SNK vs Capcom: SVC Chaos

Written by Tom Clare in PS2 Game Reviews, Friday 21 August, 2009

Released: 2005
Developer: SNK Playmore
Publisher: Ignition Entertainment
Genre: 2D Beat 'em up
Platform: PS2

Though I could never claim to have witnessed one, recent history suggests that board meetings concerning the creative direction of SNK Playmore’s new games are probably not all that strenuous. Their beat ‘em ups are testament to a remarkably conservative approach to design, as each builds upon a solid foundation by adding a couple more characters and a new gameplay gimmick into the mix to distinguish it from the previous instalment. The premise for SNK vs Capcom: SVC Chaos however could easily have been devised in a lunch break, and as such holds the dubious honour of sporting perhaps the most tenuous concept for a new video game that we’ll hopefully ever live to see.

The idea being that, after Streetfighter developers Capcom had made the successful franchise-merging 2D beat ‘em up Capcom vs SNK, it occurred to SNK Playmore that they should give their own unique spin on the idea. Although perhaps unique is the wrong word. Once again you have a mish-mash of brawlers from The King of Fighters, Fatal Fury, Streetfighter and a few of the lesser-known franchises pooled together for another slice of one-on-one brawling. The irony here is the games engine is taken from The King of Fighters series, which for so long set about perfecting its craft through a near-exact mimicry of Streetfighter’s gameplay format, and this is so clear that, but for a lack of polish, you could be forgiven for thinking this was another of Capcom’s own fighters.

But whilst it may imitate the core look and playing style of Capcom’s games, SVC Chaos simply doesn’t have a selling point to justify its existence as a standalone game, and presents a host of problems that hamper the player’s enjoyment. For starters, it looks very low grade, predominantly because the developers have stuck with an animated graphics engine that was last upgraded in the late nineties, meaning it is several years behind the times. The protagonists look the same as ever which means good movement with some solid if blocky animation, though the scenery looks positively ancient, and the menus are crummy looking too.

The control system, considering it’s difficult to port adequately on to consoles pads, is usually pretty well dealt with by SNK, but that tends to be because the pace of the game is slower than other fighting games and therefore more suited to D-Pad control. However, SVC Chaos feels some way out of its comfort zone. Its pace is more suited to the brisker Streetfighter style of play, meaning trying to execute SNK characters super-special moves, which require more complex button-combos than their Capcom counterparts, proves nigh-on impossible most of the time. Seemingly to compensate, some of SNK’s roster has been enhanced; Geese is super-powerful and Goenitz proves very annoying to play against, as his whirlwind attacks can pin a player back if used constantly by the A.I.

As a result, the fights are passable but unbalanced, and matters aren’t helped by the overly long health bars and the usual difficulty problems. There are times when you can land three or four super special attacks and still not win the battle; meaning by the end of a fight you’ll have either run out of ideas or your thumbs will be on fire. Even on the lowest of the eight skill settings, the A.I. is well-versed in blocking, timing counterattacks to pixel-perfection and going on the occasional berserk rampage, offering you little chance to adequately defend yourself. The relatively small degree of difference between the highest and lowest settings renders many of the ones in-between as unnecessary.

Still, if you can bare these frailties, there’s a fair bit for fans to play through. The story mode is as ever the main hub of operations and has some merit thanks to the sprinkling of individuality each characters tale presents, as every combination of fighters prompts a different (though in truth rather frivolous) dialogue exchange before each battle. Frustratingly though, to get a characters full ending, you need to defeat the diminutive cloud-dweller Athena; not impossible by any stretch, but the trouble is you only get one shot at her. Fail, and the game finishes on an incomplete ending and thus you’ll have to play through the whole lot again to get another shot at her.

In its defence, SVC Chaos bravely strips away the many unnecessary distractions and complications that have increasingly come to clutter 2D beat ‘em ups – there aren’t multiple complex methods to power up your special-attack bar; you just fight and it grows. There are also no ‘quick shifts’ or ‘dream cancels’ used like those later employed in The King of Fighters XI, notions that, even to relatively experienced players, must seem a touch perplexing. If all else fails, you’ve got the fail-safe two-player mode, which is always good for a few games.

Rather than unlocking characters, there are quite a few that are half-heartedly hidden, in that they are revealed simply by holding R1 over visible characters on the selection screen, uncovering the likes of MegaMan, Violent Ken, and the rather bizarre inclusion of the Mars People from Metal Slug. In total there’s a solid roster of more than thirty individuals. Defeating characters in the survival mode provides another brief distraction as there’s an artwork picture for each brawler you defeat.

Ultimately it’s pretty average. Not terrible, but it’s hard when evaluating SNK vs Capcom: SVC Chaos to avoid to aforementioned problem of it not delivering enough on its own terms to be worth shelling out for. The result of the excessive speed is a ragged beat ‘em up which isn’t really identifiable with its creators, and it ends up playing more like a poor Capcom game than a good SNK one. If you’re itching for a decent SNK beat ‘em up, get one of The King Of Fighters games, as there’s far fewer balance problems and the gameplay feels a bit more at home on console control pads.

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