Slashdot Mirror
GameSpot Recaps 25-Year History of SNK
Decaffeinated Jedi writes "GameSpot has offered up an amazingly in-depth history of SNK -- the company behind such classic games as Ikari Warriors, Fatal Fury, and King of Fighters, as well as the NeoGeo hardware system. The 39-page retrospective covers nearly every aspect of the company's 25-year history and includes an annotated list of key SNK titles, trivia, insider interviews, hardware comparisons, screenshots, promotional art, and more."
i always love to read stuff like this. takes me back some years... oh the nostalgy :'(
ikari warriors ruled!
To think a game company could consistently make and evolve a series of games for 25 years is impressive. My hats off to them.
Baseball stars is the best baseball game ever and Samurai Showtime is one of the best fighting games ever.
-B
No argument there.
My friends and I still get together to have huge Baseball Stars tournaments.
Just got to thinking, what are the chances that Metal Slug X was the influence for Duke Nukem? I mean, rakish hero fighting alien bastards? Hardly an original plot premise, but Duke's "attitude" seems to be a natural progression of the Metal Slug Guy's tough-man image :)
The thing I don't know is, what came first - MSX or DN3D? Perhaps the influence was actually the other way around?
-JT
"Samurai Shodown, King of Fighters..."
None of their titles became nearly as popular as their counterparts such as Mortal Kombat or Street Fighter II.
Man, I love that game. I still own my second copy, though the box is pretty worn out. Got it for cheap at Ames in the middle of nowhere. The game was fun- like, easily as much fun as The Legend of Zelda or The Secret of Mana. I put it up there with River City Ransom on my list of favorite NES games.
:|
And for some reason, they never made a sequel, never made a SNES version, never made anything similar.
Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think NeoGeo even had Street Fighter 2. All the Street Fighter 2 machines I've ever seen (or emulated) were for the Capcom CPS system. The emulator you used probably supported both systems, and you played the rom for the CPS Street Fighter. That said, if you want to experience the greatness of SNK, play Metal Slug, King of Fighters, and Samurai Showdown. The NeoGeo is the king of 2D arcade games, and SNK has made some of the best games of all time for it.
I've been a fan of SNK since I played Fatal Fury at a local arcade. After that, I would purchase most of their SNES porting efforts, even if those ports sucked because of extreme size-reduced sprites. Then the golden days came along with my Sega Saturn, importing classics like the King of Fighters Collector's Edition (95-97), Real Bout Fatal Fury collector's edition, Metal Slug, etc. Dreamcast came, and so did Last Blade 2, Garou: Mark of the Wolves, and Capcom vs SNK, which was basically a dream-come-true for me.
Nowadays, though, the talent looks like it is pretty much gone. No more sweet arranged music for the home versions of KoF, and they're only just now switching to the Atomis Engine (Sammy's fighting game engine, seen in the extremely popular Guilty Gear series) to hopefully abandon the woeful graphics the series currently suffers from. Compare KoF 2000/2001 for the Playstation 2 to KoF 97 on the Saturn - they look the same, but the 97 version just has that added detail of polish, in presentation, music, etc. The hits seem harder, the desparation-moves look cooler, and it just adds to a more fun experience while playing.
Hopefully Playmore will remember that the little details help make a good gaming experience. Not stuff like giving Kim Kaphwan more frames of animation just because he's Korean [note: Playmore is Korean].
Back to playing my KoF97...hoping for a return of SNK's former glory.
So says you.
The best Capcom fighters have play depth that can't be matched. SNK's unique play mechanics never evolved past timed-sequence multi-hit moves, hops, running, hit evasion, and combo interruption (which Capcom eventually incorporated as well), not to mention gimmicks like multiple planes (foreground/background). Meanwhile, Capcom has always (except in obvious exceptions, like the Marvel games) focused on character balance above EVERYTHING else. If, using any character, you can't get past Dhalsim's long limbs or Zangief's throw range or some character's projectiles, that's YOUR fault, not the character designers', because all characters have distinct weaknesses and strengths against all others. That's why Street Fighter competitions abound, while King of Fighters remains a distraction, for the amusement of (mostly) would-be anime fanboys. Hmm, Taco posted this story, eh?
I play these games as well - they can be very fun if you're not stuck in the Capcom mindset. But to call them the best 2D fighting games ever is stretching it. They are neither simple enough for the casual gamer or substantial enough for the technical gamer. But in that middle ground, they are very enjoyable.
The article makes no mention of The Last Blade or its sequel. They're my two favorites from SNK's fighting lineup. Having the ability to reverse an opponent's attack really spices up the gameplay and makes it work like no other game I've played. Also, I didn't notice the Art of Fighting series, either. They're real good games, too. Don't get me wrong, it's still a great article and well worth a read for any SNK fanboy.
Explain. Unless my memory is horribly wrong, Zelda for the NES had a pretty damn good story for an adventure game. Given, it's a pretty standard "slash through the dungeons and rescue the princess", but it was done very well, and was head and shoulders above other games of it's genre. It wasn't an RPG by any stretch of the imagination, so it doesn't have the massive character development or arcing story. Saying Crystalis is better than Zelda is like saying Xenogears is better than Metal Gear Solid. There's just no basis for comparison.
Karma: Contrapositive
Yes, how dare they bring appreciation of a lesser-known company to a wider audience, in the form of an exhaustive and meticulously researched article no less. At this rate the 'hardcore' will have no one left to sneer at!
Preferences > Homepage > Customize stories on homepage > Authors > Zonk > Uncheck