After seeing the horrid, horrid version of this game on display at last May’s E3, I was seriously worried for the final product. What I had seen was a pixilated, poorly animated mess. I’m happy to say that Capcom has cleaned the game up considerably since then, although it’s been released with some flaws still intact.

As any gamer worth his salt knows, the "feud" between Capcom and SNK has been going strong ever since the appearance of the original Fatal Fury, and both sides have gathered an army of fanboys to argue their causes on internet forums across the web. Recently, we’ve seen a coming together of these two companies to create games that bear both their names and their stables of well-known characters.

The short-lived Neo Geo Pocket Color was the first system to be graced by crossover titles; SNK vs. Capcom: Match of the Millenium was a pocket-sized fighter that featured popular characters from both sides and allowed for a good variety of match types including single, tag, and King of Fighter style 3-on-3 bouts. Card Fighters Clash was a Magic: The Gathering-inspired card game, with literally hundreds of character cards to collect, giving the game the ability to showcase even the most obscure Capcom and SNK creations.

Now, we have Millennium Fight 2000, the big daddy of the Capcom vs. SNK franchise. Although the title contains "vs," this is not a traditional Capcom Vs. game. There are no insane combos, air juggles or team supers, and there is no tagging in of a partner during the fight. This decision concerned me when I first heard about it… after all; even the NGPC game had tagging!

The game is set up like an SNK team battle – you select your fighters from a decent variety of both Capcom and SNK characters. You are given 4 slots to fill, and each character fills one or more slots on your team. Ken and Terry are 2 slot characters, while others fill one, three or even all four slots. Once your team is chosen, you are taken to the fight. After a character is defeated, the second member of your team steps in, while the remaining winner regains a very small amount of life. This continues until only one character remains, and that team is the winner.

As I mentioned before, Capcom vs. SNK returns to the simpler days of fighting games, eschewing the monster combos and supers we’ve seen recently for more technique based battles. You can choose between two different play styles, or "grooves." Capcom Groove allows you three levels of a super meter, similar to the Street Fighter Alpha series, while SNK Groove requires you to hold buttons to charge up a one-level super meter. Both have their advantages and disadvantages.

Graphically, the game is a mixed bag of mostly good elements that will transport fans of the genre back in time. All of the SNK characters have been redrawn by Capcom artists, and they’ve never looked better. Unfortunately, the same can’t be said of Capcom’s cast of fighters. Only a few have been redrawn to match the SNK characters, while the rest seem to have been pulled directly from Street Fighter Alpha 3 or MvC 2. Ken and Ryu are among the characters to return to the drawing board, and the result is a return to the stances and attacks of the original Street Fighter II, very cool indeed. Unlike the venerable Fat and Geeky, I happen to like Vega’s (M. Bison) return to his original Street Fighter II look; I thought his bulked up Alpha styling made him appear oafish and silly. Akuma and Evil Ryu are also redrawn, while the other Capcom fighters suffer varying degrees of "badly cut and pasted from other game" syndrome. I was especially hurt by Chun Li’s aging Alpha look compared to the beauty of some of the better animated characters in the game… Capcom could have at least used her Street Fighter III graphics here. As far as the animations go, all of the SNK characters and the Capcom ones which were redrawn look great – in fact, I’ve only seen better animation in the SFIII series. There are also a lot of cool animations when certain characters face off against each other at the start of a battle – Ken tosses Terry his trademark baseball cap, Kyo throws fire at Ryu, and many, many more add lots of character to the game and are a nice addition for the fans.

However, there were a few character choices I have a hard time with… I agree wholeheartedly with Fat and Geeky about the inclusion of Raiden on the SNK side. He seems useless, and several people at the recent game party where we played this game to death commented that Clark would have been the much better choice of SNK grappler. Also, where the heck are Andy Bogard and Joe Higashi?!? These two, along with Terry Bogard, have been represented in a majority of SNK fighters over the years, and a Ryu vs. Andy match is one I’ll sorely miss. Maybe in Capcom vs. SNK 2? There is one character exclusion that I am happy about, though – Dan is nowhere to be seen here, and I for one say "thank you, Capcom, for not once again wasting a slot with a useless character." I accepted him in MvC 2, because let’s face it, with 56 characters, you can afford to have a few throwaways, but Capcom vs. SNK has a little more than half the number of characters, and, come on, isn’t it time that this whole Dan thing was laid to rest? Seriously.

Sound effects are very well done, with perhaps the most solid hitting and blocking effects I’ve heard in a fighting game to date. Even the music is solid, and the robotic announcer isn’t as grating as you might think.

The game also has high replay value, forcing you to beat the game many times to earn points and unlock secret character colors, stages and fighters, in a similar fashion as used in Marvel vs. Capcom 2.

Overall, Capcom vs. SNK is a welcome addition to any fighting game fans collection, and balances the frantic action of Capcom’s recent MvC 2 and Power Stone 2 with a return to the slower-paced, methodical combat seen in classics like Super Street Fighter II and The Art of Fighting.

Graphics: 7 (A mixed bag. Redrawn characters look great and animate nicely, all of the SNK characters have never looked better, but some cut and paste Capcom characters are jarringly out of place next to the redesigned fighters. Result – the game looks half-finished at times)

Control: 9 (It’s good… I only wish that Capcom had seen fit to change those annoyingly hard to pull off SNK super moves into something a little more… Capcom-esque)

Sound: 10 (The best sound effects in a fighter. Even the music is well done, and there are many hidden remixes of classic songs)

Replay: 9 (Loads of hidden stuff to find means you’ll be playing through the game many, many times. Of course, Versus Mode is always good for replay as well)