I hope you enjoy it and please be gentle when you throw your tomatoes at me! See you next time!
Street Fighter III 3rd Strike: Fight for the Future
The biggest problem with Street Fighter III was that not many home consoles at the time could handle a port of the game
Street Fighter is certainly the biggest fighting game franchise ever created. In the 1990's, there were so many subfranchises and games being released that was difficult to really enjoy them all at the time, but Capcom slowed that process down before the failure of their newest hardware CP-System III and the amount of money needed to make a game for the new released 6th generation consoles. Just for the record, there were around 18 major releases of Street Fighter, if you exclude minor games like "Battle Action on Film" and "The Animated Movie".
This decision was really easy to make, because there is at least one Street Fighter game per console released, so I played them a lot through out the years but it was a close decision to choose the best one. My favorite game of the Street Fighter franchise is: Street Fighter III 3rd Strike. I know what you are thinking right now, but you can go wrong with this game. The gameplay mechanics is what fascinated me.
Being able to block an attack with the Parry System and counter attack right back without receiving any damage was the best thing Capcom ever created for Street Fighter - and I still don't know why the fuck they removed it from Street Fighter IV. You guys can contest about the roster, which does not includes some of the most iconical character of the series but at least you can say that Capcom tried to create new characters and make them look unique, something SNK did later with Garou: MOTW.
Another game that is worth a mention here is Street Fighter Alpha 3. Like I told you, it was a close decision and if wasn't for the better gameplay mechanics, Alpha 3 would be the winner by far. It has almost every major character from the first Street Fighter and also new characters that are as good as the oldest ones, including the best plot ever created for Street Fighter. Capcom recently stated that they are looking to expand the Single Player mode of their fighting games with more interesting stories and character development, so I think they should use this game as a start point, because it has it all already.
Another games worth mentioning: Street Fighter II Turbo (SNES), Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition, Street Fighter EX Plus Alpha (PS1) and Street Fighter II' (PC Engine).
Vampire Savior: The Lord of Vampire
Legends and myths altogether with some Capcom sausage
Darkstalkers was inicially created to show the real capabilities of their recently released hardware CP-System II, so the game abused of vivid colors and shadow effects. The gameplay itself was not too much different from Street Fighter II, just minor changes were made to give the game it's own identity. There weren't many home releases like Street Fighter but it was well received when it was released - and quickly vanished because Capcom explored too much of the game in only three years.
My favorite one is Vampire Savior: The Lord of Vampire. It really a easy decision because the first two games were too much like Street Fighter II and aside from the characters - which are based on well know legends and myths - that were pretty unique and showed in amazing graphics, but the game doesn't have much to show until Vampire Savior. The fights are made to end quickly, so one mistake here could the fatal. I like how the combos are easy connected too, even the aerial ones.
Too bad Capcom explored the game and it end up not receiving any new releases from 1997 until now on February 2013, when it was released on Xbox Live and PlayStation Network with the title "Darkstalkers Ressurection", which is basically the 2nd and 3rd games in HD. I highly recommend that you pick that up, the game is very unique and you might be losing one of the most amazing Capcom creations. Another nice pick up would be the Dreamcast / PSP compilation and the PS2 collection too.
One thing Capcom don't admit though, is that Night Warriors is actually a Darkstalkers remake with more sprites, colors and screen animations. I mean, the game even has the same ending, but the only difference being the image that appears on the very ending with a new text about what happened with the character before the game.
Capcom vs. SNK 2: Millionaire Fight 2001
Instead of exploring more famous characters, in CVS2 Capcom digged some secundary or forgotten ones from both sides
When Capcom aquired the X-Men/Marvel licensed back in 1993, people were expecting some nice games for the franchises - which were delivered for both Arcade and home consoles. One thing that nobody was expecting though was an crossover between the X-Men and Street Fighter characters. When I first saw a picture of Ryu doing that gigantic Shinkyu Hadouken on the screen I almost jizzed on my pants. The first two crossovers were such a major success that Capcom later would create their own series of Crossovers, called "Capcom VS.".
Crossovers not only made with Marvel characters, but also SNK ones and later a RPG with Namco characters as well. My favorite one is a easy pick up: Capcom vs. SNK 2. The game isn't a perfect example of balanced gameplay but just the fact that some of the most famous characters from both companies are together in one game, it's a dream that every 1990's kid would have. And it is better than the first one because it has more gameplay options for those who really like to play different every time.
More recently, Capcom even made and VS game with a major japanese company called Tatsunoko, which brings some of their most memorable series to the game, but unfortunally it was only released on the Nintendo Wii. Even though this series are not getting too many releases these days, I like how Capcom can quickly put different characters from different places altogether in one game and make it look unique, even using the same engine for all their games.
Another games worth mentioning: Marvel vs Capcom 2: New Age of Superheroes and Street Fighter X Tekken.
Project Justice (aka. Rival Schools 2)
This game is a fine example that you can pretty much do a fighting game with everything if you have real talent
When you think that there's nothing new to create on the fighting game scene, Capcom bring us a school themed game. Every character is based on a school group, like sports, punks and even the board of directors! The game was first released on the Arcade and later was ported for the PS1 with a 2-disc set including the original arcade mode and the other disc with a modified version with extra modes to unlock. It was followed by a second release exclusively to the PlayStation and a entire new title for the Dreamcast called "Project Justice".
This is really a easy pick up, because Project Justice bring all content released before into just one game and one plus: 3 on 3 matches. Also, they included some nice Super Moves combinations between the characters, that could be made by 2 or 3 at the same time, leading to some unique finishers. Rival Schools is all about fun and the game mechanics are pretty simple and silimar to the ones used on the Capcom crossovers games, with aerial combos and stuff.
Unfortunally, before the Dreamcast release Capcom put the series on a hold until now and only re-released the PS1 version on the PSN, but I highly recommend that you play the Dreamcast version which is the more complete of all.
Real Bout Fatal Fury
Geese Howard is one of the biggest bad asses bosses ever created
Fatal Fury was designed by the same creator of the first Street Fighter game, Takashi Nishiyama, so it was quite obvious that the game has a lot of things in commom, but along the time SNK worked really hard to make a unique image for Fatal Fury. That was at least until 1995, when The King of Fighters became the major series of the company and they kinda left Fatal Fury on the second plan, but it doesn't mean that the quality of the games dropped.
My favorite one was really difficult to choose, because there's one game that was the first SNK game I've ever played (Real Bout Fatal Fury) and the one I've played the most (Garou: MOTW), but I stay with RBFF on this. Even though Garou: MOTW is one of the most technical advanced games ever released on the Neo Geo, I still prefer the fast paced gameplay of RBFF and it's 3 plans. That's what I like in Fatal Fury: you can always use the plans or to escape being trapped on the corner of the screen or to increase your combo.
SNK stopped releasing Fatal Fury games since the port of Garou for the Sega Dreamcast in 2000, but I believe that many people are still waiting for the Garou's sequel on a modern console. If you want to play the entire series, you can pick up a copy of Fatal Fury: Battle Archives Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 for the PS2, which did not include Garou: MOTW that was released separadly and on the Dreamcast, PlayStation 2 and Xbox Live Arcade as a digital release.
Another games worth mentioning: Fatal Fury 2 (Mega Drive), Fatal Fury Special (PC Engine CD-ROM²), Real Bout Fatal Fury Special and Real Bout Fatal Fury 2: The Newcomers.
Art of Fighting 2
A fine example of how huge the sprites are in the game, and how the damage taken hurts the characters
After the release of Fatal Fury, the Neo Geo sales were increased on the Arcades and SNK soon started to work on new fighting games franchise to expand their library of games. The first of them was Art of Fighting, a game that occours 12 years before the Fatal Fury set and focus more on closed combat than combos itself. After three releases and failing to reach the major audience, SNK decided to end the series in 1996 and no new releases were seen since them.
My favorite is easily Art of Fighting 2. It has the biggest sprites I even seen on a Arcade in my entire life and besides the gameplay not being so easy as other games from the genre, but the game is really unique and has some features like bruises on the characters and the clothes that are damaged with the hits. I think the only dissapointment I had with Art of Fighting is it's cheesy plot, that looks like it was removed from a mexican novel, but it has a lot of nice characters that were used later on the The King of FIghters series.
If you are looking for a really different fighting game like anything you played before, I really recommend that you pick up a copy of Art of Fighting Anthology for the PS2 which includes all 3 games in one package and the arranged soundtrack from the Neo Geo CD.
World Heroes Perfect
Even though it was never a major hit, World Heroes always tried to be different from other games of the genre
When SNK started to expand their Neo Geo marketing all over the world, some companies started to bring their own franchises to the console, and one of them was World Heroes from this little company called ADK. The company had 15 to 20 members when they started working on this game, and they achieved a nice final product, which gained 3 more World Heroes games released later for the Neo Geo and other home systems and 1 related game that were released only on the Neo Geo.
My favorite World Heroes game is WH Perfect. ADK always worked on making the game look different than every other fighting game ever released, even though at first sight it does not look like it. All games of the franchise are pretty raw, with their bigger creation being the "Death Match" mode, that include some obsticles and weapons on the arena to force the fight to end quickly and you to attack, because there is nowhere to run. Every game changes the gameplay a little bit, and WH Perfect is the most balanced one - even though it does not include the Death Match mode from the 3 previous games.
If you wanted to know the series, I highly recommend that you pick up a copy of World Heroes Anthology for the PS2 or buy any of the games on the Wii Virtual Console, because the 16-bit releases were not that great compared to the Neo Geo ones and the only home version that was close to it was WH Perfect on the Sega Saturn.
Samurai Shodown II
Samurai Shodown was always a mix of violence, art and poetry that was lost with in it's "Engrish" translations
After creating 2 fighting games that were completaly different from each other (Fatal Fury and Art of Fighting), SNK decided to create another one even more unique than the previous ones: a game were all the characters have their own weapons and it rains blood through the matches. That's how Samurai Shodown was born in 1993, and it achieved some controversy when it was released on the ocident, because of the violence included in the game - which was tuned down to the overseas release.
Through out the years SNK tried almost every possibility with Samurai Shodown: a more darker theme, characters with a more cartunish style, an 3D fighting game were you can walk freely on the arena and some of the weirds characters ever create by them. Even an RPG was released for the home consoles in 1997. From 1993 to 1999, there were one Samurai Shodown game released by year, only 1997 had 2 games released (Samurai Shodown RPG and Samurai Shodown 64).
My favorite one is Samurai Shodown II, which has in my opinion all the best characters ever created for the franchise (with the exception of Kazuki and Sogetsu Kazama from SS4) and also has the best set, making that you almost feel like you are a fucking samurai cutting down enemy guts to achieve your objectives. Another thing that I like and many people don't enjoy it too much is the fact that the moves inflict a lot of damage, making one wrong step almost costing the entire fight. But I think that this is the spirit, right? A samurai don't fuck around and you must stay focused when you're playing.
SNK released an compilation named "Samurai Shodown Anthology" in 2008 with 6 games inside: SS, SSII, SSIII, SSIV, SSV and SSVI (which was never released before overseas). I don't know why they didn't included the V Special one, but it is a nice compilation that also includes the arranged soundtrack from the Neo Geo CD versions.
One fun fact about the series is that Samurai Shodown V Special was the last game ever released on the Neo Geo. It was released on April 22, 2004.
Games that I think it's worth to take a look at: Samurai Shodown, Samurai Shodown II, Samurai Shodown IV, Samurai Shodown: Warrior's Rage (PS1) and Samurai Shodown V Special.
The King of Fighters '98: Dream Match Never Ends
What beginned with a crossover to promote their own series, later becomed the biggest franchise SNK ever created
1991: Fatal Fury. 1992: Art of Fighting. 1993: Samurai Shodown. SNK's ship was taking a fucking rise in the sky and the sales were annualy increasing, so they decided to take a little risk: release a cheaper version of their hardware focused only on the home market and using CDs instead of huge cartridges. This is how the Neo Geo CD comes to life, but what it has to do with KOF? The King of Fighters was intentionaly created to be the first game released on the Neo Geo CD, and also the first one to include a entire soundtrack played by the SNK band called "Shinsekai Gakkyoku Zatsugidan".
The KOF idea was simple: put together in one game all SNK franchises in one game, even their sports games! SNK digged out some franchises that they worked before the Neo Geo like Athena and Ikari Warriors, also including characters from their new series like Fatal Fury and Art of Fighting, not forgeting to include some new characters like Kyo Kusanagi and Rugal Bernstein to make the game has it's owns features. The matches were played on teams 3 VS 3, and on the first game you can only pick up the entire team, only in KOF '95 they let us choose characters from different teams and create our owns - even including secret endings on subsequent releases.
19 years later and with 27 games released, the series is not at it's apex anymore but still can surprise you like they did on KOF XIII released on 2010. My choice here is close one, but I stick with The King of Fighters '98. This version has the more balanced gameplay of the entire series and some of the best characters available on the roster. Also, this was the version that is prefered by 9 of 10 players here in Brazil to play on the Arcades, with the other one being KOF 2002.
Bonus Game
Not every franchise gets a lot of releases by their companies, but that doesn't mean that the game is not good or are not comparable with other bigger franchises, so I decided to make this quick section here with 6 games created by both SNK/ADK and Capcom that were not explored that much but still has a place reserved at our game shelves.
The Last Blade
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Both The Last Blade games were one of the most expensive games SNK ever created to the Neo Geo hardware
The Last Blade was one of the first creations of Daisuke Ishiwatari, that later would quit SNK and join Arc System Works, were he would create the Guilty Gear and BlazBlue series. In 1997, SNK was at it's prime and the sales were never that great to them, so they took another risk and hired some new people to create a new franchise that was some sort of tribute to Nobuhiro Watsuki, an mangaka who used inspirations from Samurai Shodown to create the characters from this Rurouni Kenshin manga. So SNK decided to create a game that uses inspirations on Rurouni Kenshin trait and a more lighter theme than Samurai Shodown.
The Last Blade saw 2 releases in 1997 and 1998 and soon after Daisuke left the company because the things wasn't going like SNK predicted. The Last Blade 2 is considered by the japaneses the 2nd best game SNK ever created, only losing to The King of Fighters '98 and I definally tell you that is worth to take a look at it. It's a fun game with 2 ways to play: POWER (more powerful blasts but slower movements) and SPEED (more combos but less damage caused) and one of the most balanced gameplay ever created by the company.
Aggressors of Dark Kombat
Another example of huge sprites and zoom in/zoom out effects on the Neo Geo. Suck on that, Art of Fighting!
Remember when I was talking about World Heroes and I said that ADK was looking to create a unique fighting game despite their limitations? Aggressors of Dark Kombat is one of them. It has some huge sprites like in the Art of Fighting games and it's also focused on closed range combat instead of combos but also adds to the mix weapons and obstucles on the stages to increase the gameplay value. Unfortunally the game was ofuscated by so many releases at the time and ADK didn't ported it to other consoles, but if you can grab a copy of the japanese import "ADK Tamashii" for the PS2, it alto included our next game and 3 more games created by ADK on the Neo Geo.
Ninja Master's: Haou Ninpou Chou
The game has one of the most beautiful stages ever created by ADK. It was their last fighting game ever released too.
The Last Blade might have been a huge success when it was released but Ninja Master's was released one year before it and it was as good as the SNK creation. It combo system is so vast that even today people are still find new ones and it was a pretty fast paced fighting game with some iconic historical ninjas and samurais from the japanese history. It was one of the more expected game on the recently released Neo Geo X portable system and it's also included on the japanese PS2 import "ADK Tamashii".
Red Earth
The first CP-System III game ever released abused of colored graphics and some light poligonal effects.
The first game ver released on Capcom's CP-System III was not a major success and never was ported to a home console, but it was a good showcase of the hardware. I think the game would be better if it was a beat 'em up game with RPG elements like "Dungeons & Dragons: Shadow Over Mystara) but Capcom released the game as a fighting game were you gain experience points by defeating the enemies and by the end of the game you got a password were you can use the next time to start the game again at the level you finished it.
It was a good idea but poorly executed because the game is exacly the same every time you replay it. If there was some more action within the game, it would have achieved more success, but I recommend that you at least take a look at it to have your own opinion about it.
JoJo's Bizzare Adventure: Heritage for the Future
Not many people knowed about JoJo before this game in the Ocident
Following an idea used before, Capcom hired an mangaka to make the plot and the characters for the game, but this time they did not create a new game like "Slam Masters" and instead it was a fighting game based on this on going manga series from Hirohiko Araki who expanded the background story of some less important characters to make they fit into the game. It has some original features that Capcom never used before like the Stand system, a partner that can be used to raise your attack and defende and also the clash system, were players dispute who press the buttons more times in a row, something like the sword clash in Samurai Shodown.
It was the last game ever released on the CP-System III back in 1999 and it was ported to the Playstation and Dreamcast, recently being released in HD on the PSN for the PlayStation 3.
That's all for today mates, I hope you enjoy it and if there are any errors on my writing, please let me know so I can correct it ok? See ya next time!
