SNK Vs. Capcom Card Fighters’ Clash

Genre: Turn-Based Collectable Card RPG

Players: 1-2 Competitive (Local)

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Review:

(Note: This game is included in the NEOGEO Pocket Color Selection Vol. 2 bundle, along with Baseball Stars Color, Big Bang Pro Wrestling, Biomotor Unitron, Ganbare Neo Poke-Kun, Mega Man Battle & Fighters, NEOGEO Cup ’98 Plus Color, Puzzle Link 2, Pocket Tennis Color, and The King of Fighters Battle de Paradise.)

SNK Vs. Capcom Card Fighters’ Clash is a Turn-Based Collectable Card RPG first released on the NEOGEO Pocket Color in 1999 and brought to Nintendo Switch in 2022. This release of the game includes display settings, a selection of borders, zoom controls, a rewind function, and a copy of the original game’s manual, but there are no significant enhancements to the game itself (unless you count the addition of same-screen multiplayer).

Card Fighters’ Clash is often considered the crown jewel of the NEOGEO Pocket Color’s lineup, and if you’re not familiar with this game that may seem like a rather absurd statement, but I assure you the reputation is well-deserved – this game presents players with extremely simple card game design that still manages to have surprising depth.

Your customizable deck consists of fighter cards and action cards. Fighters have BP (essentially representing both hit points and attack points) as well as SP that they add to your running tally as you bring them out. Players are allowed to bring out only one fighter per turn, with a max of 3 fighters at any time. Normally, players can only attack with one character at a time, but they can bring out additional attackers for 5 SP each. Winning requires getting past opponents’ defenders and whittling down their own personal HP to zero.

This on its own is deceptively simple but still manages to provide a surprising amount of strategy, requiring players to not only call out heavy-hitters, but to manage their SP and time their attacks for moments when they can make the most use of their amassed forces. However, the game adds even more depth with assists – each character has designated characters that can be stacked on to them to assist them, increasing their BP. This power boost isn’t limited by the “one per turn” rule, and can turn an otherwise weak character into a strong one, giving players a reason to include cards in their deck that are otherwise weak, if they can be used to power up other fighters.

Then you add to this the action cards, which use SP to do various helpful things on the battlefield, as well as special abilities of Fighter cards that can have surprising effects as well. This game boasts 300 cards, so there’s plenty of variety and nuance to be found here, giving players the opportunity to craft their own custom deck.

The original release of this game came in two Pokemon-style paired versions – an SNK version and a Capcom version, each with their own roster of characters that could be traded with each other or battle against each other, Pokemon-style. This release includes both versions, and will allow players to not only have save files for each version, but even allow those two save files to trade and battle with each other. This makes for some outstanding potential for players with a sibling or significant other to play the game in tandem, helping and competing with one another. Unfortunately, the downside here is that there is no local wireless or online play, so you can’t challenge a player on a different Nintendo Switch, one of my biggest disappointments with this game.

Another frustration comes with the limitations of this game’s system of origin. While the NEOGEO Pocket Color’s screen offers slightly more detail than the Game Boy Color’s screen had, this game nevertheless has the same issue as the Pokemon Trading Card Game had on that handheld – there’s not enough resolution to display all the cards’ details at once, requiring players to hop between multiple menus to see pertinent information. Thankfully, I think this game fares a bit better with this issue, thanks to a better menu layout that makes it easier to find what you’re looking for.

In the end, I definitely think SNK Vs. Capcom Card Fighters’ Clash is a game that could benefit from a modern update to utilize the improved resolution of the Nintendo Switch to give players more information without needing to cycle through menus, and this game sorely needs online play, or at least local wireless play. However, even with these flaws and omissions, this is an outstanding Collectable Card RPG that’s still a blast to play even to this day. If you enjoy games in this genre and don’t mind getting a bit old-school, consider this a must-play game.

tl;dr – SNK Vs. Capcom Card Fighters’ Clash is a Turn-Based Collectable Card RPG that is simple to pick up, but has a surprising amount of depth. This release includes both the SNK and Capcom versions of the game, and will even let players trade and battle between the two on the same system (though sadly not via online or local wireless multiplayer), and while the limited screen size means you’ll be shuffling through a fair amount of menus, this game has otherwise aged quite well, and fans of the genre should absolutely give it a try.

Grade: B+

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