ACA NEOGEO World Heroes Perfect

Genre: Fighting Game

Players: 1-2 Competitive (Local), Online Leaderboards

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Review:

World Heroes Perfect is a Fighting Game originally released in 1994 in arcades and the NEOGEO home console, and in the years since it has been brought to numerous other consoles, with this ACA NEOGEO version releasing on Nintendo Switch in 2017. As of this writing, this is the final game in the World Heroes series of Fighting Games.

“Perfect” seems like an extraordinary boast for a game to make in its title, but to its credit, World Heroes Perfect does make a lot of improvements over prior games in the series. Amusingly, many of these changes simply bring this game closer to other Fighting games of its era.

The archaic button hold mechanic has been supplanted by a more traditional separate-button mechanic like other Fighting Games, and while the limited number of buttons requires attacks to be assigned to pressing multiple buttons simultaneously, this release allows you to change the button assignments as you please, including assigning multiple inputs to one button.

Beyond this change, the controls feel much more fluid and responsive here, with characters having a wider variety of moves, including super moves complete with a super meter and specialized “ABC Moves”. The roster is now increased to sixteen fighters plus two unlockable secret characters, and this game restores the traditional Arcade mode that was lacking in World Heroes 2 Jet.

The one complaint I would level at this game is that the characters don’t feel especially well-balanced, and multiple characters are known to have infinite combos. Meanwhile, you’ll often find yourself landing an attack only to immediately receive an attack in return that you can’t block because you’re still in the middle of your move, effectively punishing you even though your attack was successful.

When it comes to the specific features of this port, players are given a decent array of options and features. The game features the Japanese original release, the English original release, and Caravan Mode, a 5 minute score challenge with Online leaderboards. Furthermore, in-game players can access display settings, save states, game settings, and a digital manual. It’s a decent selection of features, though sadly what’s missing is online play, and there’s no art or making-of content to speak of.

I think World Heroes Perfect is absolutely the best game in its series, and the only one in this Fighting Game franchise that I think is truly worth playing still to this day. However, despite its title, it is far from perfect – it’s fun to play with good controls, but it’s sloppy and unbalanced. However, if you can forgive its flaws, I think you can still have a pretty fun time with this game.

tl;dr – World Heroes Perfect is a Fighting Game that has players taking the role of historical figures in battle, and this game makes several additions and improvements over the prior World Heroes game that bring it closer in line with other Fighting Games of its time. It’s unbalanced and a bit sloppy in places, but it’s fun to play and controls well, making it the best game in its series and the only one I would argue is worth playing today, even if it’s still not on par with the likes of the Street Fighter franchise.

Grade: B-

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