SNK vs. Capcom SVC Chaos

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SNK vs. Capcom: SVC Chaos, is the final Fighting Game entry for the SNK vs. Capcom series, which is also part of the Capcom vs. Whatever series. It was launched in 2003 for arcades, the Neo Geo AES, and the Play Station 2 (and a year later for X Box), after SNK's bankruptcy and rebirth as SNK Playmore.

This game was notorious by breaking the trend of only Fighting Game characters for their bosses and secret characters:

SNK side:

• The King of Fighters: Kyo Kusanagi, Iori Yagami and Choi Bounge
• Fatal Fury: Terry Bogard, Mai Shiranui and Kim Kaphwan
• Art of Fighting: Ryo Sakazaki, Mr. Karate and Kasumi Todoh
• Samurai Shodown: Genjuro, Earthquake and Shiki
• Mid Bosses: Mars People, Geese Howard, Goenitz and Orochi Iori
• Final Boss: Serious Mr. Karate
• Bonus Boss: Athena

Capcom side:

• Street Fighter: Ryu, Ken, Sagat
• Street Fighter II: Chun-Li, Dhalsim, Guile, Balrog, Vega, M. Bison and Akuma.
• Street Fighter III: Hugo
• Red Earth: Tessa
• Mid Bosses: Demitri Maximoff, Zero, Dan and Violent Ken
• Final Boss: Shin Akuma
• Bonus Boss: Red Arremer

The gameplay is based on that of The King of Fighters 2002, and is the only game on this series to follow the traditional one-on-one battle system. The gauge system also allowed the players to execute many special attacks, plus Guard Cancels, Super Special moves and Exceeds (which also requires the player to have half of its lifebar).

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Play In Real Earnest:

• Ambidextrous Sprite: Sagat's eyepatch.
• Art Shift: One of the game's strong points are the SNK-made sprites for the Capcom characters, especially notable in the Street Fighter characters. Compare Dhalsim, for example, who has beefy muscles in the Alpha series, and his SVC sprite, which is skinny, for emphasizing the Yoga side; and Demitri, who looks even more menacing than it's 1994 sprite...
  • Off-Model: ...yet they can also be inconsistent in quality. Ryu's sprite, especially, appears to have been directly traced over his anatomically questionable SFII sprite. Same goes for Ken and Akuma, but surprisingly not for Dan.
• Ascended Extra: Mars People as a Mid Boss. The Red Arremer is a Bonus Boss.
• Ass Kicks You: Earthquake.
• Attract Mode
• Battle Aura: Demitri
• Baleful Polymorph: Losing to either Firebr-I mean, Red Arremer or Athena results in your character being transformed into a demonic creature (vs. Arremer) or an animal (vs. Athena). A small version of this is Demitri's Midnight Bliss attack, where he transforms male characters into women (for the girls, he makes them more attractive). The change isn't permanent, thanks to Demitri's courtesy to suck your blood and blow you up before turning you back to normal.
• Combat Tentacles: The only plausible explanation as to how Mars People made the cut over Marco Rossi.
• Damn You, Muscle Memory!: The game tried to keep some of the medium attacks as SNK-style command moves (a direction + a button) with hit-and-miss results; many of those could now be canceled into, but the inputs often conflicted with instinctive 2D fighter reflexes (such as holding back to block).
• Desperation Attack: The Exceed ultras, inherited from Art of Fighting and Fatal Fury's similar modes. Its execution at the end of a match is required for the fights against the Bonus Bosses.
• Dialogue Tree: All of the pre-fighting chats among characters.
• Even The Satsui No Hadou Has Standards: Akuma shows his disdain for child abuse with this winquote:

"Defeating you takes less effort than smacking a baby. Not that I'd ever do that!"

• Everything's Better with Spinning: To the point of being able to create tornadoes. (Choi)
• First Installment Wins: On the Capcom side, nine out of twelve characters are from Street Fighter II. This is especially noticeable when compared to the SNK side, which is instead filled to the brim with Ensemble Darkhorses.
• Gainaxing: Mai. (obviously)
• Gender Bender: Demitri's Midnight Bliss.
• Giant Space Flea From Nowhere: The encounter with Athena or the Red Arremer.
• Golden Ending: The game will show you this for the character you've chosen if you defeat the Bonus Boss.
• Gratuitous English: BATTORU CHIRU DON
• The Jimmy Hart Version: The song for the Power Generation Room stage sounds kinda like Foregone Destruction.
  • The train stage theme is a rather odd re-arrangement of Geese's theme.
• Motor Mouth: The announcer.
• No Plot, No Problem: Subverted. The game never told you what was happening before you pressed the Start button, but seemingly tried to 'spice it up' which pre-battle dialogues and endings. And even then, nobody will tell you why you have to fight in a postapocalyptic world. The comic book adaptation gives you a better understanding of the game's story.
• Obvious Beta: It's not a secret to those who dug deeper into this game, that pretty much everything in it could be as good as in Capcom vs.SNK 2.
• Original Generation: To an extent, Violent Ken, based on the Brainwashed and Crazy version of Ken from Street Fighter II the Animated Movie, and Serious Mr. Karate, a beefed up version of Mr. Karate, being variants created only for their sole appearances.
• Please Put Some Clothes On: Mai seems to get a lot of this.
• Real Is Brown: Most of the backgrounds have been done in one and the same gray tone. Compared to KoF2002 and 2003, however, it's Darker and Edgier and includes a few, in not none, living beings. Good luck finding one.
• Refusal of the Call: Sagat turns down his chance to become the leader of Shadaloo in his ending.
• Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: In the pre-match dialogues, so much it's funny (especially when people like Balrog and Dan mix it with street-level talk). And that's without mentioning Sagat's "supercillious jester" to Mr. Karate.
• She's a Man in Spain: Thanks to inconsistency in the localization, Tessa is ported as a man in the Spanish translation.
• Shout-Out: Check the page.
• SNK Boss: Both pairs of Final Bosses and Bonus Bosses.
• Spiritual Successor: Neo Geo Battle Coliseum. And yes, that one uses recycled sprites from its predecessor.
• The Starscream: Balrog becomes this in his ending by taking control of Shadaloo. He even wears an uniform reminiscent of Bison's one, only sleeveless.
• Stripperific: Mai, Shiki, and Athena.
• Translation Train Wreck: In the English translation, Zero keeps using the word "Irregulars", when the term used in the American releases is "Maverick".
  • The game has stage names such as "Green of forest", "The village in the maniac world", and "Nude palace".
  • Ciel refers to Akuma as a murderous martial artist who has lived since Japan's feudal age. In reality, Ciel was referring to his fighting style, which was a murderous martial art founded during Japan's feudal age.
  • Spell My Name with an "S": As an example, there's the misspelling of Juli's name, (as Juri) which wouldn't hurt as much, until, seven years later, another Juri makes her debut in Super Street Fighter IV. And no, they aren't related in any way aside of being Shadaloo members.
• Visual Pun: Balrog wears M. Bison's outfit when he takes over Shadaloo in his ending. It becomes hilarious when you realize that Balrog technically is "M. Bison" in Japan.