SNK vs. Capcom: The Match of the Millennium review by Rockman Pocket

Match of the Millennium. Indeed a well-chosen subtitle for this game. Or perhaps not. It's not like the two companies really hate each other. It's rather the "hardcore" fans of both companies that can't seem to stand each other. But who would want a fighting game where you could play as SNK and Capcom otakus? Not a lot of people, so we got a fighting game with super- deformed superstars from various SNK and Capcom fighting games instead. Cool!

When you start up the game you're treated to a neat slide show, which ends with either Kyo or Ryu doing a special move towards the screen. It seems they can't wait for some action. And action there will be! On the title screen you can either start the game or go to the setup menu. The setup screen lets you alter basic things like the games difficulty and round time, but also less obvious thing like if you want a simplified control scheme (Able Mode) or even if you want to view you lifebar during fights or not. If the setup menu is so elaborate, just how grand could the actual game be... Well, leave the setup menu and find out by choosing start on the title screen!

Assuming you actually chose start you now can choose from six different options. Lets what this game has in store for us. First and foremost there's "Tourney". You'll likely want to spend most of your time playing the game here. Below Tourney you'll see "Olympic". Tired from all the battling, then go play some mini games! Next you'll notice "Sparring", which is MotM's training mode. Next to Tourney there's the "VS Mode", which is ideal for those people who actually know someone who has a NGPC (preferably with this game...) since you can fight head to head against each other. You can also use this mode to link up with Card Fighter's Clash and the Dreamcast games King of Fighters '99 - Dreammatch and Capcom vs SNK: Millennium Fight 2000. Nice! Below VS Mode you'll see "Entry", which lets you create your own set of fighters with their own team name and quotes for use in the main game. Finally there's "Record" which keeps track of all your victories/losses in Tourney and VS Mode and lists all your Olympic scores. All that on a tiny 32Mb cartridge.

Gameplay - 10
Now lets get some action on. In Tourney and VS Mode you can select if you want to play as a single character, a tag team, or a team made of 3 fighters. After you choose how you want to play the game you can select one of three fighting styles. First there is Average Mode, which is the core King of Fighters engine spiced up with several features from the StreetFighter Alpha series. Second there is Counter Mode, which basically is the same as King of Fighters R-2's Extra Mode. Finally there's Rush Mode, which could be considered a toned down version of King of Fighters' Advanced Mode, but with the nice addition of Chain Combos from Capcom's Vampire/Darkstalkers series. After selecting your fighting style you can finally choose you character(s). And there are plenty of characters to choose from! On SNK's side there are Kyo, Terry, Iori, Ryo, Mai, Haohmaru, Nakoruru, Athena and Leona while on Capcom's side there are Ryu, Ken, Chun-Li, Morrigan, Felicia, Zangief, Sakura, Dan and Guile to choose from. There are also eight (!) secret characters, which ups the total character count to 26.

The fighting itself is great. Thanks to the NGPC's joystick you won't have any trouble doing those special move motions and having to tap or hold a button to do a light or hard attack is something you'll get used to pretty quick. The characters do move a tad on the slow side, but this is totally forgivable considering the deep fight engines.

As mentioned before you can play mini games in the Olympic mode. There a different mini games for both SNK and Capcom, though they both share Survival, Time Attack and First Blast. In Survival you must defeat 100 opponents from the other side, in Time Attack you must defeat 5 opponents as quickly as possible and in First Blast you must hit 10 opponents before they hit you. On SNK's side there are also Target 9, where you must blast aliens from Metal Slug, and Blade Arts, where Jubei from Samurai Shodown must cut through straw dolls. On Capcom's side you can play Ghost Trick, where you must guide Arthur from Ghosts 'n Goblins from one side of the screen to the other, snatching up treasure chests. The other game is Cat Walk, a rhythm game where you can let Felicia dance on various SNK and Capcom tunes. There's also the option on both sides to talk to your manager, Rimururu for SNK and Karin Kanzuki for Capcom. These chats are often VERY funny (Karin likes to ridicule Dan for instance) and sometimes even helpful, since the managers will tell you some secrets of the game.

Don't think you'll be playing the mini games just for fun though. They're quite essential to the main game. See, after each mini game you are given Versus points, with which you can buy one new super move for every character. Clever isn't it :)

Graphics - 9
Recognizable is the magic word here. Even though the characters are super- deformed they still look just like their normal counterparts. Their faces and animations are instantly recognizable as are all their moves. Unfortunately SNK re-used some old sprites from previous NGPC games, but that really isn't much of a big deal, since all new characters are drawn in the same style. Kyo might animate chunky compared to Haohmaru, but you'll get used to it. Special effects in general aren't used in a too flashy way, but they get the job done. The backgrounds are simply awesome. Almost every background is taken from a SNK or Capcom fighting game and looks great; some even have parallax scrolling in them. The few new backgrounds look pretty good too (Capcom even used one as Bison's stage in Capcom vs SNK). Except for the first and four last stages every background has a day and night variation too, which adds to the variety. The graphics in Olympic mode all look pretty good too, with lots of colors used in them. Ghost Trick especially looks great, since not only does the background look like it came straight out the arcade game, but Arthur also has 6 colors (as opposed to the 4 all other ingame sprites have).

Sound - 9
The sound effects are really nothing special. You've heard these effects in other NGPC fighting games too. The music on the other hand... Like the graphics it's instantly recognizable. All characters have their classic themes and sound surprisingly good despite the hardware limitations. In Cat Walk there's a version of Chun-Li's theme that sounds so good you'll wonder why they didn't use it as her standard music during the fights. One minor gripe about the music is that some SNK characters have the same BGM they had in other NGPC games. Some of these were touched up a little, but they still sound the same.

Replay - 9
Are you kidding me? I have had MotM since around Christmas 1999 and I still play it regularly. If the deep gameplay and many characters won't keep you occupied there are always the mini games to play. Most of all there's the never-ending quest to find somebody else to play against...

Conclusion
SNK vs Capcom - Match of the Millennium is a game that set new standards, not only for portable games but for console games too. If SNK can put this much fun, nostalgia and replay value on one 32Mb cartridge for a 16-bit system (and I use that term loosely) with only two action buttons I expect other developers to at least match this level with their home versions of fighting games on vastly superior systems. To date this has yet to happen... Unlike Capcom's Capcom vs SNK, which basically was made with beginners in mind, SNK vs Capcom can be enjoyed by both casual fighting game fans and the "hardcore" that want a deep satisfying fighting experience.

Final Score - 10