 Everyone already knows about the Super Nintendo Sega Genesis bit wars of the early 90s, but there were other consoles around at the time as well, trying to grab a piece of the market, like the TurboGrafx, the CD-i, and the Neo Geo. Now, my only experiences with Neo Geo came in two forms. One was getting lucky enough to see their arcade cabinets in the wild, and the other was simply gawking at how much the console and the cartridges cost. Unless your family was filthy rich, or you were just lucky when it came to accessing arcade cabinets, you didn't get much exposure to the Neo Geo, but if you owned a Super Nintendo or a Genesis for that matter, you at least got to play some of the ports of these games. So let's take a look and see if these versions of these SNK fighting games are worth playing today. I should note quickly that SNK themselves did not port these games, that was handled by a company called Takara, with the exception of World Heroes 2 which was ported by Saras. What I'm going to do here is take a quick look at each game, with two things in particular I want to point out for each, how the fighting system works, and simply if the SNES port is any good. I'll go in alphabetical order starting with Art of Fighting. The arcade game is a perfectly good fighting game, but the Super Nintendo port is just okay. Now, I know a lot of these fighting games all seem like carbon copies of each other, but each of these games in this video do something a little different, and Art of Fighting is no exception. There's an emphasis here on dodging, using a forward dash and a backward dash, and it's implemented the same way as it is in most beat'em ups, where it's just forward or back twice quickly. You can also do a desperation move once your health gets to a certain threshold, as long as you have something left in your spirit meter which is below the power meter up top. If you get a moment, you can also recharge your spirit meter yourself by holding X and Y. Overall, however, the controls are a bit more simplified, since there's only one button each for punch, kick, throw, and for taunting. You gotta hold the R button in order to use a power move, kind of like the turbo in NBA Jam. It's a story mode and a versus mode, but the story mode only allows you to play as two different characters, where there's twelve in versus mode. The feel of the combat here in Art of Fighting, however, is just strange. Everything is floaty like you're fighting on the moon or something. The graphics are good, and they manage to capture some of the scaling that the arcade game has, which is pretty impressive, and the music is good too, but the combat just lacks a certain gravity to it, so to speak. The Genesis version is largely the same, but it doesn't have any of the scaling, and the SNES sound design is a lot better. So yeah, the Super Nintendo port isn't great, but it's not bad either. It's an okay game, and the cartridge is always cheap, but it's not the best on this list. The SNES also receives a port of the sequel, Ryukou no Ken 2, or Art of Fighting 2, but it never left Japan. This one's got twelve playable characters right off the bat, and like the first game, it's a perfectly okay fighting game on its own. However, if you're expecting a faithful arcade port, you'll be disappointed, because this is not bad. This does have sprite scaling, which is pretty dang impressive, even more so than the first game, but the physics here are just strange, which makes it hard to anticipate things, and the control input also feels a bit wonky, and just feels clumsy to try and execute any special moves. So yeah, again, this is a perfectly decent fighting game if you just stumble upon it in the wild, but just don't expect it to be an accurate representation of the original Art of Fighting 2. Next we move on to the Fatal Fury series, which received three games on the Super Nintendo, Fatal Fury, Fatal Fury 2, and Fatal Fury Special, and as you might guess, the one worth playing today is the last game, Fatal Fury Special. I'll say right off the bat you should pass on the first Fatal Fury port for Super Nintendo, because it's not that it's bad, it just doesn't feature what makes Fatal Fury unique, so it comes across as just another generic fighting game. I will say for what it's worth, Genesis Edition is better than the SNES version, because it's truer to the arcade original. Fatal Fury 2 gets the series' training in a better direction on Super Nintendo anyway, because that edition does feature what makes these games stand out, and that's being able to fight in both the foreground and the background. At the time, this was a pretty major innovation, both in terms of graphics and sprite scaling, and with fighting strategy as well, allowing you to utilize special moves in combinations that will bounce your opponent from one plane to the other. It's pretty dang cool. The Genesis version of this game is similar and is pretty good as well. However, as I said earlier, Fatal Fury Special is the way you want to go here. It's essentially a retooled and upgraded version of Fatal Fury 2 with 16 playable characters instead of 8, including Geese Howard, the villain of the first game. I should also mention quickly that if you're into fighting games with a story, the Fatal Fury games are surprisingly pretty good in that department for what it's worth. Both Fatal Fury 2 and Special have buttons assigned to light punch and kick and heavy punch and kick, with the L and R buttons allowing you to jump between the foreground and the background, although like I alluded to earlier, sometimes you'll be sent to a different plane against your will, thanks to a devastating combo from your opponent. Also, holding down and forward allows you to move forward while ducking, which is something not many other fighting games can do. You can also hit the back button twice to jump backward to avoid a special move, that's a nice touch. And in addition, there's desperation moves as well. They're really hard to pull off, but it's pretty cool that they're there. The special moves here are pretty standard, just a rolling corner on the D-pad and pressing an attack button, but the desperation moves are a lot more complicated. Again, Fatal Fury 2 is good, but you're better off with Fatal Fury 2 Special, it's just a more polished game with a much larger roster. No, they don't really compare to how smooth the controls of the original games are or how good they look and sound, but they're still good ports all considered and they're worth checking out if you're into fighting games. Next is King of the Monsters, and this is pretty much what you see is what you get. As a fighting game, it's pretty limited. There's only six characters and just four in the Genesis and Super Nintendo editions, and there's not much in the way of special moves, but that's hardly the point. This is a game designed for spectacle. The visuals and sound design of the original arcade game are so freaking cool, and of course it helps that you can destroy all your surroundings in addition to your opponent. The Super Nintendo port, however... uh, well, it tries. It tries its little heart out, but it's just not very good. It's got that sluggish early Super Nintendo feel to it, with blocky, sludgy graphics and controls that are slow to respond, and it definitely lacks the oomph of the original. So this is an easy call. Stay away from the Super Nintendo port. King of the Monsters did get a sequel, King of the Monsters 2, and this is more of a side-scrolling beat'em-up than a fighting game. Again, this isn't going to measure up to the arcade version, but still the format and structure here allow you to do what everyone wants to do when you're able to control a giant monster. Rec anything and everything. At the conclusion of each level is a one-on-one battle with another monster. It's not exactly Fatal Fury levels of depth here, but it's good enough for what it is. I would recommend checking this one out. It's like a combination of a wrestling game, a beat'em-up, and a one-on-one fighting game. In a way, it's like the antithesis of the other games in this video because it's just simple button-mashing fun. Samurai Showdown has about a gazillion games to its name, but it started all the way back in 1993, and both the Super Nintendo and Psychogenesis received ports of the original arcade game. What makes this series stand out is that it is one of, if not the first, utilize weapon-based combat, featuring a variety of swords and staffs and other stuff across 12 different characters. This is one of those fighting games where I can't possibly give it justice given the time I've allotted here. There's a ton going on beneath the surface involving timing and psychology, and suffice to say it's a really well-made game. The Super Nintendo Edition, however, well, it's a perfectly okay fighting game on its own as long as you completely ignore that it's supposed to be an arcade port because it does a really poor job representing its source material. Sure, the game looks great, but the character sprites are tiny, they removed lots of attack animations, and it makes the combat kinda wonky, and the controls are tough to get used to. Just like the first Fatal Fury game, if you wanna play this one on a 16-bit home console, you're better off with the Genesis version. The Super Nintendo version is okay on its own, but compared to what it's supposed to be a port of, it's pretty bad. Either way, you're better off playing this on the MAME emulator or the Neo Geo AES. Last, we've got two World Heroes games, and do you like Street Fighter Clones? Because here we got a couple of Street Fighter Clones. Granted, they're actually pretty decent Street Fighter Clones. I mean, they beat the hell out of stuff like Street Combat, but still, I mean, you've got the Ryu character in Hanzu, the look-alike Ken character in Fuma, and there's the guy who rips off both Dalsim and M. Bison with Brocken, and it goes on from there with eight different characters. The moves are exactly what you'd expect, and the combat is easy pick-up-and-play stuff with hardly anything new or different here. The only thing that sets this game apart is fighting in environments that can harm you, like a ring with the ropes on fire or walls lined with spikes. Anyway, both this edition and the Sega Genesis versions are stayaways, only because there's just much better out there to choose from. I will say, though, World Heroes 2 is a bit better. Yeah, there's still not a lot here that makes it stand out from the pack other than the deathmatch settings, but still, there's 14 different characters here, and the combat is more polished compared to the first game, making this one much more player-friendly, which is, you know, pretty important considering the fact that they're going for a pick-up-and-play style here. Again, it's standard stuff as far as SNK fighting games go, only with Street Fighter Special Move commands, so if that's what you're looking for, then here you go. It's not amongst the top 10 fighting games on the system, but it's still pretty decent. So to sum up, once again, I gotta reiterate that you're obviously better off playing these games on the MAME emulator or on their original hardware, but if I had to pick the best games of the bunch, I'd go with Fatal Fury 2 or Fatal Fury Special, with King of the Monsters 2 being a fun playthrough as well. And I wanna thank you for watching, and I hope you have a great rest of your day.