Late to the Party: SNK Heroines: Tag Team Frenzy

ou all should know by now that we love a good fighting game here on Press Pause Radio and SNK is a mainstay that is responsible for some of our favorites over the years. Games like King of Fighters '98 (and its fantastic Dreamcast update, Dream Match 1999), Garou: Mark of the Wolves, Shin Samurai Spirits (Samurai Showdown II) and so many more. It’s hard to discount SNK after all of these years, and their work will always have a space on our shelf and hard drives with each new port in the future. So, when SNK announced a new fighting game for the Nintendo Switch featuring an all-female roster of fighters from across SNK's history, I knew I needed to check it out at some point.

 Developed by SNK (The Future is Now!) and published by NIS America, SNK Heroines: Tag Team Frenzy is a versus fighting game that, at first glance, seems to be a fan-service-y re-skin of the typical SNK fighting game formula. Players start the game with a primary attacker and a secondary supporting character. However, simply diving into the game with this expectation will only lead to confusion and frustrate the player, as there is actually a completely unique system under the hood that needs quite a bit more understanding if players want to make any kind of progress.

 The player will, first and foremost, need to abandon everything they know of games like King of Fighters; you won't find any quarter-circle-forwards here. Instead, the move-sets are replaced with a structure reminiscent of Super Smash Brothers, combining one single directional with either the Y, X, or B buttons. A defensive shield can also be engaged with the L button. These inputs still correlate to many of the same moves found in previous SNK fighters though, so learning what does what will still allow seasoned players to figure out and execute decent chained combos just like the games they know and love.

 But that's really the least of the changes here. Like most fighting games, the main goal here is to reduce the opposing character or player's life to where they are knocked out. However, in Tag Team Frenzy, there's much more to it; The life gauge is initially split between green life and pink stamina. As life is reduced, more stamina can be built up to replace it, allowing for more attacks and special moves to be performed. As these attacks and defenses are used, stamina will decrease which will eventually result in attacks doing little to no damage at all.

 This is where the Tag Team portion of the game comes into play; the active attacking character can swap out with the supporting character in the background at any given time. This allows a fighter to recharge their stamina while the fresh fighter goes into the fray. Switching between these two characters is critical in making it through the match as efficiently as possible, especially since simply getting the opponent's life to nothing won’t end the match. A super attack will need to be executed - and landed - in order for the match to be ended. These techniques are performed with a simple press of the R button, which takes most of the dexterity required for a move like Terry's Buster Wolf out of the equation entirely. Since these attacks require a substantial amount of stamina, the Tag system is critical in this regard. 

There will also be golden orbs that regularly appear that can be struck to grant the player – or opponent – a special item to attack, defend or recover life or stamina. These special items are held by the supporting characters and triggered with the flick of the right analog stick. They can often assist in turning the tides of battle, especially when looking for an opening to land a critical, round ending special attack. The frequency of these items can be adjusted in the game's options.

 This actually makes for a fairly simple fighting game that works well for novices and in a portable setting, but chances are very good that fighting game veterans will want a much more technical game. SNK Heroines is also a fairly tame game in terms of difficulty, but multiple difficulty levels exist for players looking for more challenge out of the game. There are also a number of extra modes that should boost the replayability of the game, including practice mode, Vs. CPU, multiple Local Versus modes, and of course, an online ode to take the fight to the worldwide stage.

 But I didn't feel as if the actual gameplay was the main focus here. After all, it's really light on technique. It's no real secret that SNK Heroines is a title that, for all intents and purposes, is designed around a hefty bit of fan service. Jiggle physics and skimpy costumes abound, all within a full-3D engine that some might find impure when applied to an SNK fighting game... though King of Fighters XIV proves that this shouldn't really be the case. But the engine used and the level of detail applied may not be especially optimal for the Switch in the end; framerates vary between 60 and 30 frames per second depending on the camera angle and how many environmental elements are onscreen at once. It's also bizarre to see attacks and impacts explode into plush animals, food, money, playing cards, and 10-sided dice; we would have preferred the kind of special effects seen in other “normal” SNK fighters.

To say that the costumes in SNK Heroines are skimpy is probably the understatement of the year. We didn't think Mai Shiranui could really be anymore... featureful, we'll say, but SNK succeeded with a cow-themed bikini two sizes too small complete with horns, ears, and a bell. This is probably the most egregious example, save for Leona's cat getup. Thankfully, there are several unlockable costumes – including many of the cast's original designs – available in the Customize menu. These additional options are purchasable with in-game gold earned through the main game; a single playthrough without a single loss should allow for enough gold to snag both additional costumes.

 The story is as players might expect, with flimsy dialog and a bizarre plot involving a strange antagonist in a dreamlike palace bristling with surveillance cameras and zoom lenses that frequently focus on the player characters' various, uh... assets. It somehow comes off as even less cohesive as your typical 90's fighting fare and with the wealth of fighters nowadays with proper exposition and deeper plotlines, there's no real excuse for what ends up being smutty weak-sauce. The plot does uniquely progress with dynamic interactions between the characters chosen by the player, so there are many, many different combinations for players to experience. All of these interactions are unlocked to be viewed anytime.

 The music and sound are less than great as well; very little of the music is particularly memorable, with less-than-great renditions of classic themes that are barely noticeable throughout the entire game. The voices are as you’d expect here, with various attacks belted out and drawn out screams on defeat. We were also really put off by the super-lame, cheesy-ass magician wannabe default announcer. Thankfully, the menu announcements can be swapped out with unlockable voice sets from the character roster. This, unfortunately, does not apply to the character selections and in-game item announcements. To say that the default announcer is cringey is putting it so lightly it wouldn't register on even the most sensitive weight scale—to put it another way, Last Alert is better delivered. 

Rounding everything out is the ability to use the aforementioned gold to purchase and unlock various voice sets, art pieces, and more. If nothing else, it adds a little more incentive to play the game beyond a few rounds.

 Is it fun? Ehh, maybe. It's definitely playable, but this game is very obviously marketed to a particular demographic. Light on content and heavy on fan service, SNK Heroines might not be a game for the seasoned fighting veteran, but for those that can deal with a bit of jiggle and bounce, SNK Heroines could make for a decent starting point for players looking to test the fighting game waters.