SNK vs Capcom: SVC Chaos

Multiplayer and Xbox Live

SVC Chaos’ one saving grace is that it is fun to play with another person. Just like every other fighting game in the history of videogames, the experience becomes ten times more fun when you have someone sitting next to you taking some punishment. All of the problems are still there, but they are easier to forgive because human players are much more unpredictable and trash talking is always fun.

SNK upped the multiplayer ante even more by including online play via Xbox Live. The game runs fairly smoothly, but occasionally there will be some hiccups. The game is very playable online and it uses full voice support for the all important trash talking aspect that makes fighters so fun. A huge blemish on the Xbox Live play, however, is that there is no way to have a rematch against the same person. When a match is over, you are dumped back to the menu and have to find a new opponent via the quick match or optimatch options. Finding the right person at just the right skill level and style so you’ll have fun fighting online is important, so not being able to easily fight the same person repeatedly is a major flaw.

Graphics and Sound

Graphically, SVC Chaos is rather unimpressive. The backgrounds look good enough, but the characters are just dreadful. All of the SNK characters use old sprites that date back six or seven years and look as old and outdated as you would expect. Many of the Capcom characters have been redrawn and it is sort of cool to see beloved characters look a little different than you’re used to, but they don’t look great by any means. The animation is also not really up to standard as far as today’s 2D fighters go, and like I said above, the combat simply lacks impact because it is hard to tell if you are actually doing any damage. Also, the menus in the game are just long lists of glowing text that is severely outdated. It is hard to get excited for a new game when the menu looks like it was ripped from the early 90’s and looked bad even then.

The sound is just as bad. The music is horrid and doesn’t suit the game at all. The sound effects on menus and in combat are all old and outdated and reused, just like the graphics. SNK seriously needs to update all this stuff if they really want to be taken seriously because you can only get so far on a tiny but very loyal fanbase.

Bottom Line

If you are looking for a 2D fighting game on the Xbox, keep looking. Marvel vs. Capcom 2, Capcom vs. SNK 2, and Guilty Gear X2: #Reload are all much, much better choices and the last two even have online play. SVC Chaos is the broken shell of a game that really should be a lot better. This really isn’t up to SNK’s standards and it is a shame. SNK fans might get a kick out of it, but there are far too many flaws for SVC Chaos to really appeal to anyone else. Give it a rental if you are interested, but there are much better fighters on Xbox that are more deserving of your time.