ADK’s World Heroes series is one of the Neo Geo’s lesser-known fighting dynasties, and is usually pushed to one side when people get all nostalgic about the likes of King of Fighters, Art of Fighting, Samurai Shodown and Fatal Fury. This is probably because the franchise never really took itself all that seriously; the cast was totally crazy, boasting mad Russian monks, demonic American Football players and dashing pirate captains, and the visuals were more than a little goofy-looking. Even so, the original World Heroes was popular enough to gain several sequels and attracted a fair amount of attention at a time when fighting games were de rigueur.
Confusingly, 1993’s World Heroes 2 is hitting the Wii Virtual Console after World Heroes Perfect, which was the final entry in the series, originally released in 1995. Like the first game, it’s a one-on-one brawler heavily indebted to Capcom’s seminal Street Fighter II. You select a fighter and face off against rivals in a best-of-three contest, with the first person to lose all of their life forfeiting the round. Special moves (many of which are lifted wholesale from Street Fighter II and require various button and pad combinations) are essential to victory, and each character has their own unique combat style, with the usual mixture of slow, strong pugilists mixing it up with faster but weaker individuals.
So what does World Heroes 2 offer over its forerunner? More characters is the obvious answer; there are six new fighters to select from, with the flamboyant Captain Kidd being one of the most memorable. There are 14 different characters to utilise (although the two boss fighters can be unlocked via a code), and mastering each one takes plenty of time and effort. If you’re keen to extract as much enjoyment from your games as possible, then exploring all of the tactics and strategies afforded by each fighter is no mean feat.
Like all sequels, World Heroes 2 makes tweaks to the game engine, too. Although it’s not quite as fast as Capcom’s "Turbo" entries, it definitely feels quicker than the previous release. This increased pace means that it’s easy to make combo attacks flow, and generally means things are more enjoyable. Death Matches make a return, and while they won’t distract you entirely from the “normal” portion of the game, they’re good fun with some amusing visual effects and tense confrontations.
Visually, it’s certainly a step up from the original instalment - that introduction sequence is still impressive even by today’s standards - but it’s not a seismic shift. The occasionally goofy designs are still there, and only the biggest World Heroes fan would be prepared to argue that this looks better than Street Fighter II or any of SNK’s other Neo Geo scrappers.
Conclusion
Back in 1993, World Heroes 2 was a solid one-on-one fighter that rightly sucked in plenty of coins from eager arcade addicts. It’s aged pretty well, but the issue here is context. World Heroes 2 Jet - an update of this title - was released less than twelve months later in 1994, and we’ve already experienced World Heroes Perfect on the Wii Virtual Console, which is a game that is superior to World Heroes 2 in practically every regard.
If you’ve not downloaded a World Heroes game before then it’s a given that you should pick World Heroes Perfect, and if you’ve already purchased that entry then there’s little reason to lay down your digital monies for this prequel unless you’re a rabid fan of the franchise. World Heroes 2 is the effectively the right game at the wrong time - if it had been released first then we’d be a little more forthcoming about recommending it.
Comments 8
I LOVE this game, but I think that's a fair review of it. I'll mostly be picking it up for nostalgia but I'm not sure others will get as much out of it as I will. Glad it saw a release, though. I didn't have much hope after Perfect hit the VC.
I'll get this as soon as the it arrives in the US. I'd rather have this version than Perfect or Jet.
World Heroes is ok. I prefer other Neo Geo fighters over this of course. I will skip part 2 and get perfect.
This is a trend with Neo Geo fighters in the VC. They released the installments of each franchise in no particular order, maybe for the sake of completion.
Wasn't SNK / ADK the target of a lawsuit by Capcom over World Heroes because of its similarities to Street Fighter II?
It was DataEast and their Fighter's History game that Capcom sued over similarities. Capcom just makes fun of SNK - Dan Hibiki was a parody of Art of Fighting for example. They wouldn't have made the Capcom vs SNK games if they had sued.
Anyway, I always saw the World Heroes series of games as kinda crappy from my limited experience. Although I know some people here will disagree. However, after playing NeoGeo Battle Colliseum, what I did want was a World Heroes 3. SNK really made those old World Heroes characters look cool in NGBC and fun to play as.
My favourite game in the series and the one I was waiting for thanks for releasing this
My qualm with the World Heroes series is that it just simply lacks the depth of other Neo Geo fighters like Art of Fighting. It's a great way to introduce a new gamer to the fighting genre, but outside of that it doesn't really compare to some of it's siblings.
I first started playing many of the popular fighters of the early 90's, but never really got into fighters till really cutting my teeth on World Heroes.
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