New port follows the trend of using original arcade version as basis
After being apart for basically two decades (if you don’t count Tekken 7 and Super Smash Bros.), Capcom and SNK are officially jumping back into crossover mode together with the reveal of Terry Bogard and Mai Shiranui as Street Fighter 6’s first ever guest characters.
On top of that, however, fighting game fans were also got hit with the surprise launch of SNK vs. Capcom: SVC Chaos at Evo 2024 very recently though the last crossover game between the once rivals is a bit different than you may remember.
AcidGlow put together an interesting comparison video showcasing how SVC Chaos on PC, PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch is not the same as what was released on the PlayStation 2 and original Xbox.
Upon booting the game, it quickly becomes apparent that SNK looks to have used the earlier arcade release of SVC from 2003 as the basis here in 2024 with their inclusion of the old Playmore logo and “Press Start” text in the intro that’s not there in the previous console versions.
This also unfortunately means that most / all modes and features added to the PS2 and Xbox release of SVC are absent in the rerelease.
That includes the likes of Survival mode not being here at all along with the color edit option being gone too.
Even some smaller details like Athena and Red Arremer having post-loss transformations are not present here either since they weren’t in the arcade release.
Not everything was removed, however, as plenty of other aspects of SVC were given new overhauls of what was there before with features like the move list and gallery.
The original console version also sped up the animation of some longer moves that are now back to the way they were in the arcade as AcidGlow shows with Mr. Karate’s uppercut and Akuma’s Super.
There is also of course the new additions from Code Mystics with rollback netcode and lobbies plus viewable hitboxes, different frame art options, and some other goodies.
SVC continues to follow the trend we’ve been seeing lately of fighting game rereleases relying on the older arcade versions instead of later console releases, especially from the PS2 and PS3 eras, that often included new features, modes and even characters.
We’ve seen this from SNK in the past of course, but also Capcom with their most recent Street Fighter and Fighting Collections.
Sure, they can advertise it as “arcade perfect,” but everything extra you could find in something like Street Fighter 3: Third Strike Online Edition, Darkstalkers Resurrection and Street Fighter Alpha 3 Max are just absent.
This presumably comes down to it being easier for developers to emulate and add new matchmaking to arcade over those specific home versions, which they may not even have access to the original source code for anymore.
SVC Chaos did also give fans a brand new piece of crossover art between the SNK and Capcom characters, but folks were quick to realize there were some notable alterations made to it depending on where you look at the illustration.
You can check out AcidGlow’s full video below to see how SVC is different than it was on consoles back in the day.