SNK Vs Capcom Beta Draws Frenzied Fans

The Japanese arcade beta-test is in progress for SNK Vs. Capcom Chaos, the latest Playmore/SNK 2D fighting game, featuring both the Street Fighter and King Of Fighters characters, plus a whole host of guest stars from places as obscure as Samurai Shodown 64 and Red Earth/Warzard. There's now some good-looking videos of the beta-test up at the unofficial SNK-Capcom.com site, and an excellent hands-on impressions piece was posted at Insert Credit earlier in the week. Behind the frothing otaku, the Insert Credit article does sow some doubts, though: "..three years - probably more - in development or at least planning, and all they have to show for it is a standard Street Fighter engine with a predictable character roster"?

Comments

3 Years

[cgenman]

all they have to show for it is a standard Street Fighter engine with a predictable character roster"?

The idea that a capcom-level fighting engine could be running on SNK hardware is pretty amazing. No offence to Mark of the Wolves fans out there, but the Neo Geo has never been known for a high physics framerate. The new iteration of Street Fighter vs. Capcom is running on a 12 mhz 68000, with a Z-80 coprocessor! That's equivalent to the old CPS 1 board that "powered" the original Street Fighter 2 through Turbo. This was hot stuff when it was released in 1990. But eeking out an experience comparable to Capcom Vs. SNK 2 (on a 128 bit SH-4 with PowerVR)? If your graphics coprocessor used to be used on the Sega Master System, you have to do a lot of work to keep up. It's a testament to the programmers that people can consider it a standard Street Fighter engine.

Furthermore, convincing Capcom to re-do their artwork must have been a Herculean task. After being burned by rediculous art resources in Street Fighter 3, Capcom has seemed afraid to commit to any major overhaul of their character's designs. The gorgeous Capcom vs. SNK 2 suffered from 16-color flat cell artwork from Darkstalkers and 10-year-old versions of Street Fighter characters (has Dhalism ever been updated?), while SNK's characters looked characteristically beautiful. Convincing this art-risk averse company to redo everything must have been a monumental task, dwarfed only by the task of actually re-doing their ten-year-old characters.

And, of course, playbalancing fighters is incredibly difficult. Unlike computergames which can be patched after launch if an exploit is discovered, and home games where competition in your house remains friendly, Arcade games have to be uncheatable out of the door. If you don't playtest them mercilessly, horrible imbalances can emerge. Why do Blizzard games take 4 years to make? Balance. Why do AAA fighters take 4 years to make? Balance.

In short, a 3 year development cycle for a competition-level arcade game is not surprising. If what they come out with is solid and plays well, they will have succeeded.

Re:3 Years

[cgenman]

The actual name given to the third game in the Street Fighter 2 series is still up for debate. This screenshot shows some of the reason for the confusion, as well as this clear and understandable marquee. On the street in the Silicon Valley we refered to it as "Turbo," and GameFAQS has "Street Fighter II Hyper Edition" listed as "Street Fighter II Turbo" under the release data. People also refered to it as "Turbo Championship Edition."

There is one thing that isn't debated, the SNES home conversion was titled SF2:T. Thankfully, it said so clearly on the box. Likewise, Capcom USA had sorted out this mess by the time that Super Street Fighter 2 came out, calling it quite clearly "Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo" while Japan refered to it as "Super Street Fighter 2 X - Grandmaster Challenge"

While I won't get too much into Capcom Japan's weird naming practices, I will mention that Street Fighter II Championship Edition was, in the land of the rising sun, titled " Street Fighter II ' Championship Edition", with the ' pronounced "dash." Turbo was therefore refered to as "Street Fighter II Dash Turbo. If you look back at the first image linked above, you will see the dash.

So yes, the CPSI powered SFII (or SFII:TWW), SFII':CE, and SFII':T (or SFII:TCE or SFII:THF or TSFII:HF or SFII'T:HF). The CPSII was behind SSFII (or SSFII:TNC), SSFII:T, as well as SF:TM, SFA (or SFA:WD, SFZ, SFL), SFA2 (SFZ2), SFZ2:A, SFA3 (SFZ3). And MSHvsSF, XvsSF, and MvsC. That's a lot of Street Fighters thanks to the CPSII. (the CPSI did such legends as Final Fight and Strider, so it has its share of victories too)

I hope this clears that up.