By James Chen
May 18, 2001 | Six buttons. SIX BUTTONS!!!!! Do I need say anymore? I felt like I just grew back an arm that I had lost. It was SO refreshing to do Cammy's Crouching Forward at Offensive Crouch and to poke with Zangief's Standing Forward. And the SNK characters all had new Normal Moves now. Man, I was in heaven!
After playing Capcom Vs. SNK 2, I've come to realize what a hack job Capcom Vs. SNK 1 was. Seriously, it feels like in CvS1, they implemented a lot of ideas, took them ALL out, and saved them for CvS2. Because CvS2, in this beta, playable version at the E3, was better than CvS1 already. And everyone knows I am a fan of the first CvS.
There just seems so much MORE to the game... The level of depth seems to have increased drastically just from a few changes here and there. It's really hard to explain, but once you see it, you'll start to realize how "barren" CvS1 is.
For example: the Groove selection. Although it was apparent that the finished version will have 6 total Grooves to choose from, only two were playable: C-Groove (what was known as Capcom Groove) and S-Groove (what was known as SNK Groove). The four other options are named A-Groove and P-Groove, N-Groove and K-Groove, so that's three Capcom grooves (C, A, P), and 3 SNK grooves (S, N, K).
The Grooves actually have major differences between them now. And they SHOW you the features available to the Groove as you shuffle through your options. Capcom Groove, for example, has five features: Dash, Air Guard, Counter Attack, Rolling, and Tactical Recovery. Yes, and you ARE interpreting that correctly: Air Blocking and Alpha Counters have made a comeback. You can Air Block in very much the same fashion as in the Alpha. And Alpha Counters drain a chunk off of your Guard Meter and use up a Level of your Super Meter and are performed by hitting Towards and Strong + Forward at the same time during block stun (and doesn't that just sound SO beautiful??? Hitting STRONG and FORWARD!!! Six buttons!!!). Rolls have been highly weakened, now being fully susceptible to Sweeps. And Tactical Recovery is just the fancy name for Delayed Get-up, which was available in CvS1. And above all else, of course, C-Groove has the three leveled Super meter (and the different levels are done like Alpha 3... No more need for hitting two buttons at once for a Level 3... YAY!!!!).
SNK Groove has the following features: Dash, Small Jump, Dodge, and Tactical Recovery. Yup. This resembles "Extra Mode" of KOF more, now, than anything. You have the Dodging ability and it's seems pretty potent; you recover from it pretty quickly. I saw Jason Cole Dodge and come out with Balrog's (Boxer) Level 1 charge super and catch a LOT of people by surprise. But, to my knowledge, you cannot attack out of the dodge like in KOF98. Low Jumping, from the KOF series, is also available to your characters. This is done the exact same way as in the KOF games: tap up instead of hold up. Your character will then do a jump, but VERY low to the ground. And Dash, available in both Grooves, is just your standard Dash. But the fact that they list it makes you think that run has GOT to be an option for another Groove. (Editor's note: It is confirmed that Running is a feature in A-groove, one of the Capcom grooves)
The Ratio system has been tweaked. You are now allowed to have any character be any Ratio, it's not predefined like in CvS1 (so now you can have teams like Rugal, Geese, and Yamazaki!!!). However, there are a few changes: 1) Order is now fixed. Whomever you pick first, goes first. And it stays that way forever. 3) You can choose between having 1, 2, or 3 characters, but 4 characters on a team is NO LONGER an option (no more of the 8 hour 4 Ratio 1's vs. 4 Ratio 1's match-ups!!). Basically, once you pick your first character, you're given a choice between selecting another character, or just sticking with the one character. If you choose to pick another character, you will be presented with an option of picking a THIRD character or sticking with two, after selecting your second character. Once you decide how many people will be on your team, you then scroll through the team options you have available to you... For example, if you have three characters, the three team options you have are just one of the three characters as a Ratio 2, and the others as Ratio 1. Once picked, this cannot be changed, like the order.
Moves seem to be a bit slower than before... Or recover slower, anyhow. Whatever the case was, the game doesn't seem to be as full of Links like CvS1 was. I didn't see anyone ever do Crouching Short x 3 into Crouch Roundhouse, for example. I'll have to experiment with this more
A new meter has been added: the Guard Meter. It's just like Alpha 3, only it doesn't shrink when broken. And it drains pretty quickly... An S-Groove Balrog doing repeated Level 1 Rushes at you can do some hefty damage to the Guard Meter.
Reversals are indicated by messages on the screen again, rather than having your character flash white. Juggling is altered... some for the better, some for the worse it seems, depending on character. I saw someone try Ken's Jab DP into Level 1 ShoRyuReppa combo that was so useful in CvS... and the ShoRyuReppa missed entirely! Maybe it was timed incorrectly, I'm not sure. But on the other hand, I saw Honda's Headbutt super actually Juggle, whereas in CvS, it could not. And then, Haohmaru has an uppercut super (think of this multi-uppercut special move from Samurai Shodown II) which has NO ability to Juggle. So I can't say Juggling has become more restrictive, because in some cases, it hasn't.
What about aesthetics? Well, the backgrounds in the game are NICE. They are done more like the MvC2 backgrounds. Everything is polygonal, and has a LOT of detail. One background, for example, takes place in some desert, it looks like. Spectators are there to watch some off road truck racing. And occasionally, trucks will drive from the background, hit a hill in the sand dunes, and fly over the fighters' heads. Another background has the two fighters competing on a rotating platform, and in the background, people in the stands cheer on the fighters. Another background seems to take place on a rooftop, and a GIANT balloon of E.Honda faces a GIANT balloon of Haohmaru. Another background takes place on a street in Britain, and occasionally, a big red, double-decker bus drives by. All of the backgrounds have a GREAT deal of attention given to them. They really do look VERY nice.
And there are a lot of cameos... The sand dunes have Fokker from Power Stone and Leona from KOF as some of the spectators. The British street has Billy Kane, Rose, Dudley, and his butler there (none of them are paying attention to the fight, it seems... ^_^). The rotating platform stage has Xiang Fei (I think it's her... looks a lot like Chun Li) from Fatal Fury, Hsien-Ko from Darkstalkers, and June from Star Gladiator. There were more, I just can't remember them all right now.
The whole game sports a more dynamic look. Everything about the game just looks nicer. It's much more pleasing to the eye compared to CvS1.
Interestingly, NO mention of CvS Pro could be found anywhere. And suspiciously, the marquee used for the CvS2 machines had pictures of Dan and Joe Higashi on it, with the CvS2 logo. Yet they were NOT playable in this demo version. Don't quote me on this, but it almost seems like Capcom may just bypass CvS Pro altogether in favor of CvS2. I certainly wouldn't mind that, to be honest. CvS2 looks so nice, I can hardly wait for it's release already.
So overall, this game looks VERY nice so far. I am very much excited by what I saw so far. The only way this game can be ruined, at this point, is if the other Grooves added in turn out to be over-dominating or broken... Or if the game remains at the speed it had in this beta version. But otherwise, the game looks promising so far... And I'm greatly excited to see the finished product.
Oh, and did I mention... there are SIX BUTTONS?!?
Six new characters debuted in this game: Yun, from the Street Fighter Three series, Kyosuke from the Rival Schools series, Maki from Final Fight 2 for SNES, Athena from the KOF series, Todo from the Art of Fighting series, and Haohmaru from the Samurai Shodown series. However, the select screen also had 8 additional "shadowed" character heads. It's not very apparent from these silhouettes who the characters may be, but a good guess is that two of them are Dan and Joe. So judging from the select screen, it seems like a total of 45 characters are selectable... I can't confirm, from what I saw, whether or not the characters rumored to be there are true or not. And so far, all the drawings of the characters were done by SNK's artist.
Here are some interesting things about the new characters. I'm only going to give a slight summary. If I learn more, I'll definitely write some more updates.
Yun
Yun seems like... well, Yun. He's got all his standard moves from Third Strike. And a lot of his old tricks still seem to be there. The Dive Kick is still available for him. His Standing Forward is still the kick that goes straight up... and it's still cancelable into a Super Jump for a Juggle. He still has the
Maki:
Maki is a female version of Guy... She seems to come from the same style of fighting that Guy does, except she also carries a couple of fighting sticks. Her moves are somewhat similar. If you do Fireball + Roundhouse, she runs forward. Hit a Kick button again, and she does a quick hop which acts like an overhead (it's fast and goes over a lot of moves, too!). Fireball + Forward, then hitting Kick, makes her do a slide. And, obviously, Fireball + Short, then hitting Kick, makes her just run and stop. Interestingly enough, however, if either the Overhead or the Slide connect, she will automatically go into a "Throw" animation and grab the enemy and slam him/her to the floor. Reverse Fireball + Kick makes her run as well... backwards! If you make her Run backwards With Roundhouse or Forward, and hit Kick again, she'll either Super Jump forward or Backwards... how this is controlled isn't really known to me yet. Yoga Flame + Punch makes her just do a Hook Punch. It seems like it's mostly useful in combos, but I wasn't able to find a good place to use it yet. According the little movelist given for her, she also has Reverse Fireball + Punch and Kick! I don't know what this does, but I am guessing maybe something that looks like her "escape" move from Final Fight. Her Supers include Fireball x 2 + Punch, which makes her do a standard forward moving multi-hit Super. According to the movelist, she also has 720 + Punch, though I did not get a chance to try it out and see what it did.
Kyosuke:
Kyosuke is a faithful replication of his Rival Schools character. His Crouching Roundhouse reaches AMAZINGLY far... That seems like it'll be his main attacking method. Fireball + Punch makes him throw the "double wave" fireball, with one fireball waving slightly up and another one waving slightly down, then the two curving back together to attack the enemy at the same level (just like his Fireball in Rival Schools). Interestingly, one of the two fireballs is all that is needed to stop a fireball... I played against a Sagat, and when he threw a Tiger Shot and I threw Kyosuke's fireball, the Tiger Shot was stopped by the upwards arching shot, but the downward arcing one kept on going! DP + Punch causes Kyosuke to create a small column of electricity in front of him. It seemed to act like an uppercut of sorts. DP + Kick made him doa Razor Kick like move, but it's priority and anti-air / wake-up capabilities seemed virtualyl non-existent. Fireball + Punch in the air, made him bounce slightly up from where he is, shooting a small wave in front of him. Fireball x 2 + Punch made him shoot a standard super version of his fireball. Fireball x 2 + Kick makes him do a Razor Kick super that ends in the air with the same move as his Fireball + Punch in the air. I didn't see anything else he had...
Athena:
I didn't play her at all, and barely saw her. But from what I've heard, she seems like the new character to pick. It sounded like her Fireball was very fast and that her Special Throw was really good. I didn't see her personally, so I can't really comment much on her. But she did have her Fireball, Uppercut, and Teleport dash, that's for sure. But other than that, I can't really say much.
Haohmaru:
Think Bishamon. He's got nice range with his swords, and most people who played him just poked with those a lot. I barely saw any Special Moves, except for his DP + Punch... which seemed to work EXCELLENTLY as anti-air. A lot of people played him, but it really just looked like Rolento: Part II. His Standing Jab is an excellent poke, and does a decent amount of draining to the Guard Meter. He has the Tornado fireball move, done by Fireball + Punch. DP + Punch does his uppercut. He also has a Rever Fireball + Punch, but I don't know what it did. He has the Uppercut Super (which was just the multi-hitting uppercut from Samurai Shodown II done with the Offensive Crouch, Yoga Flame, Backwards DP + B and C move), but it's done with just Fireball x 2 + Punch. He also has a Backwards Yoga Flame, Towards + Punch, which I never saw. But I can only imagine it's his super from Samurai Shodown II.
Todo:
NO ONE PLAYED HIM. I didn't seem him once!! So I know nothing about him. ^_^ However, according to the movelist, he has a Fireball + Punch, DP + Punch, Fireball + Punch in the air, and a Backwards Yoga Flame + Punch special moves. For Supers, he has a Fireball x 2 + Punch, and a backwards Yoga Flame + Punch. But what ANY of this does is beyond me...
And now, here are some notable changes to the characters who already existed: Oh, and it's worthy to note that Evil Ryu and Blood Riot Iori were nowhere to be found.
Ryu:
No noticeable changes... I didn't see how much damage his Shin ShoRyuKen did. I'm curious to see if they toned it down, some...
Ken:
As I said, it looked as if his ShoRyuReppa super has lost some Juggle ability. If so, even Crouch Roundhouse into Super may not even combo anymore! I did see that Ken's Stand Fierce looked like his Street Fighter Three punch now, though...
Chun Li:
I didn't see her personally, but she has been changed into Third Strike Chun Li!!! She has the look and normal moves of that Chun Li now. I'd like to see that for myself, and when I do, I'll update this with more info.
Guile:
Guile has the Sonic Hurricane now. A bug seemed to exist, though, that if Guile is hit out of the Super, the Hurricane stays there! So someone hit Guile, but the Hurricane kept going, and connected for every hit! I have no idea how to do that super, though. Also, I heard Guile was toned down. They said the recovery of his Level 1 Punch super was increased a bit. But otherwise, I am not sure why people said he was toned down, and from what I saw, he looked similar to before.
Zangief:
The main thing to note: Zangief now taunts after ALL THREE of his SPD moves (Punch SPD, Kick SPD close, Kick SPD far) so that he recovers, a screen away, at the same time the enemy does. VERY lame, IMO...
Honda:
They didn't seem to tone him down much at all. I heard from someone that his Body Splash special move has longer delay, but that was not evident to me at all. He seemed like the same as before, except his Super Juggles now.
Balrog:
Seemed like the same ol' Balrog, though he's based on the Super Turbo version (with the Low-hitting Charge). Also, I think I saw that his Level 3 super (the Gigaton Blow, I think it was called), Juggled, whreas in CvS1, it didn't.
Morrigan:
You cannot do Chains after doing more than one Crouching Short, now. If you do Crouching Short x 2 or 3, you are no longer allowed to chain it into anything. However, 1 Crouching Short let you chain in the same fashion she was able to in the Darkstalker games.
Cammy:
Cammy has the Reverse Shaft Breaker and the Cannon Strike added to her full arsenal. And the Cannon Strike, down with a Reverse Fireball + Kick in the air, does not bounce off of people!!! It just lands, and recovers at the same time as the opponent, even if blocked! So you can easily Cannon Spike any retaliatory moves. Oh, and most importantly, my patented Cammy Combo still works, so I'm happy. ^_^
Dhalsim:
He can't Buffer Crouching Fierce anymore (the close-up one). But other than that, I didn't notice anything. Didn't see much of 'Sim.
Bison:
They opted for Psycho Crusher Bison rather than the strange "slap happy" bison from CvS. So he resembles in EX mode more. You may still be able to do the moves from regular Bison in CvS, but I don't know how if they are possible.
Sagat:
It may have just been me, but Sagat's Tiger Shots seemed to have FAR less delay than before... He may be able to play like his old self again! But I could be wrong about this...
Vega:
I didn't see him much, but I heard he's vastly improved. Hey, having the Slide, Crouching Forward, AND Crouching Strong available at once makes him MUCH better already, in my book.
Terry:
I didn't notice if Terry was Power Dunk Terry, or Rising Tackle Terry. Who knows, he could even be both??
Kim:
Kim's Razor Kick is the regular version's Razor Kick (the one that can be followed up with the Down + Kick for a second hit). It's priority as anti-air seems vastly improved. Kim also has the move from KOF where he slides along the floor, and then hops up for an over-heard striking kick.
Ryo:
Didn't see anything new about Ryo, though he seems to have access to the hopping chop he had from his EX-Mode along with his Fireballs.
Nakoruru:
Biggest news of the game!! Nakoruru was VERY toned down. Her standing Fierce isn't Bufferable anymore, and can't even be linked after a Crouching Short. So her combo of death is gone! Her cross-up in the same, and I heard you can do Crouching Short x 3, Stnading STRONG into the UPWARDS rising slash attack (Fireball + Pucnh) and that still combos, but I will need to confirm that. Her dive off the bird is SO much slower than before (though I was informed by Ricky that she has a new option that can be done from the bird that was pretty useful). But overall, Nako has been REALLY weakened, and to be quite honest, I can't feel sorry for her at all.
King:
King looked the same to me, didn't see anything new. She did have Surprise Rose, however, not the EX Mode's Uppercut kick.
Everyone Else:
Didn't see them.
For now, check out these sceenshots from the game.