Many, many fighting games were released on the Neo Geo and these are slowly but surely filling up the Switch’s eShop. Compared to most of the options available World Heroes and its sequels offer a simpler experience with less depth, but the series can still entertain when its varied cast of fighters (largely based on historical figures) face off against each other.
This first entry in the series gives you a choice of just eight characters, based on the likes of Rasputin, Bruce Lee and Genghis Khan, who provide a variety of fighting choices whether you are looking for a strong powerful brawler or someone a bit quicker. Hanzo and Fuuma are based on figures from feudal Japan, but also Street Fighter’s Ryu and Ken, serving as the good all-rounder options with some similar moves to the shotokan pair.
The game features a button for punch and a button to kick, and holding them down a bit longer performs a stronger attack. A four-button setup would be preferable, but it doesn’t really cause any trouble as the fighters move quite slowly. There’s also a throw button, but as pushing a direction with punch will also usually perform the move it is not often used. Each character also has some special moves at their disposal, and whilst a few could have used simpler input commands there’s a quite generous time allowed for you to perform the necessary button presses.
Simple controls and CPU opposition that’s not too tough makes World Heroes a game that’s quite newcomer friendly, but the slow pace lessens the enjoyment somewhat. There's still some entertainment from knocking someone out of the air with a well-timed special attack or avoiding one of their moves and then countering with a throw or kick to the face. Subsequent games would tweak the gameplay and speed and ultimately the final instalment - World Heroes Perfect (already available on the eShop) - is the best of the bunch. This does offer something that game doesn’t however: death matches.
Death matches (dropped from the series with World Heroes 2 Jet) can be selected after picking your character, and these add hazards such as spikes and flaming ropes to the fighting arenas. These prove to be fun fights that add a bit of strategy as you try to stay away from the spiked edges or stay airborn when there are landmines scattered about. Some matches even combine dangers, so you may find yourself jumping away from an electrified barrier whilst trying not to land on a slippery oil puddle. Though it can get annoying when your opponent has you trapped against a hazard, the chaos helps hide the slow speed which makes for more enjoyable gaming.
Having beaten the other fighters you face off against shape-shifting metal man Geegus, who will morph into other characters during his fight against you; it's a kind of cross between the T-1000 and Mortal Kombat’s Shang Tsung. Once defeated there’s some replayability as you go through again to see the endings of the other characters, or you could dive into the options menu to bump up the difficulty for a tougher challenge.
The usual ACA one credit Hi Score and five minute Caravan modes are available if you want to see how your point-scoring compares to players from around the world, and a second player can buy into the regular arcade mode at any time to challenge you to a fight. Two player battles are enjoyable, but if playing death matches there’s no way of selecting specific hazards other than playing through solo until you find what you are looking for and then having the second player join in.
Conclusion
There's only eight characters and the simple combat setup means there are not as many moves available as in other one-on-one brawlers. The slow speed of the fights is another negative, but death matches liven things up a bit even if you can lose from poor positioning rather than something your opponent has done. Though not the most fully-featured series, subsequent games would add characters and tweak the gameplay (the regular World Heroes 2 also features death matches, though handled a little differently), and so whilst World Heroes can provide some fun fights, those desperately looking to pit historically-inspired fighters against each other would be better off with one of the sequels.
Comments 14
I've been looking for news on what the next batch of Neo Geo games are,cant find anything. I wonder if they'll skip a week or 2 of Neo Geo releases since Front Line, Super Mario Bros Vs, R-type and Double Dragon are confirmed for release?
Meh, a decent game but with Perfect already available it kind've renders this one pointless. Unless you either really want to digitally collect them all or are really into the deathmatch mechanic that is.
@OorWullie I could see that. Double Dragon's my most anticipated of the lot. Too have that one, arcade perfect, on the Switch is awesome.
@Prof_Yoshtonics Yep, I'll have a big grin on my face when I start it up for the first time. I first played it at the arcades some time in the late 80's and then I bought it for the Master System. That was quite a good port actually. To finally own the arcade original after all these years will be something special.
Jeez, I have a lot of sympathy for the reviewers that have to play through all of these neo geo games that were decidedly average even in their heyday. Must be like pulling teeth, especially when there's so much quality on the Switch that anyone would rather be playing instead.
@OorWullie
Last Blade is coming to Switch next week I think? And I imagine Last Blade 2 will follow soon after.
@OorWullie I agree completely and yeah I prefer the Master System version to the NES version for sure. It's almost impossible on NES. Arcade being the best though it'll be nice. On a separate note anyone see the Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection was just announced and is coming to Switch day one?
Yeah, unlike some of the other fighting game series on the NEO GEO where certain iterations are different enough that deciding on which one is 'better' is a bit of a debate (i.e. Fatal Fury Special vs. Real Bout Special or 2, Samurai Shodown 2 vs. 4, KoF '98 vs. 2002, '96, '97, '99, and so on), World Heroes ends up being pretty linear in it's progression. If you pick up World Heroes Perfect, you wouldn't be missing much at all except for the Deathmatch modes.
@OorWullie I haven't seen anything yet for next week's NEO GEO game, either. KoF '96 should be the one for the 28th. But yeah, I'll probably see something on Twitter by tomorrow.
I played this so much on the Wii VC. It’s not the best fighting game obviously, but I still kinda like it.
I like these old Neo Geo games, and I always had a lot of fun with World Heroes, but, it would be so much better if they'd just make these games online so we can fight random strangers.
@Oorwulle and @Prof_Yoshtonics
Apologies for being a bubble-burster but time has not been kind to Double Dragon arcade.
I picked up the PS4 port and the slowdown in the original arcade code is almost crippling if you have more than two enemies on screen. If they fix that then you're onto a winner. But if they do a port that's 100% faithful its a real chore to get through. This is coming from someone who absolutely adored and had somewhat of an obsession with it when originally released.
WOW ANOTHER NEO GEO FIGHTER GAME!!.....it's not like we got enough of them already....
Give us something different, I don't see the point of buying tons of fighting games that are more or the same, just with different fighters/stages almost as bad the fifa games we keep getting.
Give us something like Ninja Baseball Batman....then I'll buy.
@WrongChops That's a shame. I'm not confident Hamster will fix it as they didn't bother to with their Neo Geo releases.They want them to be exactly as they were back in the day,warts and all. I can appreciate that but some things, like slowdown weren't fun back in the 80's, much less so now.They could let us choose to turn slow down on or off in the options so they're still giving us an 100% authentic version if we want to play it that way.I bet not many people would though.
I just found some "no slowdown long plays" of Double Dragon on YouTube. Apparently all you need to do is copy a cfg file into a folder and it will run perfectly. It seems DD has a reputation as being one of the worst for it, I didn't know that.
@ClassSonicSatAm You're missing the point, as do so many on here. Hamster will release every single Neo Geo game on Switch, license permitting. The Neo Geo was dominated by 1v1 fighters so of course there's going to be loads of them. They have been trying to mix things up though and give us different genres while still working through the huge 1v1 fighters.Plus they deserve credit for releasing most of the best entry's in each franchise before releasing the weaker ones.
I think it's great that they're doing this, it restores and preserves all the Neo Geo's catalogue for future generations. Not just Neo Geo though, also Nintendo arcade past as well as many others from the 80's in their Arcade Archives series.
Show Comments
Leave A Comment
Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment...