Get ready for Marvel vs. Capcom’s return with this retro hidden gem

By Tomas Franzese Published July 27, 2024

Crossovers reigned at Evo 2024. Some of the best reveals of the entire event included seeing Terry Bogard in Street Fighter 6 for the first time and learning that Lucy from Cyberpunk: Edgerunners is coming to Guilty Gear Strive next year. It’s a sign of a healthy genre that video game developers of all kinds want in on. The marquee moment from Evo 2024 that demonstrated this was when SNK, the developer behind series like The King of Fighters and Fatal Fury, shadow-dropped SNK vs. Capcom SVC Chaos.

Released on PC last Saturday and on PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch on Monday, SVC Chaos is the latest fighting game re-release from Code Mystics that takes an arcade classic and revitalizes it for modern platforms with features like online play and rollback netcode. It’s a well-done double-dip of a somewhat obscure and unloved fighting game, and an amazing primer for another crossover fighter I’m looking forward to later this year: Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics.

During the arcade golden age of the 1990s, genre rivals SNK and Capcom collaborated to finally make crossover fighting games that featured characters from their respective franchises. Capcom developed two Capcom vs. SNK games in 2000 and 2001, while SNK followed up in 2003 with its arcade take on the concept after only producing Neo Geo Pocket games for it prior. That game is SNK vs. Capcom: SVC Chaos.

SVC Chaos is a weird game, and not just because it’s a franchise mishmash. It has a darker tone and color palette than almost all of the SNK and Capcom series included in the collection, as characters like Ryu and Terry are duking it out in heaven across desolate, postapocalyptic stages. This gives the game a distinct look that neither SNK nor Capcom has returned to since. On the gameplay front, it’s a 1v1 fighter in which each character has two health bars; you must deplete your opponent’s to win the fight.

It’s an SNK-style four-button fighter rather than a Capcom-style six-button one, which makes playing some of the Street Fighter characters feel odd but intuitive on modern controllers. Competitively, SVC Chaos isn’t that highly regarded because of some broken gameplay mechanics. Casually, it’s not as inherently flashy as other SNK and Capcom fighting games of this era. It’s certainly a bit rough around the edges, but there’s also no other fighting game from SNK or Capcom that feels quite like it.

This isn’t a re-release of one of the best fighting games of all time, but I’m still glad there’s now an easy way to smoothly play this fascinating piece of fighting game history on modern platforms. SVC Chaos is emulated beautifully on modern hardware — I played it on Nintendo Switch — and it features quite a few gameplay customization tweaks to make it more approachable for competitive play. There’s also a gallery where players can look at the game’s gorgeous concept art.

It has a practice mode and hitbox overlays now, so those who want to get good on SVC Chaos will have an easier time doing so, as they don’t have to track down an arcade cabinet or old console port. The online play feels smooth with rollback netcode, and while the available servers were sparse when I played, this kind of support is appreciated. If you’re a fan of the fighting game genre and haven’t picked up SVC Chaos’ re-release, I recommend you do.

Despite all its quirks, SVC Chaos feels like the right game to have shadow-dropped at Evo 2024. Crossovers were a focal point of the show, as all of these fighting game developers seemed content with crossing over with each and other companies like CD Projekt Red and Nike wanted in on the fun. While this happened at the start of the new millennium because the fighting game genre was no longer in its golden age, it’s happening now because we’re in the middle of a fighting game renaissance.

Companies like SNK and Capcom once again recognize that all boats rise together and are now working together from a point of success rather than a point of worry. Until Capcom or SNK decide to revisit this idea (which seems like a real possibility), I’ll take Code Mystics’ excellent re-release of SVC Chaos as the symbol of all that until Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics comes along.

SNK vs. Capcom SVC Chaos is available now for PC, PS4, and Nintendo Switch.