Grudge Match: Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 Versus The King of Fighters ’98

As I type these words, it’s Wednesday, July 29. Roughly 10:40PM. The median air temperature outside my house is straddling the nigh-incomprehensible gulf between “plasma-form helium” and “your mom.” Unlike you though, I’m incredibly wealthy and have sequestered a family of Eskimos to gently waft their icy, blubber-flecked breath onto the small of my neck. Air conditioning is simply beneath me, especially when I have incredibly important work to do.

I look to my left and spy a bank of monitors, all stolen from William Gibson’s “Mirrorshades Fever Dreams” (that’s what Bill calls his annual yard sales). Though I have five screens arranged in something of a honeycomb pattern the grand design is equally divided between two recently released Xbox Live Arcade games: Marvel Vs. Capcom 2: New Age of Heroes and The King of Fighters ’98: Ultimate Match. Both are simply archaic fighting games (when measuring time via the Tsetse Fly attention span of the average millennial) and both have recently been reborn for the Xbox Live Arcade.

You’ve been drawn here to pay witness to a new feature I devised sometime this afternoon while being fed Otter Pops by pleasantly cooperative otters. Dubbed “Grudge Match,” this new series of articles (exclusive to Blogtown until they aren’t), explores two (or more) games released near simultaneously with similarities ranging from glaring to “Kubrick in a snowstorm kissing a polar bear.” The inaugural edition pits these two classic fighters against one another in mortal combat, as if they were street fighters employing the art of fighting to unleash the sort of fatal fury that …. screw it, I can’t finish this sentence.

Long story short: Marvel Vs. Capcom 2: New Age of Heroes (MvC2) takes on The King of Fighters ’98: Ultimate Match (KoF98). Two games enter, only one shall leave.

Blaster Master rules Bartertown.

Hit the jump.

First, the arbitrary rules I’m making up as I go along: I’ve selected five traits that each game exhibits to varying degrees and each will be graded using the confusing as hell alphabet system employed by many videogames. That is, letter grades will range from “F” to “A,” as in high school English, but exceptionally high scores may receive an “S” rank for reasons known only to the Japanese.

At the end of the match one game will be selected as the winner based entirely on the arguments I’ve presented to myself — assuming I’m not being particularly lazy, causing myself to deduct points from myself out of sheer spite — and the creators of the winning game will receive, at best, a phone call from the prize committee (again, myself) at some ungodly time of night.

Additionally, and purely in the interest of setting the proper mood, you may want to crank this shit in the background.

Now, on with the show.

Graphics

MvC2 — B

Capcom’s entry was originally created on the then-amazing NAOMI arcade board. If your eyes just glazed over think of NAOMI as a Dreamcast stuffed into an arcade cabinet. At the time (circa 2000), nothing in the world of gaming could compare aesthetically, and MvC2’s combination of two-dimensional sprites on three-dimensional backgrounds still looks damn pretty in our modern world of Mattel hoverboards and other awesome shit that Robert Zemeckis promised us and never delivered on.

KoF98 — C

By the time King of Fighters ’98 came out the Neo Geo was starting to show its age. It doesn’t help things that Ultimate Match is a 2009 reissue of the 2008 reissue of a decade-old game, either.

The modern re-release does little to amend this issue, with only bare bones graphical changes on offer and minor alterations to make sure the game doesn’t entirely look like shit on our new-fangled HDTVs.

Then again, nobody does emo hair and flaming appendages like the SNK crew.

Winner: Marvel Vs. Capcom 2

Gameplay Options

MvC2 — C

The options presented in MvC2’s new-generation version are somewhat sparse. I’d even say they’re eclipsed by what the game had already offered in its original Dreamcast incarnation, save for the fact that this latest build features online play over the extremely solid Xbox Live network. Though the Dreamcast version did feature online play, trying to enjoy a fighting game like this via 56K dial-up modem is like trying to enjoy sex with a beautiful woman, who is actually a beautiful man, who is actually an unattractive werewolf.

KoF98 — B

Like MvC2, the options present here are pretty sparse, though the addition of broadband online multiplayer is a huge bonus. Then again, KoF98 isn’t overshadowed by any of its previous iterations, and trumps last year’s PlayStation 2 release purely by virtue of it not looking like total ass on an HDTV.

KoF98 also wins a ton of extra points from me for including the original Neo Geo version of the game for purists who may not dig the Ultimate Match flavor. Technically it’s a small addition that most gamers will gloss over, but it’s a huge bonus for the almost militant legions of 2D fighting game purists out there.

Winner: King of Fighters 98. MvC2 does so little to appease its hardcore fanbase, while KoF98 takes the opposite route and almost does too much.

No, I did not realize how stupid that would sound until I actually typed it out in full.

Online

MvC2 — S

Built on the rock-solid Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix network code, MvC2 is as good as any online fighter currently on the market. If I owned a giant foam finger, I’d be waving it frantically right about now.

KoF98 — F

After three hours of struggling to find a single match that could be considered “playable,” I gave up and tried to cheat a bit in KoF98’s favor. I downloaded the game on my roommate’s Xbox 360, hooked that to our neighbor’s Wi-Fi connection and linked the two together to run a few test matches. Given that the two machines were within 40 feet of each other the whole time and that our network was assembled by Stephen Hawking and a cybernetic baby floating in a glowing goo-filled membrane, I was stunned to find that the game was still lagging like a deaf mute basset hound.

Disappointment, thy name is KoF98.

Winner: Marvel Vs. Capcom 2. No contest. Even the cybernetic goo baby was stunned at how lop-sided this match was, and he’s the theoretically omniscient alpha and omega personification of mankind’s conjoined id, ego and superego.

Soundtrack (aka “Aural Sex”)

MvC2 — C

I WANNA TAKE YOU FOR A RIIIIIIDE!!! Yes, that song is still dry humping every single nook and cranny of this game. Like chlamydia it’s simultaneously grating and infectious and once inside you, nothing short of bathing your innards in lye will get rid of the damn thing.

We were long ago promised that the game would allow players to import custom soundtracks during gameplay, but unless I’m missing some crucial options menu toggle, we’re stuck with the same jazz-as-performed-by-schizophrenic-Japanese-schoolkids tunes that might have lesser gaming critics haphazardly tossing out phrases like “sonic abortion,” “musical wombscouring” and “my mom says I can’t type the ‘c’ word anymore, so I can’t properly express my anger here.”

KoF98 — B

While KoF98 rehashes tunes from earlier versions of the game, this entry in the King of Fighters series included some of the best tunes to ever come from SNK. The KoF soundscape isn’t quite as majestic or iconic as The Legend of Zelda theme, or certain tunes from the Castlevania games, but they make for excellent aural accompaniment when you need to punch a dude named “Geese.”

Winner: King of Fighters ’98, as it never once made me want to cut out my ear drums.

Intangibles

MvC2 — A

That $15 price tag is reason enough to buy this one, but the true strength of this game lies in the sort of hyper-geeky fantasies it enables. Have you ever wondered how Wolverine would fare against himself circa 1994 (after Magneto sucked the adamantium out of his body)? Ever wanted to watch Gambit slap Mega Man’s pubescent girlfriend around?

Of course you have. Because it’s fucking hot.

KoF98 — D

I included the “Intangibles” section here specifically so I could bitch about one key flaw of KoF98: The omnipresent kanji. I understand that the game was created by Japanese people and that a number of its starring characters are Japanese, but why is it that, in the American version of this game, a good 70% of all the text is written entirely in Japanese?

That bizarre quirk is not present in 2008’s PlayStation 2 version of the game — I pulled a Cronkite and checked that shit! — and yet here I am, punching Mai Shiranui in one of her abundant ladylumps, and all I can say to her bloodied form at the end of the match is a garbled mass of moon language (most of which I’m convinced was about a friendly Snorlax).

I’m hoping someone can explain this to me, because unless I’m completely braindead this game got as much Quality Assurance as Sarah Palin’s everything! (Oooooh! Topical!)

Winner: Marvel Vs. Capcom 2, because it speaks to me in a language I can understand. English, motherfucker.

Conclusion

Fans of 2D fighters would be well served buying both, as they are perfect examples of the two major factions in the pre-millennium world of fighting games. The SNK versus Capcom rivalry ranks as one of the all-time greatest feuds that didn’t involve Richard Dawson, and for a relatively small amount of cash, you get the best offerings from either camp.

If you’d rather only snag one though, you have to go with Marvel Vs. Capcom 2. It’s simply more polished, offers better bang for the buck, and truly, madly, deeply wants to take you for a ride.