Thousand Mile Fireball. Review

Thousand Mile Fireball.

It’s a sad thing when you live with lots of people, but still manage to be lonely.

I live with about 60, so I get especially lonely. Sitting in front of the

TV while playing Capcom vs. SNK

2 for the PS2, I would yearn for anybody in my house to take interest long

enough for me to completely dominate them…

…that is, if I couldn’t play the game ONLINE against a gaggle of other gamers

who are as good at or better than me at Street Fighter! Wooohoo!

You’d

think by now I’d be sick of the Capcom vs. SNK 2 world, having already

reviewed two prior incarnations of this game (the other being the Gamecube

version of Capcom vs. SNK 2: EO). But the fact that I’ve got good,

human competition waiting for me anytime I want to go online with Xbox Live!

makes the sickness much sweeter. And while this is the only decent online fighter

currently available, it’s still the same old game no matter how you fireball

it.

The online aspect of Capcom vs. SNK 2: EO for the Xbox is very well

done. It’s straightforward, there’s very little lag (as long as the 60 people

in your house aren’t all using Kazaa at once), and, based on how you perform,

you can choose to go up against opponents of a comparable skill level, which

makes for some tooth and nail battles. Plus, you can play against gamers from

all over the world, which is unheard of in a console fighting game. The fact

that somebody thousands of miles away is wincing as you bust a Metsatsu on ’em

is very satisfying.

As far as gameplay itself goes, Capcom vs. SNK 2: EO bears one of the

lamest traits in a fighting game ever, EO mode. EO mode makes the control scheme

such that the L and R buttons are the only punch and kick buttons. These buttons

are pressure sensitive, so a hard tap will result in a hard punch/kick, while

a light tap will result in a light punch/kick. Simpletons will fall in love

with this system because it eradicates certain pesky weeds that have sucked

the nutrients from Capcom gameplay for too long: reliability and combos!

The dumbest part of EO mode is the mapping of each of the player’s special moves to a direction on the right analog stick. Simply pressing different directions will result in the desired move, while the vigor with which you tap will decide the strength of the move (i.e. tap left results in a light fireball, while slamming the stick to the left will result in a fierce fire ball). Now you can pull off insane moves like ducking and dragon punching, or walking forward and executing a sonic kick in a split second. Character balance and strategy? Who needs em!

Making matters even worse is the fact that the controls are set and cannot be changed. You are also prevented from using the D-pad and must use the left-analog stick for movement. Speaking of prevention, you cannot execute special moves with the left analog stick and a button tap whatsoever; it’s not just difficult, it’s functionally impossible. You are not allowed to execute a real special move! Insane.

However, the gameplay in EO is fine as long as you stick to A-ism (Capcom

has gone insane with the -isms; this one means “arcade-ism”). However, if you

don’t own the Xbox S-Controller,

then you’ll want to pick one up before buying this game. The standard Xbox controller

sucks in general and is even worse for fighting games. Ducking and blocking,

for example, is a very dubious prospect. However, the S-Controller rocks, so

get one.

The same six grooves that were present in the GC

version is included in the Xbox version with no variation. Three of the grooves

are attributable to past Capcom games like Street

Fighter Alpha 3 and Double

Impact, while three of the grooves belong to SNK games. The three SF grooves

are pretty standard, but the inclusion of three SNK grooves gives a relative

SNK rookie a lot of new ideas to poke around with, such as being able to pull

off unlimited super-moves once your health gets in the red! Shun goku satsu!

Visually,

EO uses the 2.5D backgrounds that were fresh and exciting back in the

20th century, but were made obsolete by the environments in games like DoA3.

They’re simply an illusion meant to distract you from the fact that nothing

in EO is interactive other than the fighters.

However, the contrast between the backgrounds and the 2D fighters is less

noticeable in the Xbox versions than in the other versions. Not that the 2D,

sprite-based characters look impressive; they look exactly like they’ve looked

since… 1994 or something? How about some more complex models?

The characters are the same as those in Capcom vs. SNK 2, as are the

moves, appearances, etc. There still isn’t much to unlock. While there are a

ton of special characters including Morrigan, Evil Ryu and dope-fiend Iori,

only three wait to be discovered (one of whom is Ultimate Rugal, and he sucks).

Then again, unlocking the hidden characters is intuitively handled with a system very similar to that of the World mode in SFA3. You basically fight, try to kick ass in creative ways, rack up a bunch of points, and hope one of the hidden bosses challenges you at the end of the game.

The endings are limited to only a few possible outcomes. However, the integration of a possible boss fight within the endings adds some tension, as well as some length once the super boss has actually been vanquished.

EO also comes with a color editing feature that allows you to tweak just about every aspect of every fighter’s shading and an unlockable Groove editing feature in which you can create new Grooves based on your preferences (although if you prefer invulnerability and Spider-speed, you’ll be sorely disappointed). If you’re familiar with any other version, this should already be familiar to you.

EO‘s sound is fine, with a genuinely entertaining, cheesy announcer guy and some cool battle tracks. Except that I’ve heard everything before, verbatim, from Capcom vs. SNK 2. How about a cheesy announcer girl next time?

Even though Capcom vs. SNK 2: EO for the Xbox is about as fresh as

a two-day old bagel, the online capabilities of the Xbox revive this tired title

and will hopefully serve as a defibrillator for the entire 2D fighting game

genre. Ya-tai!