Capcom vs. SNK Pro (PlayStation)

GameSpot editors' review

• CNET editors' rating: 3.0 stars Good
  Detailed editors' rating
  Overall score: 6.7 (3.0 stars)

• Reviewed by:
  Andrew Park
• Reviewed on: 08/16/2002
• Updated on: 05/17/2006
• Released on: 08/14/2002
• Originally published on GameSpot: Capcom vs. SNK Pro (PlayStation) Review

You may already be familiar with the Capcom vs. SNK 2D fighting game series, which was intended to be a dream-match fight between popular characters in Capcom's Street Fighter and SNK's King of Fighters games. Other than a few Marvel vs. Capcom games, it's the only "new" 2D fighting game series that Capcom has released in several years, and even then, the series heavily recycled old game characters and animations. So, you probably wouldn't expect too much from Capcom vs. SNK Pro: Millennium Fight 2000 for the PlayStation, a port of a game that originally appeared on the Dreamcast console two years ago. But it's a surprisingly competent port. Unfortunately, it's a port of a game that most fighting game fans consider to be completely obsolete.

That may sound like harsh criticism, but the fact is, most serious 2D fighting game fans have been playing Capcom vs. SNK 2--a game with an expanded character roster, new background stages, six standard "groove" modes of play, and a six-button attack setup--for the past year or so. While some fans aren't especially happy with Capcom vs. SNK 2, nearly all of them will agree that it's difficult to go back to the original Capcom vs. SNK after playing it. And since Capcom vs. SNK Pro is merely a slightly updated version (with two additional characters, a few new options, and some balance tweaks) of the original game, it's just as hard to go back to. Capcom vs. SNK Pro's two play modes ("Capcom groove" and "SNK groove"), its limited character selection, and its four-button attack setup will seem very limited to anyone who's played any version of Capcom vs. SNK 2.

That said, Capcom vs. SNK Pro reproduces most of the gameplay of the original Dreamcast and arcade versions. Unfortunately, that means it also reproduces some of the same problems. The PlayStation version does in fact play like the original game--the most effective way to defeat your opponents is to unleash devastating combinations of standard and special attacks in sequence. The game's timing has been successfully transferred to the PlayStation version, so if you're familiar with the series, you'll feel right at home with it. Capcom vs. SNK Pro lets you pick a team of characters using a total of four ratio points--medium-strength characters are worth two points, weaker ones are worth one, and the strongest characters in the game fill up an entire team at four points. Unfortunately, the game's character roster isn't very balanced, a fact that will be much more apparent if you've played Capcom vs. SNK 2 and are familiar with the different modes and ratio points you can spend to even out your teams in that game. And unfortunately, Capcom vs. SNK Pro for the PlayStation also reproduces the same stiff, sometimes unresponsive control of the original game. Pulling off some maneuvers on the PlayStation's Dual Shock controller is even more difficult than on the Dreamcast's four-way D pad.

The Capcom vs. SNK Pro series originated in the arcades, though it was brought to the Dreamcast console as a nearly perfect port, thanks to the Dreamcast's ability to handle both 3D graphics and 2D animation. The PlayStation is notoriously poor at handling 2D graphics, but Capcom vs. SNK Pro actually looks pretty good. For instance, the PlayStation version makes hardly any cuts in character animation, something the PlayStation was infamous for with other fighting game ports in the mid to late 1990s. Then again, the original Capcom vs. SNK generally had poor character animation to begin with, since many of the game's character sprites--especially those from the Street Fighter Alpha series--were already several years old. In other words, the characters in the PlayStation game don't look much worse than they did in the Dreamcast version, but they didn't look all that good to begin with.

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