How Come All PAL covers are cooler than the NTSC?
It is not as good as the Sega Dreamcast version. It is hardly an arcade perfect port. There are glitches out the wazoo. Seeing as I have a natural [or unnatural] affinity to fighting games, I was more than psyched to play through CvS2 on my PS2. Sadly, if it had not been for my Dreamcast spoiling me, I would not have so many minor negative issues with the PS2 version. I still had a ton of fun with Capcom vs. SNK 2.
There seems to be a lot of clamoring over the new Street Fighter IV game. A game I have played for about a day and immediately regressed to previously released iterations. Street Fighter IV is a much needed breath in a dying [depending on who you ask] genre. It its final throws of awesome, we got the last of the best. Capcom vs SNK 2 was apart of this elite group. Whenever my friend and fighting game guru, Fugee, throws fighting game events in this small little town of Columbus, Ohio; CvS2 tourney is always chock full of players...hundreds of them!
The game has such an addictive quality about it that leaves very little baby steps to those of you out there looking to get into a simple fighter. You can train, but I would recommend suckering a friend. All of the Capcom mashup trappings are encased within this must own gem [for fighting game collectors]. Collectors will need to heed a very specific warning, the PS2 version is clearly inferior. If you were a stickler about being able to cancel out and start a combo at any time during a match, kiss that Roll Cancel goodbye. The original version of CvS had Roll Cancel in it, but as a result of many whining and making some characters super-unbalanced [M. Bison & Athena] they took this feature [or cheap] out.
The backgrounds are awesome, but this is to be expected by Capcom and the music is probably the games crowning achievement. The sound quality is noticibly improved on the PS2. The announcer is quite awful. Not awful to where you immediately want to mute any and all speech in the game, but enough to laugh at what is clearly a high-faluting, english-as-a-second-language frat boy.
As a whole, CvS2 is a breeze to get into, but only if you are familiar to the fighting game genre. If you are looking for some form of a learning-curve then keep looking. Although the fighting mechanics are clearly Capcom influenced, the difficulty level has the clear trappings of any SNK fighting game final level. The final fighters [S. Gouki/Shin Akuma and/or God Rugal] are 'punch-holes-in-walls' difficult. Though, this is could be seen as good training to go against good-to-average competitive players, this is not fun.
Why do fighting games do this? Playing CvS2 on 'normal' was still fairly difficult by the end. Why punish the players who have spent their hard earned money in order to satiate their sick lust of a 'kind of dying' genre. Hardcore players of the fighting game genre and players of CvS2 will see this as belly-aching, but there is something to this complaint. Personally, I can get over the difficulty ramp-up at the end of fighting games; even this gem. Fighting games as a whole need to get their act together if they hope to bring in a new generation of [pansies] people who are not willing to sit through losing to a 'god-like' final character.
CvsS2, I welcome this classic to my ever growing PS2 collection, but sweet Jesus will I not be revisiting this classic for quite some time.
I give CvsS2...
Promotional Stress Ballz