Review for SNK Heroines: Tag Team Frenzy. Game for Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4, the video game was released on 06/09/2018
Is fanservice necessarily always bad? Absolutely not and the world of video games is full of examples, so to speak, virtuous. In fact, fanservice is often associated with semi-naked girls protagonists of provocative scenes, but in reality it simply means an attention by the developers to details and elements appreciated by fans. An example? Super Smash Bros. Ultimate "Echo" fighters, in all respects simple reskin of other characters but made independent for the simple joy of the players.
However, the abuse, by some developers, of the fanservice with a sexual background has led to associate this practice with something negative. Take for example SNK's latest fighting game, SNK Heroines Tag Team Frenzy: a title with an all-female cast of fighters wouldn't be bad at all, even if they only dress in unlikely costumes of any kind. But when this becomes the only important element of production, then the problems begin.
SNK Heroines Tag Team Frenzy was born from the idea of bringing together all the wrestlers of the SNK universe in a single product, a bit like Koei Tecmo did when he conceived the spin-off Dead or Alive Xtreme. However, the development team preferred to play it safe and choose the fighting game genre for this great cross-over, while simplifying the much deeper mechanics seen in The King of Fighters series. The result is in some ways interesting, the defects that however affect this title risk undermining what is the most important feature for a video game: fun.
Let's start first with the most banal of elements: the interface. If you were used to the clean and essential interfaces of SNK fighting games, well in this case you will be a little disappointed. Tag Team Frenzy adopts options that are far from convincing to the point that even navigating the menus is often confusing. We are not talking about the fights, where the choice to accompany each shot of the wrestlers with bulky and unlikely visual effects often makes it difficult to understand what is happening on the screen.
Remaining in the visual area, the graphics engine chosen for SNK Heroines Tag Team Frenzy unfortunately does not make a good impression on Nintendo Switch. Although the title is all in all simple from the point of view of polygonal models and textures, the framerate at which it runs both in handheld and docked mode is not absolutely satisfactory.
The title appears to have an upper-bound of 30 frames per second with frequent dips that, in a fighting game, are a bit like kryptonite for Superman. An inexplicable situation honestly: the title in fact presents a cleaning of the image that is not fantastic, a sacrifice that is usually made to increase the framerate but, in fact, this is not the case.
What exactly does simplified gameplay mean? It means that intricate key combinations are no longer required to perform moves and combos: the title has been made accessible to a large audience and the CPU difficulty is also slightly lowered. It will always be possible to change the difficulty in the appropriate menus, however this additional simplification is a godsend for those who intend to buy the Nintendo Switch version. The standard console controls are not in fact equipped with an appropriate directional cross and consequently sudden movements and key combinations are a bit challenging.
As the name suggests, SNK Heroines Tag Team Frenzy also offers a tag battle system in which you can choose two characters and alternate them throughout the match. The roster available is unfortunately not very large and even the arenas in which the fights will take place are few and a bit all the same. Much more was expected from a SNK production, which seems to have invested large resources in customizing the wrestlers through clothes, accessories and so on. At least the game modes are not lacking, they are varied and well differentiated, and between story mode and local multiplayer there is time to lose. Too bad for the difficulty of finding matches online: it seems that for the moment the servers are quite deserted.
SNK Heroines Tag Team Frenzy is a great missed opportunity: it is not so much the fanservice that damages the production as the fact that the predominant component on which everything rests is almost only the fanservice. Poor graphics, frame drops, unreadable interface, confusing clashes and limited content. In short, SNK could have done better given the medium-high standards it has accustomed us to over the years. We'll see if at least part of the title's defects will be resolved with some future patch.
► SNK Heroines: Tag Team Frenzy is a fighting game developed by SNK Playmore and published by NIS America for Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4, the video game was released on 06/09/2018
