With NeoGeo now officially out of the picture and the original consoles getting rarer and rarer, Nintendo Switch has become the new home for these titles where you can enjoy all of these classics on a significantly more powerful system with plenty of modern features as well. SNK is continuing to bring more and more titles to Nintendo Switch and SNK Vs Capcom: The Match of the Millennium is the most-recent gem to be preserved on a modern console. This is our review of SNK Vs Capcom: The Match of the Millennium on the Nintendo Switch in which we revisit this amazing fighting game.
SNK Vs Capcom: The Match of the Millennium was released for the NeoGeo Pocket Color back in 1999 and it is a crossover of two of the hottest fighters even back then. It features characters from Capcom’s Street Fighter and SNK’s THE KING OF FIGHTERS franchise to deliver a fighting game that is truly amazing. Having the characters in the same game is one thing but actually building a game to include gameplay mechanics of both titles is a great feat. That even modern games cannot deliver, and this is something that SNK Vs Capcom: The Match of the Millennium delivered back in 1999.
The game has 26 characters in total and 9 from both the franchises is unlocked right from the start of the game. You can unlock the remaining characters as you play the game with the existing characters. You will find fan favorites from both worlds including Ryu, Ken, Guile, Chin Li from Street Fighter, and Iori, Mai, Leona, Kyo, Terry from THE KING OF FIGHTERS. Apart from the characters, the levels are also from both franchises and they offer a great backdrop in retro visuals showcasing stages from both THE KING OF FIGHTERS and Street Fighter. If you are a fan of both the franchises, you will easily notice tons of mechanics incorporated to work as a single unit in the game.
The game also gives you the option of playing the game in different playstyles. One comes from Street Fighter; one comes from THE KING OF FIGHTERS and one is neutral. You can choose to fight Average where you first charge your ultra-attack and once it is done, you use your One-Blow to win the game as it deals massive damage to your enemies. You can also pick Counter where you build your power and then counterattack your enemies to win the game. Finally, you can also play Rush where you must use wild rushes and land chain combos to win the game. Depending on your playstyle and preferences, the game allows you to pick any play style that you want before a fight starts however you have to complete the story with a chosen style before you can switch to a new one.
Coming to the gameplay, while it might look clumsy and clunky at first, once you start dishing out the pain, you see how satisfying the combat of the game really is. Landing combos and power moves is a breeze thanks to modern Nintendo Switch controllers and how easily the game supports the new controllers. The gameplay is crisp, and every button pressed is accounted for in the game. In addition, Street Fighter characters follow the same fighting mechanics from Street Fighter and THE KING OF FIGHTERS characters follow the fighting mechanics from its own franchise. This makes it amazing as you quickly find your familiar turf with your favorite characters and then annihilate your competition.
There are multiple modes for you to try your luck in. You have the single-player Tourney where you pick your character, your fighting style, and play through a short story to unlock either the good ending or the bad ending of that character. It supports Single, Tag, or Team-based matches which are a trademark of THE KING OF FIGHTERS. Then you have the Olympic mode where you find various fun, minigames that you can complete as well. These minigames are completely unique and are barely related to the fighting aspect of the game. Points earned allow you to purchase special attacks for the fighters. You can also play multiplayer on the same screen or connect to a TV and use two controllers in the Vs Mode. The game also allows you to edit and save profiles of all the fighters in the game according to your own personal liking for quick picking at the roster screen.
Sticking true to all NeoGeo titles released on the Nintendo Switch, SNK Vs Capcom: The Match of the Millennium comes with all retro features added for the NeoGeo titles as well. You have the Rewind that lets you rewind any mistake that you made in the game and since this is a fighting game, this can actually come in handy because you can continue to rewind and make sure that you win that match. You have your in-game manual for the game as well. If you are not satisfied with how the NeoGeo shell looks on the screen, you can use the Customization option to change the NeoGeo skins and go for the version that you like while going for a retro filter as well that dims the brightness to give you an authentic NeoGeo feel. Apart from this, you can also set custom controls and reset the console if you want to.
Final Verdict:
Nintendo Switch currently has a lot of NeoGeo titles and many among them are fighting games however for me, the best one on the list so far is the newly released SNK Vs Capcom: The Match of the Millennium. Not only does it merge two of the best fighting franchises together, but the gameplay is brilliant even today. The moves are satisfying, and you actually enjoy playing the game despite it lacking the features and visual prowess of modern fighters. The character roster is amazing, and they genuinely feel like their own-game counterparts, each with their own unique moves and attacks. Despite having such limited hardware on a NeoGeo console back then, this is really a great crossover of two great franchises and it barely feels dated on the Nintendo Switch thanks to its brilliant fighting mechanics. For a NeoGeo collector, this is a true gem that has to be in your collection however if you love fighting games, then you must give this game a shot as well as it is excellent for killing time on the go.
Final Score: 9.5/10
