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What SNK-developed game represents them at their peak?

GrayFoxPL

GrayFoxPL

Member
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L

Loona

Member
kaydigi said:
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Better than the console efforts
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This guy gets it - Svc MotM not only was a love letter to the body of work of both companies, the amount of content in it still puts modern games to shame: Olympic mode, the ability to have matchups between single characters, 2-character tag teams and 3-character teams, the choice of 3 "grooves", mini-games, unlockables, lots of character-specific dialog...

Fittingly, it was developed by Dimps, Takashi Nishiyama's company, which was fitting since the gave birth to both Street Fighter and Fatal Fury at the respective companies.


For pure SNK it's a pretty tough choice, but I'd have to go with Last Blade 2 - beatiful both in visuals, audio and narrative and environmental tone, the masterwork of artists at their peak, and provides closure to its own narrative to boot, something Garou did not, so it edges ahead for me.

Notable mentions go to Art of Fighting 2, Samurai Shodown 2, Metal Slug 3 and Garou.

It's tempting to mention KoF, but in the NeoGeo days when the aesthetics were top-notch the gameplay usually wasn't and vice-versa - in that series' case I'd argue they got better by the time they were working on the likes of XIII, which was not only beautiful, but also tournament-worthy (multiple EVOs), and delivered a satisfying conclusion to the narrative it built up during the previous games.
 
V

Vinegar Joe

Member
kaydigi said:
tumblr_nv5admEM0X1r7sijxo1_500.gif


Better than the console efforts
Click to expand...
Man, this really makes me want to get my NGPC out. It was such a well designed, feature rich game I honestly don't think there's been a better handheld fighting game since.

And it really needs to be played on the original hardware; that stick is perfection for games like this.
 
M

mollipen

Member
So many fantastic NeoGeo games—KOF'98, Last Blade 2, Metal Slug 3, and Shock Troopers as some of my favorites—but nothing will ever compare to Samurai Shodown II. One of the most robust and developed fighting games of that era, the game that cemented SNK as Capcom's rival for many years, and 100x more playable when going back to it than Street Fighter 2 for me.

I don't know if there will ever be a 2D fighter that I'll love as much as SamSho II. It was the reason I got my AES and the only reason I'll ever need to keep it.
 
F

fronn

Member
This year has been incredibly expensive for me because of SNK. I bought an Omega and about 38 mvs carts. Whoops. At least it gets use on a weekly basis.

My favorite SNK games:

- Last Blade 1/2 (both are fantastic really; I find 2 to be more fun with friends and 1 to be a bit more fun single player)
- Real Bout FF Special (I think this one is a lot more fun than RB2 in just about every way and it's one of my favorite 240p fighting games of all time because it's still so utterly satisfying to play with people who aren't highly skilled in fighting games)
- Garou (still tons of fun and pretty much every character is fun)
- Metal Slug 3 (probably the peak of the series and has a good variety of fantastic art - this series is really incredible art wise)
- Neo Turf Masters (the art is pretty great and it's really consumable in the same way HotShots golf is)

KoF series is actually the least interesting of the fighting games on the system, I think. Though, I still quite like the series (KoF13 and 14 get regular play in my house), I just find the other fighting games on the NeoGeo more compelling to play today than the KoF games. With that said, I'd immediately buy KoF 98UM and 2002UM if they appeared on PS4.

I never personally found SamSho games all that compelling - I have 1-4 on carts... I need to actually give SamSho 2 some time I think, because I must be missing something
 
S

Skunkers

Member
Add me to the SNK vs Capcom Match of the Millenium list. Because this game was on the NGPC it forever goes as one of the most criminally overlooked games of all time. It is an utter masterpiece and love letter to the best eras in SNK and Capcom history. In addition to all the modes and features (of which there are indeed a ton), the best thing about this is the *feel* of the fighting system; compared to CvS1/2 and SvC Chaos, THIS is the game that nails the mechanical feel of both company's games: It feels like KOF98vSFA3. There's also a sense that SNK buffed the Capcom characters to give them the very best versions of their special move set to compensate for the fact that SF traditionally has more normals and fewer specials than SNK games; this was a crucial step missing in all the other CvS/SvC crossover games. They also buffed the characters further, Ryu has is best ever version of Shin-Shoryuken Capcom seemed to have really weak versions of most of the SNK cast (missing moves, totally altered playstyles (like Ryo) missing things like autoguard etc), and the Playmore effort SvC Chaos didn't do it well either. Neither series did it nearly as well as in MOTM. In addition there's all the other things that make MOTM great, the modes, the mini games, the unlockable characters and lvl3 supers, the hidden bosses, etc. The fact it was all pulled off on the NGPC is legitimately incredible.

Other than that, probably KOF98 or Garou. Last Blade 2 is incredible, but I dock a few points for it losing a bit of atmosphere from the first game. All are incredible though, it's like having to pick a favorite child.
 
L

Lyte Edge

All I got for the Vernal Equinox was this stupid tag
Classic SNK hit its peak in 1994. There were other games, but Samurai Shodown II is all that needs to be said.

Golden age era SNk is 1998. KOF '98. Real Bout 2. The Last Blade. Holy shit! I spent this year playing more Neo-Geo games than I did PS1 and Saturn games, lol.

Not to say that we didn't get awesome games after this time, either. They did in one game with Garou what it took Capcom three tries to get right. But as much as I like Garou, I still prefer Real Bout.
 
V

Vinnk

Member
Last Blade 2 and Metal Slug 3 are them at their peak, but by that time they were already on the way out of the arcade scene.

I think they their popularity was peaking at Samurai Spirits 2 and KOF 94.
 
S

ScOULaris

Member
maks said:
My heart is with samsho2 though. I played it at its highest level at the time of release. At my local arcade we seem to have had the strongest collection of US players, ive witnessed every character pull off huge win streaks when we were balance testing the game. I can see balance complaints at the low to mid end of competitive play. Its very tough to overcome some matchups but at the highest levels everyone can be dealt with. There's video of a somewhat recent japan tournament that showed great character diversity.
Click to expand...
Mind sharing a link of that tournament footage?
 
K

Karsha

Member
Garou is the pinnacle of fighting games, no other game topped it IMHO, from the balance, to the characters difference, to the stages, the soundtrack. Everything was perfect, damn it had even a nice plot. The only "weak" point was the number of the characters, which just hurts you the more since Garou 2 was supposed to have double if i recall.

Last blade1/2 are a close second, now a lot of people mention only 2 but 1 is actually a bit better in the gameplay and balance, even if it lacks the characters.

Also the first 3 metal slugs are the best showdown of pixel art, the details in them are mindblowing even for today's standards.
 
A

Augemitbutter

Member
fatal fury special, samurai shodown 2, kof 98, art of fighting 3, metal slug, garou. i played them all like a madman. probably the only other dev that could make other people speechless back then beside sega. i've witnessed it several times.
 
Nostalgic Nightmare

Nostalgic Nightmare

Member
Some interesting choices in here, always love an SNK thread.

I really can't decide what was the peak because they have so many good entries but some of my favorites:

Fighters
Samsho 1-4
Last blade 1/2
KOF 94,98,2002
Fatal Fury Special/Real Bout Special
Art of Fighting 1/2

Shooters
Last Resort
Alpha Mission ASOII

Run N Gun
Nam 1975
Metal Slug 1/2/X/3


Beat em Ups
Sengoku 1/2
Robo Army
Mutation Nation
Burning Fight

Sports
Baseball Stars 1/2
Street Hoop
3 Count Bout

Puzzle
Puzzle Bobble/Bust a Move 1/2
Zupapa

And thats just SNK developed stuff, there are a bunch of others if you open up the other devs.
 
C

Choppasmith

Member
kunonabi said:
Still my favorite FF game even if I recognize Garou and RBFF2 as the better entries.
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Seconded. I only got around to playing RBS for the first time just under a decade ago and I was totally enthralled by it. As someone who's more of a casual fighting game fan, I feel like the mechanics just clicked with me more than Garou. Add that to the INCREDIBLE presentation (that final intro to Krauser gives me chills) and you've got one hell of a game. I know RB2 is "better" but it just doesn't deliver the whole package like RBS does.
 
petran79

petran79

Banned
First SNK games I played were back in the arcades with Ikari Warriors and Street Smart. Very impressive and fun games.

Super Sidekicks 1 is the best and most enjoyable soccer game I played.

World Heroes 2 and Samurai Shodown 1 were much better than SF2.

I'd say their creativity peaked with Metal Slug 1. From then on they polished existing formulas.
 
T

The Lone Dragon

Member
Garou, KOF 97, Sam Sho 4, Real Bout Special.

WaterAstro said:
98 has no story. I prefer 97.
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Yeah, 97 is the storyline peak of KOF. 98 gameplay was better, but overall presentation-wsie, 97 it is.

Manbig said:
Third Strike definitely does not represent Capcom at its peak with fighting games OP.

The SF3 series was actually a huge step down from earlier for them in terms of popularity.
I would honestly just give it to the SF2 series as a whole for Capcom.
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Absolutely not.

SF3 might be the pinnacle of the entire GENRE, if were talking pure artistry, music, innovation, risk, AND playability. 'Popularity' isn't really a good gauge because it doesn't take the circumstances of release into account. Lots of great products can be hidden due to bad circumstances, marketing, and/or luck. That doesn't make the product any less amazing.
 
SkylineRKR

SkylineRKR

Member
Somewhere in 2005 or so, I picked up a NGPC with MotM and I played it all summer. Its brilliant.

As for the peak of SNK, its the late 90's. Last Blade 2, KOF 98, RB2, Metal Slug 2. Completely excellent.

Neo Turf Masters, the best Golf game I have played. Garou was with Third Strike my fave 2D fighter of all time. I owned Garou on AES (US cart!), sold it for huge profit once. I bought it on PS4 this week, conjured a Break cancel up, still got it.

I also love SNK from the days they were ahead, the 16-bit era. SamSho and FF Special ran circles around the SNES and MD.
 
ienjoyrawfish

ienjoyrawfish

Member
The Lone Dragon said:
Absolutely not.

SF3 might be the pinnacle of the entire GENRE, if were talking pure artistry, music, innovation, risk, AND playability. 'Popularity' isn't really a good gauge because it doesn't take the circumstances of release into account. Lots of great products can be hidden due to bad circumstances, marketing, and/or luck. That doesn't make the product any less amazing.
Click to expand...

Street Fighter Alpha 2 will likely always be the pinnacle of Capcom fighters for me, but I feel like I'm in quite a small minority.

It has that classic Street Fighter 'feel' to it that both SFA3 and SF3 (as much as I love them) lack, but also has more refined gameplay, sound and presentation than the SF2 series.
 
C

Celine

Member
Last Resort, Samurai Shodown 2, Art of Fighting 3, Last Blade, Garou, Metal Slug 3.

ienjoyrawfish said:
Street Fighter Alpha 2 will likely always be the pinnacle of Capcom fighters for me, but I feel like I'm in quite a small minority.

It has that classic Street Fighter 'feel' to it that both SFA3 and SF3 (as much as I love them) lack, but also has more refined gameplay, sound and presentation than the SF2 series.
Click to expand...
My man.
 
eso76

eso76

Member
Ikari Warriors

Yes, I'm that old school

(Time Soldiers actually)

Not a huge fan of fighting games and while I loved sf2.. I also hate its huge popularity for condemning neogeo's library to being 90% fighting games.
That machine could have given us so much more.
 
M

meppi

Member
ienjoyrawfish said:
Street Fighter Alpha 2 will likely always be the pinnacle of Capcom fighters for me, but I feel like I'm in quite a small minority.

It has that classic Street Fighter 'feel' to it that both SFA3 and SF3 (as much as I love them) lack, but also has more refined gameplay, sound and presentation than the SF2 series.
Click to expand...

You might be in the minority, but you're also completely right. ;)

The only other Capcom game that for me personally came close was Capcom vs SNK 1.
Even Capcom vs SNK 2 didn't have that certain feel even though everything was bigger and "better".
 
cireza

cireza

Member
My KOF vote would go to 2K or the fantastic 99 Dreamcast port (Evolution).

I don't like 98. I prefer 97 over it.

Real Bout Special is my favorite Garou (but I need to play RB2).
 
C

CadetMahoney

Member
kunonabi said:
Maybe the presentation but the gameplay in 2k2 is arguably better than 98. 2k2 is easily one of the best fighters ever made.
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It's also been far more popular than all other games, including all the capcom ones on GGPO/Fightcade for quite a few years, even before GGPO turned into Fightcade. About 5 years back it was KOF98 at the top most of the time then 2002 took 1st place. The hardcore players all know what's up. At this point in time there is nothing left but the gameplay for these games and 98 nostalgia can only go so far even though it's not far behind
 
D

Dremark

Banned
I would say Mark if the Wolves stands out as thier strongest game. They certainly had a lot of strong output though.
 
M

manzoman96

Member
Not their visual peak but I can say out of all the games from the neo geo humble bundle, my two most played are baseball stars 2 and neo turf masters. Top tier sports arcade games.
 
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