Stronger Edition Title Screen
When it comes to one-on-one fighting games, the Commodore 64 is generally not the go-to system. While there were a few impressive entries during the long history of the system, such as Way of the Exploding Fist and the International Karate series, C64 gamers never received a fighter in the vein of Street Fighter II or Fatal Fury, both of which were released in the arcades late into the life of the system, at least not a good version. Both the original Street Fighter and Street Fighter II were ported to the 64. The first was an official release from US Gold; the second, an unauthorized version developed by Tiertex; and both are equally bad. When it came to arcade fighters, our console brethren had the upper hand.
Fast forward to 2022, and homebrew developers Gianluca Alberico (RetroGL) and Jon “Jonegg” Eggelton were about to make our Street Fighter and Fatal Fury dreams come true. SNK vs Capcom is actually a demake of the classic fighter released for the Neo Geo Pocket Color portable game system. The NGPC was released about the same time as the Nintendo Game Boy Advance. As such, it went the way of other technically impressive portable systems like the Atari Lynx, hamstrung by a limited library and an advertising budget a fraction of Nintendo’s. SNK immediately got to work bringing their arcade franchises to this new portable format. Along with notables like Metal Slug and Puzzle Bobble, both Fatal Fury and Samurai Showdown received conversions, as well as two King of Fighters titles. This eventually culminated in SNK vs Capcom: Match of the Millennium. Bringing the tag team mechanic from King of Fighters and adding in a healthy dose of licensed Capcom fighters from Street Fighter and Darkstalkers made Match of the Millennium a significant success for the platform and a must-have title. Tight controls, impressive gameplay, and chibi-style character designs that went perfectly with the small screen of the NGPC contributed to high critical marks for all of the fighters on the system, SNK vs Capcom included.
SNK vs Capcom for the Commodore 64 uses the same chibi art style as the NGPC fighting games, with the expected degradation in character fidelity and the number of animation frames due to the platform’s limitations. But even within those constraints, the characters are recognizable and the animation isn’t as stilted as you might expect. The backgrounds are surprisingly detailed, and even include limited animation, though they do not scroll horizontally as in the original games. The small character sizes allow for plenty of fighting real estate on the static screen. Sound effects, while minimal, are done well, which, realistically, is fine, because the music, initially by RetroGL, with SIDs later provided by Aldo Chiummo, is very catchy and fits the fighting style well.
Player Select screen
The original roster of fighters was limited to 16, spanning the Street Fighter, Fatal Fury, and King of Fighters franchises, with a single entry from the Darkstalkers universe. While staples like Ryu, Ken, Terry Bogard, and Mai Shiranui were all present and accounted for, there were some notable absences. Felicia was the sole representative from Darkstalkers, with other popular characters like Morrigan nowhere to be seen. Also, disappointingly missing from the early roster were Haohmaru or any characters from the Samurai Showdown series. Fortunately, this is one of the most notable additions to the Stronger Edition of the game released in 2024. The cast of characters has been doubled to 32, adding fighters from both SNK and Capcom stables. Along with popular additions such as Sakura and Cammy from the Street Fighter franchise, and Rugal and Athena from the King of Fighters games, we flesh out the roster with multiple characters from Samurai Showdown, Art of Fighting, and Darkstalkers. It all adds up to a deep selection of fighters that will keep fans busy for quite some time, eclipsing even the NGPC original by six characters.
While the original Match of the Millennium allowed tag team play, letting the player switch between two fighters at any time during the match, this C64 version is strictly a single-fighter affair. Not entirely surprising, given the system’s memory constraints. I would rather a single, detailed, well-animated fighter than to further compromise the design of the characters to fit more of them into memory or, worse, have a pause in gameplay as the second fighter is loaded into memory at the swap.
Sakura’s Super Combo
A critical feature of the game is support for a two-button control pad or joystick. While the plethora of special moves can be pulled off using a standard single-button controller, using a two-button controller will make those moves much easier to do, and make combos more natural as you move from punches to kicks. Unfortunately, the special moves were probably my biggest complaint with the game. I consider myself a competent player of fighting games, and I’ve gotten pretty good at consistently pulling off the quarter- and half-circle moves required for characters like Ryu and Terry. While I may have been hindered by the controller I was using, I found it challenging to pull off the special moves successfully. I did notice some improvement moving from the original release of SNK vs Capcom to the Stronger Edition, but I still found it frustratingly inconsistent. Having watched videos of other players firing fireball after fireball, I’m not convinced it’s all down to the game engine. It’s just something to note. Your mileage may vary.
Not an issue per se, but another thing to keep in mind, if you intend to use emulation to play this game, the Stronger Edition uses a 2MB MagicDesk 2 CRT image to contain the entire game. This format is supported in the latest versions of VICE and the new Denise emulator, but you will likely be unable to run it on RetroArch cores or older versions of VICE.
Games like SNK vs Capcom prove that there’s plenty of life in the Commodore 64. With the imminent release of the new 64 Ultimate from Commodore International Corporation, these types of advanced games will only become more prevalent and more advanced. Haduken!
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