SNK Fighting games: Forgotten gems or forgettable games?

I’d like to take this time to get something off of my mind that I’ve been thinking about a long time (thanks for that, Stone Cold).  I’m a big fighting game fan.  I’ve been one since watching Street Fighter for the first time in 1988.  It got much more prevalent with every martial arts movie I saw, every television show with fighting, and every side-scrolling brawler I have played.  Since that day, I’ve always had an eye for fighting games.  It wasn’t until after the mid-1990s that I came across another video game company known for its fighting games.  I was first exposed to other fighting game companies around 1994 with the advent of Mortal Kombat.  After which, my family started renting games from Blockbuster Video.  The third game we received was Fatal Fury for the SNES.  I was only used to seeing this game in advertisements, so I wasn’t sure what to make of it.   Upon playing the game, I realized how different it was from Street Fighter II, but how it also kept the same ideas in complex motions, different characters and styles, a tournament, endings, boss characters, and the like.  If there were any differences, it was that the motions for special moves were even more complex than Street Fighter.  Also, the game’s flow was a bit more rigid than that of Street Fighter II.   Still, I found enjoyment in said game, if not for a long time.  This would be the first of the fighting games I was exposed to, and would play, but not the last.

As time passed, I made my way to the local arcade in my neighborhood every weekend.  I first went there on occasion, but now, it became a regular occurrence.  I looked upon the games there, and we had the regular stuff like Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter, and new things like Darkstalkers and X-men: Children of the Atom, but as I read up on more arcade games in magazines, I saw that there were no SNK games in my arcade.  I heard about Samurai Shodown, Fatal Fury’s sequels, and even The King of Fighters 1994, which definitely piqued my interest.  But, sadly, no machines were there.  It wasn’t until a few years later that I finally saw a Neo Geo MVS machine with actual fighting games in them.  The first MVS I saw and played had Baseball Stars, Magician Lord, and even King of the Monsters.  This time, I got to see Street Slam, World Heroes 2, Samurai Shodown, and Samurai Shodown 2.  All right, finally.  Now, we can see some sweet SNK games.  This machine lasted for a good amount of time, swapping in games like Samurai Shodown 3 and Art of Fighting 2.  There was still no King of Fighters, but I managed.  These would be the last games I would see as the machine was removed and more Capcom games were placed in.  Now, there are more than enough reasons as to why this would happen.  The machine was wrought with issues.  The machine wasn’t getting many quarters put into it.  There were more appealing games coming out.  Whatever the case may be, that would be the last I’d see of SNK in arcade form until college, where I’d see an MVS machine with Metal Slug, Metal Slug 2, Metal Slug X, and a flying game.  Another machine came into play with King of Fighters 1997, but that didn’t last long either.   Unfortunately, around this time, SNK had suffered severe restructuring as the parent company owners wanted to move onto pachinko machines.  The developers would then move on to other companies, specifically Capcom, until SNK resurfaced under the SNK-Playmore name.  Financial problems ensued, but they managed, but alas, that’s another story, along with its legacy to this point.  The story today deals with SNK fighting games in general.  I find it odd that most SNK fighting games are not touched or used as much in arcades.  Is there a connection to such neglect?  Is it fair?  Yes and no, not really.  But that’s the video game business.  Not every fighting game is going to appeal to you.  However, when dealing with SNK, the games in question can be pretty appealing.  I know I’ve probably used this as a reference in conversations with friends and family, but I keep referring back to Screwattack’s top 10 fighting games of all time.  This list was made back in 2006 around the advent of several new systems.  Their method was this: choose one game per franchise, place it on the list, and order them from least great to greatest.  This was done to avoid doubles and to show a fighting game series’ peak or continued growth.  The series that were tallied up include Guilty Gear, Dead or Alive, Soul Edge/Calibur, Tekken, Virtua Fighter, Killer Instinct, Super Smash Brothers, Mortal Kombat, Capcom’s versus series, and Street Fighter.  Now, this sounds pretty solid, and of course, all lists are subject to opinion.  However, if you want to place some fact in the choices made, I can think of at most two series that could have been removed for two SNK series.  To me, I’d put in something from King of Fighters or Samurai Shodown for series needed to be counted.  The problem, unfortunately, is that for everything that can be accounted for when talking of these series and other SNK games, there’s some good, and some bad.  It’s a mixed bag of things as it seems.

Let’s take a look at game mechanics.  The mechanics of an SNK game are alike to that of any Capcom fighting game, with various motions to pull off special and super moves, a round system, and varying degrees of punches and kicks.  However, when you get into specifics, the games are very much different.  SNK was the first to add movements like dashing, sidesteps, and rolling into fighting games.  This was to improve on the tactical side of fights.  I should point out that the creator behind Street Fighter left Capcom to create Fatal Fury for SNK while a new team came in for Street Fighter II.  The original creator, Takashi Nishiyama, saw Fatal Fury as a spiritual successor to Street Fighter.  He developed Fatal Fury around the same time as Street Fighter II was being made.  Fatal Fury focused more on timing moves and storytelling while SFII focused more on combos.  This mindset would be the template of how most of; if not all SNK fighting games would be based.  You’d see a lot let multi-hit combos and a lot more well-timed special and super moves, which at times, were combos themselves.  There wasn’t anything generally wrong with the approach as it did give the games a more strategic, more cerebral feel like in a real battle.  However, these mechanics, albeit unique, could be seen as the game’s biggest crutch.  In an attempt to make the games more realistic, the mechanics do not lend themselves to the game’s flow.  To do super moves, the motions are very complex.   Collision detection seems to be a bit of an issue as well.  The hit boxes (areas where a strike is to connect) can be a bit tough to predict.  Also, you have to have pinpoint accuracy when rolling or sidestepping to dodge things.  Meanwhile, Capcom only relies on simple controls to do special moves and super moves are usually done with a simple motion done twice.   In fact, if you’re good enough, you can mask these motions during other moves.  You can roll but as a means to safely fall to the ground, mostly.  Also, instead of sidesteps, Capcom has included the ability to counter moves while blocking, like advancing forward to reduce block stun, parrying, or even countering with a special move.  One would say that while SNK tried to keep things as real as possible within the means of fantasy, Capcom decided to add to the fantasy while removing more realism. 

While on the subject of mechanics, let’s take a look at the game’s balance.  When it comes to a fighting game, this is one of the toughest things to achieve when you are a developer.   When you play enough of a fighting game, you can see the differences in the characters right down to the last pixel.  You can even see the very specific design flaws that were not fixed upon final completion of the game.  When it comes to character design, there will more than likely be one or more characters that have better advantages and abilities than others, to the point of being virtually unstoppable.  Guile was grossly overpowered in SF II, Zangief could out-grab anyone, and Ryu and Ken were the stars of the game that stood as some of the toughest challenges on Arcade mode.  Then, there were the boss characters.  Because they were labeled “The Grand Masters”, they had all types of balance issues, overpowered and a struggle to overcome.  They also couldn’t be chosen.  Once Capcom saw this, they made another version of SFII called SFII: Champion Edition, where the bosses could be chosen in battle.  Also, people could choose the same person as their opponent which was initially a balance issue as well.  Once you saw your best character chosen by someone else, you had to concede and choose someone else that you were or weren’t good with.  This was a problem Capcom fixed and has remained the gaming standard to this day.  Lastly, the characters’ power levels, moves, priorities, etc. were tweaked to make them all playable and fair in combat.  Guile was severely toned down, Zangief was as well, and Ryu and Ken were changed so Ryu was more defensive with reserved strength and Ken was more offensive with all-out strength.  To this day, Capcom takes its time to either correct the game’s balance or make sure it is balanced before and/or after the game is released.   Sadly, SNK still has yet to receive the memo.

SNK games are still grossly unbalanced.  Certain stars are still overpowered, especially the star characters.  Oh, and the bosses are much overpowered, as they should be.  However, they can be too strong to the point where it’s virtually impossible to beat them.  At times, SNK has taken cues from Capcom by re-releasing certain games with better balance, more characters, and other gameplay tweaks.  However, this has occurred either too little too late or not at all.  The first King of Fighters game is an example of a game that needed better balance.  If you didn’t have Team Mexico, Japan, or Italy, you had your work cut out for you.  At times, I found myself being repetitive or “cheesy”, as it is known, in order to win matches.  The game was finally balanced for the first time, about 5 or so years ago.  By then, the game was no longer in arcades, the original version was already released for certain compilations, and gamers were just about uninterested in older games.  Meanwhile, Samurai Shodown has always been a subject for criticism when it comes to the games in their series along the lines of balance.  Samurai Shodown 3 may have done the most damage along these lines.

Now that we’ve covered mechanics and balance, let’s try to place them together and cover another aspect of SNK games that leave us a bit peeved: difficulty.  What makes a fighting game challenging is the level of difficulty each fighter has as you try to beat every pre-determined character before beating the boss or bosses and finishing the game.  The characters get gradually more challenging the further you go on in the game.  This level of difficulty can be tweaked through the option modes per game, but let’s not consider that for now.  On normal difficulty, certain characters will be easier than others, either based on their position in the rankings or with what priorities and skills they have.  Considering game balance and the mechanics, this can make certain battles a little more challenging than most, but not impossible.  I have gained the notion that people find SNK games to be more challenging than necessary.  If doing the moves are challenging, and certain characters seem unbeatable, and both of these aspects are thrown together in synergy, expect a lot of lost quarters and continues, even if you do know what you are doing.  This is one such problem when it comes to boss battles in SNK games.  Oftentimes, a boss will have a move that it 90% impossible to avoid or defend against.  If blocking doesn’t work, try to sidestep or roll, right?  That works, if the timing was on point, and detection of collision were on point.  But they aren’t.  But, to be fair, this can be heard as a common complaint from either someone who doesn’t play enough SNK games or plays too many Capcom games thinking that they are all the same.  However, if this seems to be the case, the gamer will more than often be turned off by the game in question. 

With all of these negatives abound, you’d be hard pressed to say that these games are worth the trouble.  In truth, it all lies on the tastes and interests of the gamers themselves.  Sadly, these games may skew very far from those aforementioned tastes.  However, that isn’t to say that these games are generally unplayable or forgettable games.  If you look into the E.V.O. fighting game tournament each year, you see a slew of games that are played competitively.  Of the games chosen, they are mostly newer games.  If any older games are played, it is most likely that SNK fighting games may make their way into the pickings.  Regularly, older games are played specifically for money at this tournament, away from the main bracketing.  Over the years as I have followed the tournament, I have seen a fair share of SNK games make it into the main bracketing.  They were mostly new, but it was great to see these games showcased.  When I regularly catch tourney footage in Japan and elsewhere, various King of Fighters games are recorded, along with The Last Blade 2 and Garou: Mark of the Wolves.  I still have yet to see the return of Samurai Shodown or its games, but a man can dream.  So, it’s easy to see that even though there are a lot of things at fault for games such as these, they are still very appealing, playable, and enjoyable to watch. 

So, in the grand scheme of things, where do SNK and its vast fighting game libraries lie?  To me, they are gems, not quite forgotten but not the utmost well received.  You would really have to have a taste for fighting games to enjoy these, if not a distinct interest in SNK fighters, because this seems like an acquired taste.  I do know that these are mostly seen played in Japan, but that’s not to say that Americans won’t play it.  You just need to know where to look, really.  Perhaps this is what keeps games like these off of lists of excellence.  Still, an honorable mention would be nice.  So, to all my fighting game enthusiasts out there, make the move to play some SNK fighting games.  Go retro and get some game compilations if you have the means.  If you do have some of the better fighting games, dust off that system you own the game for, and pop them in.  Variety is the spice of life, and sometimes it’s a means to ignite a new found love or return to SNK.  Now, if you excuse me, I have a grand total of 11 fighting games, within 2 series to finish off.  Does anyone know of a faster way to….play with every character and get all their endings?  Yea, I didn’t think so.  Worth a shot, I guess.