Capcom. They’re both big names in the genre, but obviously, Capcom is the one that stayed at the top through the decades. There’s not much story to speak of, so this is a game that’s all about the fighting.
The roster is pretty standard. The Capcom side is mostly made of “Street Fighter” characters, and the SNK side is mostly drawn from “King of Fighters” with a few “Samurai Shodown” picks thrown in. I would have liked to see more variety with Capcom, but the hidden characters in the game like Violent Ken and Zero from “Mega Man” add novelty value.
The biggest selling point of this remaster is that it includes online play with rollback netcode. The online modes are limited to a basic lobby system and there’s no profile customization. Online feels kind of lifeless as a result. The saving grace of the online mode is that the netcode is very good.
Code Mystics has had a great track record of bringing back old games with robust online gameplay, and it’s no different here. Unless your connection with the other player is terrible, matches are very smooth with little lag to speak of. Finding a match can be difficult because this was never that popular of a fighting game and there’s a lot of competition in the genre.
The biggest problem with this new version of the game is that “SNK vs. Capcom” was never that good to begin with. In 2003, SNK had started to lose their mojo with fighting games, and they struggled to outdo previous successes. This was also the crossover that came after the excellent “Capcom VS SNK 2,” so it was like following up prime rib with beef jerky.
“CVS2” was the crossover to play if you wanted to pit these two worlds against each other, so the only reason to play this game was for the more SNK-style gameplay. Since this is mainly a four-button fighter, it would be up to the combo system to add depth to the gameplay.
The downside is that gameplay here doesn’t match the superior SNK titles like “King of Fighters 2001” or “Mark of the Wolves.” On top of that, inputs feel strangely stiff. Many newer players thought that it was because of online lag — but no, the game always felt this awkward to play.
The only reason for this remaster that I can think of is everyone knows the game that fans really want to see come back is “Capcom vs. SNK 2.” Of course, it’d be harder to sell this game once the better game is out, so the decision was made to do this one first even though it came out after “CVS2.”
This isn’t a terrible fighting game by any means, but there are better classics available on modern systems that you can play. “SNK vs. Capcom: SVC Chaos” earns three stars out of five.
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