SNK vs. Capcom: SVC Chaos Review

Sometimes it’s very difficult, no matter how you try to frame it in your head, to get excited for re-releases of certain retro fighting games. It’s a genre that’s ripe for the picking, absolutely stuffed full of crackers to be revisited but, for every delightful return to the likes of Samurai Shodown 2, Guilty Gear, or Street Fighter, you’re gonna end up with something that has no real reason to be revived at all. Something like SNK vs. Capcom: SVC Chaos.

A Blast from SNK’s ‘Dark Period’

A product of what’s known as SNK’s ‘dark period’, what you’ve got here is an arcade game that looks the part, sounds the part, and has a roster that should be kicking ass and taking all the names. However, as nicely as it’s presented — and a quick glance at these screenshots still makes us want to go on a retro-fighter bender — it’s just…not very good, and it never was.

Classic Look, Disappointing Gameplay

The problem, to keep it short and simple, is that in comparison to any other King of Fighters or Street Fighter game from this era, or in comparison to any other Capcom/SNK crossover (of which there are four in total) this is a strangely bland, unbalanced and soulless slugfest. It’s got crappy enemy AI, it’s famously unfair, there are no team mechanics, and its bosses are the worst sort of cheap, gauge-defying spam-bastards going.

Positive Aspects and Online Play

Of course, on the other hand, there’s a phenomenal roster of over 30 fighters to choose from, and there’s undoubtedly always going to be a certain amount of fun to be had from jumping into a quick bout as your favourite old-school brawler – before very quickly discovering that the passage of time has robbed you of your speed and skills.

Whilst this port “retains the classic visuals and controls” (a nice way of putting the fact they didn’t bother to make any improvements), you do get a brand new online mode that allows you to play tournaments, round robins, and eliminations with up to nine other players via bare-bones lobbies. What’s more, this new mode comes with fancy rollback netcode so it works properly.

Conclusion

SNK vs. Capcom: SVC Chaos is a very average arcade fighter, a game that wasn’t great over 20 years ago, and still isn’t now. For retro-fighter enthusiasts, there’s some interesting aspects to this port in the form of an online mode and the fact the whole thing looks and sounds so great. However, with a very low player count in its lobbies, and nothing more besides a gallery and practice mode by way of extras, this is a very hard experience to recommend to anyone outside of history buffs.