Capcom fighters vs SNK fighters

[Integrity]

I don't have much of a history with SNK, however, the more I read about their fighters the more intrigued I become. I grew up on Street Fighter but I'm interested to check out Fatal Fury etc. What are the differences between SNK fighters and Capcom's fighters? I saw racketboy post once that he likes SNK style, I guess what I'm asking is what is it that defines SNK's style?

[Daniel Primed]

I'm only quite new to the Capcom/SNK 2D fighter scene to be honest. I just didn't grow up with games which looking back I can't understand how I overlooked them. Anyways, from my experience:

Capcom's fighters are much more balanced, most characters feel similar to other characters. Its much more calculated an requires flat out skill and a good fighting stratergy.

SNK fighters feel a lot more 'trashed out', each character feels their own and there are heaps of characters. Although this can destroy the balance and supposively some characters in their games are just broken. The SNK fighting systems arguably are more deep than Street Fighters but sometimes ridiculously so. Which I guess is why less people enjoy them. Also SNK fighters are a lot more unfair especially bosses.

I like both but for different reasons, if you want to try a SNK fighter then King of Fighters XI is meant to be one of their best games. Just came out recently at a discounted price in the US as well. Mark of the Wolves is also meant to be quite good.

[racketboy]

I don't have much of a history with SNK, however, the more I read about their fighters the more intrigued I become. I grew up on Street Fighter but I'm interested to check out Fatal Fury etc. What are the differences between SNK fighters and Capcom's fighters? I saw racketboy post once that he likes SNK style, I guess what I'm asking is what is it that defines SNK's style?

I said that?
Hmm..... I usually play Capcom titles and am a big Street Fighter fan.
But I did really enjoy Fatal Fury Mark of the Wolves and like to play a little KOF from time to time.
Not really sure how to answer the "differences" question. It's kinda hard to put into words IMO.

[marurun]

I like both types, but your generalizations, Daniel Primed, are a little off.

See, Capcom has a few balanced fighters, what I would call tournament grade, in the form of Super SF2 Turbo and SF3, but many of their other fighters are much more about the fun than the balance. Very little SNK produces is as wild, wooly, and unbalanced as the Capcom VS series or the Dark Stalkers series.

On the SNK side, a few of the KOF games are tournament grade, and Fatal Fury: Mark of the Wolves also is. Most of the KOF games do have some balance problems, but not as severe as Capcom's worst. The early stuff, like the original Fatal Fury is as simple as the original Street Fighter 2.

SNK and Capcom both have a wide variety of fighters that cover all sorts of fields. Capcom has a robot fighting game, Cyberbots, whereas SNK has a couple weapon-based fighter series in Last Blade and Samurai Shodown. Capcom has the Darkstalkers/Vampire series for horror weirdness where SNK has the somewhat older, no longer developed World Heroes series with some equally crazy character designs and weird rings (Danger Zones from before Dead or Alive made them popular). Capcom has superhero fighting games, and I'm not even talking VS. X-Men: Children of the Atom and Marvel Superheroes are lots of fun with great character design and voices. Meanwhile, in SNK land you have KOF, the meeting place for their characters from all sorts of areas. Originally an off-shoot of Fatal Fury (the first game was sub-titled The King of Fighters) it incorporates characters from Art of Fighting, Fatal Fury, and who knows where else.

I'm sure you know most of this crap, really, but it was nice to type it out. Overall SNK games do have a different feel, but it's not better or worse. Capcom fighters generally have a certain similarity of feel, and the same for later SNK fighters. They're both good, just different. If you like fighters expand your universe and get into some SNK action. It'll open up new doors you maybe hadn't thought about in 2D fighters. I especially recommend KOF 98 and 2002 as they are sort of "best of" KOF games with large, varied casts. On the Fatal Fury end, try Garou: Mark of the Wolves. It's very polished and almost feels Street Fighter-esque. Samurai Shodown kicks major ass all around for being cool. And Last Blade 2 is a joy, and easier to find than either Samurai Shodown 1 or 2, which are, incidentally, the most accessible in that series.

[Integrity]

I don't have much of a history with SNK, however, the more I read about their fighters the more intrigued I become. I grew up on Street Fighter but I'm interested to check out Fatal Fury etc. What are the differences between SNK fighters and Capcom's fighters? I saw racketboy post once that he likes SNK style, I guess what I'm asking is what is it that defines SNK's style?

I said that?
Hmm..... I usually play Capcom titles and am a big Street Fighter fan.
But I did really enjoy Fatal Fury Mark of the Wolves and like to play a little KOF from time to time.
Not really sure how to answer the "differences" question. It's kinda hard to put into words IMO.

sorry I just re-read the post. It was when talking about Marvel Vs Capcom or Capcom Vs. SNK you said you preferred Snk's style to Marvel's heaps of characters. My bad

[Integrity]

Thanks for these responses! I picked up KOFXI for 14.99 brand new! Also, I am about to win Fatal Fury:MOTW on ebay!

[racketboy]

I don't have much of a history with SNK, however, the more I read about their fighters the more intrigued I become. I grew up on Street Fighter but I'm interested to check out Fatal Fury etc. What are the differences between SNK fighters and Capcom's fighters? I saw racketboy post once that he likes SNK style, I guess what I'm asking is what is it that defines SNK's style?

I said that?
Hmm..... I usually play Capcom titles and am a big Street Fighter fan.
But I did really enjoy Fatal Fury Mark of the Wolves and like to play a little KOF from time to time.
Not really sure how to answer the "differences" question. It's kinda hard to put into words IMO.

sorry I just re-read the post. It was when talking about Marvel Vs Capcom or Capcom Vs. SNK you said you preferred Snk's style to Marvel's heaps of characters. My bad

No harm done. Sometimes I do say things that I'll notice much later on and think "why did I say that?", so I wouldn't have been too surprised

[Majors]

MotW was SNK's answer to Three (Street Fighter). Very good game.

I love me some KoF, ever since the first one ('94) in the arcade. Played the Saturn ports to death. Most fanboys feel that 98 and 2002 are the best, in fact 98 is getting a re-release called Ultimate Match.

To me SNK has always had stiff play control/mechanics, but the charactors are much more interesting that Capcom.

At NEC in PA last year, a major SNK head (Lukus aka Dark Geese) ran some tournies in Battle Coliseum, Real Bout, Fighter History Dynamite (aka Karnov's Revenge), Breakers Revenge, World Heroes Perfect, Waku Waku 7, Power Instinct(Groove on Fight)...everytime I came back in the room, it was some other random forgotten game.

[grittykitty]

i never considered character balance when thinking about fighters... hmm...

it's been a while since i've played king of fighters, are the key commands for the special moves similar/the same as street fighter? quarter circle forward+punch, etc? i also thought capcom was the best as far as controls go in fighters... i hated mortal kombat because i found the controls awkward. i liked tekken 2 and 3 but found the weird button combos to be mildly irritating

semi-related question: is there an older kof game that runs well via neo4all on dreamcast? or any snk fighters for that matter?

[marurun]

Character balance is very important when playing VS or tournaments. You don't want to have a couple overpowering characters or a couple total weaklings because it can make fights really unfair.

Capcom has excellent balance in a few games, but the rest are not balanced well. SNK hasn't reached the character balance heights Capcom has, but most SNK games are balanced better than Capcom's worst. I'd say the average balance level is about the same, Capcom or SNK.

There are tons of SNK games on the DC without emulation.