Capcom taps into the Dreamcast's full potential once again to port a more-than-perfect arcade port of Capcom Vs. SNK!
CVS uses a fighting system similar to the Street Fighter Alpha and Street Fighter III series' while using the character selection system of King Of Fighters with a little bit of a twist. When you start out, you first decide how you want to play by determining the super combo gauge with which you fight. You chose between "Capcom" groove or "SNK" groove. I'll get to the groove details further down.
After you chose your groove, it is time to pick your characters. Like KOF, you choose a team of up to, but no more than 4 different characters. Each character is given a set number of ratio points (from 1 to 4). You chose your team accordingly and can not equal more than 4 ratio points. The lower the point value of your character, the less damage they do and the more damage they take, but you can put more characters with lower points in a team together. Once you chose your team, you then chose in which order they fight. It's a great idea to position your most dominant character last. Now, the fact that each character has a set ratio is quite dissapointing, because if you chose a 3 point character, say M. Bison, you have to chose another character and it has to be a 1 point character to equal 4 points. So you can't have a team of M. Bison and Geese, who is another 3 point character, or a team of a Guile and Akuma whom are 2 and 4 points respecitively. Thankfully, Capcom has added a mode called "Pair-Match" where every character equals 2 points and you make a team of two characters (you can even choose the same character twice)! It sucks that you're limited to two characters, but at least I can have the Bison/Geese team up I've always wanted! Also, in the Vs. mode, player 1 and 2 can both give any ratio to any character, so you can have a 1 point character like Sakura and give her all 4 points and play with just her, or you can give Akuma 2 points, and Ryu and Ken each 1 point and have a full-shoto team.
The gameplay is a more quick-pased and visceral experience than any 2D fighter you can play except for Marvel Vs. Capcom 2, or the Dreamcasts other shining stars, Street Fighter Alpha 3 and Street Fighter III. Like MVC 2, Capcom decided to do away with the Medium Punch and Kick buttons, leaving only the simplified four button layout of light and fierce attacks. It works surprisingly well for this type of game and makes the Dreamcast controller easier to work with since you rarely, if ever, have to use the awkwardly positioned trigger buttons. If you choose "Capcom" groove, you have a three stock meter like in Alpha. One stock gives you a level one super combo, two stocks up to level two, and three stocks up to level three. If you choose "SNK" groove, then you have a meter similar to KOF that fills up by pressing and holding down both fierce buttons together untill the meter is maxed out, which gives you access to only one level one super combo at a time. This may seem like a disadvantaged groove to choose over Capcom groove at first, but you have to keep in mind the almost instant level one super combos at your disposal with only a quick, short charge, also what's great about "SNK" groove when your life is below a certain level, you enter the "desperation mode" where your life bar starts flashing and you have unlimited access to level one super combos without having to charge your meter! But, if you do charge your meter when you're in desperation mode, you have access to a level three super combo. It becomes a very cheap groove to fight against, but it is thankfully balanced by the fact the character is vulnerable to any attack while they charge their meter.
Much like the KOF series, the one-on-one match begins with the characters chosen to start on each team. Whichever character wins goes on to the next round and has a slight, but helpful health increase, much like a standard survival mode, to balance the match out. The health increase also varies with whether your oponent is stronger, weaker or the same as you, ratio-wise and the players keep battling it out untill all of one team's characters are K.O.ed.
Once again, plenty of the usual modes to play. You already know what "Pair-Match" mode is. If you play "Arcade" mode, you obviously fight against CPU characters untill you reach the end. The end boss, though, differs on the type of team you chose. If you chose a prodominantly Capcom team, you fight one 3 point Geese. If you chose a prodominately SNK team, you fight a 2 point Balrog, who's quite challenging, to say the least. Then, you fight a 3-point-less-cheap-than-Geese-because-he-doesn't-have-an-air-fireball-yet-still-cheap-nonetheless-because-he's-freaking-M. Bison! I know it's a boss battle, but geese doesn't have a character added to his team that makes a ratio count of 5! An ending will play saying that the team in first place dissapeared and that the team in third (your team) "graciously" stepped up to take their place, and you see a stupid, generic win-quote with a picture of your character that you've seen a million times by now. Although Dan and Joe are in the PSone version of CVS, they are absent in this version, just like in the arcade. With the exception of Joe, you're really not missing much ; ), but they both do make a quick appearance. In Pair Match mode, then ending says that the Team of Joe Higashi and Dan Hibiki won the tournament instead of your team.
Vs. mode is self-explanitory with the mentioned ability to choose any ratio point for any character, but it goes into more detail. You first choose how many points you want to work with. Then, you choose your characters and set their ratio. If you chose to fight with 2 ratio points, you can either have one 2 point character, or two 1 point characters, etc. It's especially fun to fight with two 1 point characters against eachother with the damage all the way down! Options mode has the basic difficulty, damage, match time, game speed settings, etc. It baffles me why Capcom didn't include network play, which would have been extremely awesome, but it doesn't hurt the game. It's replay value is mountainous! You have 77 secrets to unlock which include sets of colors for all characters, secret stages, classic Street Fighter 2 stage music, EX versions of all characters, the 3 secret characters Morrigan, Nakoruru and Akuma! Also, Pair Match mode and the Vs. mode ability to set any ratio points have to be unlocked and bought as well. With the exception of the character colors which are only 200 dollars each, everything is worth more than a thousand groove points, and it takes quite a while to get it all, because you first have to unlock the secret by playing the game, then save up your points to buy them and the game only awards you a few hundred groove points for beating Arcade or Pair Play modes. This was a weird move, but I guess Capcom was desperate to do away with the fact that fighting games don't have too much single-player replay value, which is understandable, but the cost of the secrets compared with the awarded points is just absurd!
The graphics are unsurprisingly beautiful. The clever, vibrant, 2D backgrounds mix perfectly with the fighters in front of them. Capcom, once again puts it's graphical prowess on high and raises the bar, especially when coupled with Sega's new "Naomi" software, making for beautiful character models and backgrounds, and the best and most invigorrating on-screen hit and elemental effects I've ever seen, which look as though they are rendered in 3D and then cell shaded to blend seamlessly everything else on screen! The stages each have their own unique and fun to watch intro sequences and character's ground shadows are actually shaped like humans and move in tandem with the player's moves perfectly. Capcom has, once again, outdone theirselves.
If you own a Dreamcast, you absolutely must get this game. The Dualshock controller seems like it was made for 2D fighters as it is the undesputed champion of console controllers for fighting games if you aren't using a fighting stick, but thankfully a stick is available for the Dreamcast version, and even if you aren't willing to shell out the clams (hahaha) for a stick, then the Dreamcast controller does it's job better than with any other game except for MVC 2. This game is a more than arcade perfect port and fun for months on end, alone or with a friend. The rhyme was not intended, I swear!