GOTD 5/9/2016: World Heroes 2 Jet (Neo Geo)

[celerystalker]

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The Neo Geo being known for being overloaded with fighting games is hardly a myth. When you consider that there are no less than 8 Fatal Furies, 6 Samurai Shodowns, 10 King of Fighters, 3 Art of Fightings, 2 Last Blades... and we aren't even done with the first party fighters... it's a hard fact. As a result, fighters tend to be some of the least expensive games on the hardware, and developers had to really try and have some new hook to try and break away from the pack. With World Heroes, it was Capcom-style timing, characters based on historical or mythical figures, and death matches in which the arena would be filled with environmental hazards and a see-saw-like health bar mechanism. So, having those matches become the calling card of their franchise, ADK summarily dropped them entirely for the third game in the series to try something different even from that.

The crazy characters are still around, including witch doctor Mudman, Rasputin, Captain Kidd... but the absence of death matches definitely left a void. To fill it, an entirely new tournament structure was formed in order to speed up the pace and still include fights with the entire roster. In the regular arcade mode, you still select one character, but you face teams of three. You must defeat two out of three of these nemeses in single-round bouts in order to move on. Aside from keeping the pace and variety high without just aping King of Fighters, this also means that you can get by with sucking against a specific character so long as you can clear his or her teammates. It presents an interesting dynamic and quick combat variety, but also means there are fewer backgrounds.

This is a shame, as World Heroes 2 Jet's backgrounds are beautiful and colorful, lending an almost festive atmosphere to the proceedings, and it's very intentional... there's an MC calling each fight and announcing the winner, and the evil boss watches from his seat like Cobra Commander and Destro in the Arena of Sport. It feels like a televised presentation of a fighting tournament, which is a cool change. The characters also are bright and colorful, and the music is good if typical of mid-'90s fighters. It also plays faster and slightly more responsively than its predecessors, and I do like the feel, even if hit priority isn't fine tuned in its balance, and dashes have been added.

A few last things have helped endear this series and game to me over the years. It has an early parry system in which you can time your backward block just as a projectile hits you in order to deflect it back at your opponent a little faster, and they can do the same in return. This can lead to some amusing tennis-like volleys between skilled players, and makes for a big laugh once someone finally takes it on the chin. A traditional mode is also included, and it allows for one on one, best of three matches if you want to vanilla things up. Lastly, the charcters show a ton of personality in their moves, taunts, and poses. Some people might choose to view some as offensive stereotypes, but I enjoy them as amusing Japanese interpretations of other cultures' legends.

World Heroes 2 Jet is one of the most affordable yet high quality fighters on the Neo Geo, AES or MVS. It's also included in the PS2 World Heroes Anthology, though it is often passed over there for World Heroes Perfect, which is actually my least favorite of the series. It tries a lot of novel things, and although the computer AI is easily tricked, it's a blast 2 player, and its format changes are a welcome change of pace to me. Oh, there's also a Game Boy version I've never touched, and many downloadable versions.

Played it?

[Steven]

It's been no secret that over the years World Heroes has been my favorite gaming franchise (because I am weird like that). Jet changed a lot that I wasn't too crazy about. Blocking regular attacks now took off some health a la Mortal Kombat. The energy bar seemed shorter and thicker. The one round team system was interesting though.

EGM scored it Game of the Month and I remember thinking about time the series got some recognition!

I own the GB Takara port and it's surprisingly well done. Part of me wishes they did a full on SNES port but by 1995 the SNES market was changing and World Heroes wasn't big enough to take a risk on probably. Makes you wonder though why even bother with a GB port...

Perfect has the best gameplay but lost a lot of that WH spirit. Why is Perfect your least favorite, celery?

[celerystalker]

I like Perfect the least due to, as you mentioned, its losing a lot of its own style. It is the most refined in control and character balance, but it became very generic in the process. Traditional four button control instead of the duration-sensitive three-button setup, no death matches, no unique tournament like in Jet... it's more like Street Fighter featuring World Heroes characters than the flawed, more interesting animal it was before.

I waffle between 2 and Jet for my favorite, as 2 has the Death Matches and is more refined than the first, but I like the single-player tournament and speed better in Jet.

[Az]

I love the death matches in 1 & 2 but I absolutely hate that seesaw life bar they give you in the death matches on part 2. The computer always is the master of that while you're left beating the shit out of your controller/machine often to lose anyway.

Anytime I feel like playing the DM levels from 2 I always throw the SNES version in since it has an option to use normal life bars in DM levels. (Preferably the beta ROM of 2, since it has a completely different combo system than the final version.)

[SuperCool]

I tried this one yesterday, and man, I got my butt handed to me. The three button control layout definitely takes some getting used to.

[Edmond Dantes]

You know what the best thing about World Heroes is?

Lina Inverse being a playable character. (Yes I know her name is Janne and she's supposed to be based off Joan of Arc, but she's so much like Lina Inverse that I call her that). I also always liked the mechanical dude who I always called Russian Inspector Gadget. "Go go gadget arms!"

There is nothing like the extra humiliation of your final blow bouncing your opponent into the electrified ring, the whole thing taking place in loving slow motion until he comes to a rest.

I have the World Heroes Collection for PS2. World Heroes 1 is also one of the few Neo Geo AES carts I own, unfortunately it seems to be a problem cart... for some reason the sound is randomly really scratchy. I tried opening the cart and cleaning the boards (and I damaged the shell in the process) and that didn't fix it. I'm now looking for a second AES copy (north american label) mostly to see if this is a recurring thing and to get one with an undamaged shell.

[celerystalker]

I tried this one yesterday, and man, I got my butt handed to me. The three button control layout definitely takes some getting used to.

Yeah, it's not super easy, and some of the moves that you'd expect to have hit priority in most fighters don't, so that can be tough to figure out. One of the biggest things is that regular strong punches and kicks do considerably more damage than specials, which are more for positioning and defense in this one. It's great in 2 player, but I do like the single player. I usually play Hanzo, as a combination of his spinning hurricane kick-like move and projectiles allow for pretty good screen positioning control against the CPU, and his hard kick hits like a truck, though his projectile is absurdly weak.

Edmond-I get what you mean, that armor is rather like Lina's. I should check the color palettes and see if she has one with red hair...

[Tanooki]

I don't respond much on these boards anymore lately, but if you saw the arcade alley this weekend I acquired a pretty cherry 2 slot MVS SNK registered cabinet with a stack of 9 legit games and the 161in1 multicart which has both WH1(my favorite due to I guess rosy glasses) and WH2 which I've barely touched. Ages ago when it was a thing with Takara being chibi awesome I had WH2 Jet on GB along with SS1, Toshinden, and I think I had one other. These days I have SS1 and SS3 imported, considering also their Transformers import too. I do have a KOF 96 cart I'm looking to likely sell, but I have been wondering if I should grab Jet on GB still.

But now this...I have the MVS...is Jet really worth it if you already have 1 and 2? As you said they're cheap, but still I do wonder.

[celerystalker]

I don't respond much on these boards anymore lately, but if you saw the arcade alley this weekend I acquired a pretty cherry 2 slot MVS SNK registered cabinet with a stack of 9 legit games and the 161in1 multicart which has both WH1(my favorite due to I guess rosy glasses) and WH2 which I've barely touched. Ages ago when it was a thing with Takara being chibi awesome I had WH2 Jet on GB along with SS1, Toshinden, and I think I had one other. These days I have SS1 and SS3 imported, considering also their Transformers import too. I do have a KOF 96 cart I'm looking to likely sell, but I have been wondering if I should grab Jet on GB still.

But now this...I have the MVS...is Jet really worth it if you already have 1 and 2? As you said they're cheap, but still I do wonder.

Its single player tournament structure is significantly different and it plays faster than one or two. I go back and forth between Jet and 2 for which I prefer. If you just love the series, it's worth picking up, but you're probably better looking for variety and grabbing another game that's not on the multi-cart since you've got the first two to play.

[Tanooki]

Ok fair enough. I wouldn't really care about the tourney so if the other mechanics are close to 2 that's fine.

League Bowling I'd love to snap up, don't see one posted anywhere I'd go after today though as that's not on there. I need to go back to that neo-geo forum listing I saw that noted the missing library titles and see what jumps out at me.

[Az]

The music on the 161 for both WH & WH2 is fucked up. Plus it doesn't include WHP, which is definitely worth picking up either as a normal cart or the 138-in-1.

[Tanooki]

The music on the 161 for both WH & WH2 is fucked up. Plus it doesn't include WHP, which is definitely worth picking up either as a normal cart or the 138-in-1.

You might be onto something with that 138-in-1, it's the only other one I'm seeing on the mVS multicart wiki checkbox list that has stuff the 161 lacks. Between the two you more or less get the entire library of the arcade system. Makes you wonder if you slotted both in a cabinet like mine they'd behave and you could just go at it completely. I'm seeing stuff I like like League Bowling, NAM, Cyperlip, Ninja Combat, Sengoku 2, Metal Slug 5, Shock Troopers 1, Twinkle Star Sprites, and Waku Waku 7 ...along with our discussed WH2J and WHP.

Probably not a cheap cart, but worth it as long as it works right. Seems like it has it's own little unique quirks though -- Needs modded to allow other slots to be selected in a multislot MVS. Has a 15-40 second loading time to enter games as the games are copied to flash RAM first. Not AES compatible. Some users have had issues with the daughter board malfunctioning. This is the only multicart that you can hide games with.

Kind of sounds risky.

I ended up bookmarking it a few days ago -- http://wiki.arcadeotaku.com/w/MVS_Multicart

[celerystalker]

The music on the 161 for both WH & WH2 is fucked up. Plus it doesn't include WHP, which is definitely worth picking up either as a normal cart or the 138-in-1.

Huh, I'll have to check that out tonight. I usually play 2 and Jet on my AES, so I don't think I've selected them on the multi-cart.

[Emperor Megas]

I used to have a friend back in the day who loved World Heroes, and the first sequel. He always played the cyborg guy, with the extending robot arms.

To be honest, I never understood the appeal of this series when I was younger since I considered the popular mainstay fighting games of the era superior. I've only played the first World Heroes a few times and I didn't like the feel of he timing if you can understand what I mean. I also thought that the character roster was unintentionally goofy, in a bad way.

It sort of seemed like a joke game to me, which I was fine with, but not something I'd actually want to PAY MONEY to laugh at.

[celerystalker]

I used to have a friend back in the day who loved World Heroes, and the first sequel. He always played the cyborg guy, with the extending robot arms.

To be honest, I never understood the appeal of this series when I was younger since I considered the popular mainstay fighting games of the era superior. I've only played the first World Heroes a few times and I didn't like the feel of he timing if you can understand what I mean. I also thought that the character roster was unintentionally goofy, in a bad way.

It sort of seemed like a joke game to me, which I was fine with, but not something I'd actually want to PAY MONEY to laugh at.

It is very tongue in cheek, but if you didn't like it then, you probably won't like it now. The draw other than nostalgia for me is that I like its gimmick death matches in the first two games, and I like the oddball tournament mode in Jet. Oh, and even though I tend to play as Hanzo, Mudman is a character I love to death. One of the best ridiculous stereotypes of all time, and I love his goofy mask.

[Ze_ro]

I used to love this game back in it's time... but these days, it's kind of hard to enjoy. It really hasn't aged well compared to some of SNK's other franchises (Though it's still better than Art of Fighting at least).

I really liked the death match stuff in the first one, but that was the first feature to get the axe in the sequels :/

--Zero

[Tanooki]

Arcade side I've only ever enjoyed the first, still seems to be that way as WH2 is on my multicart and I just get mauled, can't figure it out. Maybe they changed the move set but Dragon just wasn't doing as I know he can do but I just really tried it once then threw the reset button (start for 5 sec) on the multicart and did something else. Currently I just picked that up along with Spin Master on ebay, trying to snag a 3rd title from the same guy as he'll do cheap shipping on the extras and his starting shipping kind of sucks so it should scare people off since it's out of the country (mexico.)

It worked. The shipping was $20/ea, but I asked in a PM on ebay about an hour ago, guy said it was $4 for the added shipping on the games (-$16) so I went ahead and snapped up Spin Master, World Heroes 1, and also Mutation Nation.

One fighter in the lot, honestly I think what I'm going to do slowly is chip away at things with this, stuff I enjoy most on the multicart and get those, and the titles i really like that aren't on it are a priority too. A few on the cart I'd grab, something I truly want to really own like Super Dodgeball and Neo Turf Masters, but other than that I think going after non-fighters would be a fun thing to work towards. Also tomorrow the cheap copy of NInja Combat I got lucky on during the last week here arrives tomorrow. :D

[celerystalker]

Arcade side I've only ever enjoyed the first, still seems to be that way as WH2 is on my multicart and I just get mauled, can't figure it out. Maybe they changed the move set but Dragon just wasn't doing as I know he can do but I just really tried it once then threw the reset button (start for 5 sec) on the multicart and did something else. Currently I just picked that up along with Spin Master on ebay, trying to snag a 3rd title from the same guy as he'll do cheap shipping on the extras and his starting shipping kind of sucks so it should scare people off since it's out of the country (mexico.)

Spinmaster is tons of fun. Great pickup.

[Tanooki]

Thanks. Throw as I said Mutation Nation and World Heroes on that list too along with Ninja Combat showing up tomorrow.

He's got more stuff ending in a week I may make another pass at with the remaining funds off my gold ball table. Blue's Journey, Samurai Showdown 3, Bomberman perhaps on those. They're all on the multicart though but SS3 I do want a real one of, adored playing that in college and was (not now) quite good at it especially using hisame shizumaru. It's on the multi as well but I really really like Blazing Star since I've had it some years since it popped up on android and ios (bought it on both.)

[celerystalker]

Mutation Nation is super good. I like Blue's Journey, too. Good stuff. Ninja Combat... man, I have that on AES and PS2, and I like it okay, but damned if it's not the biggest quarter muncher I've ever played.

Some other really cool ones... Ninja Commando is kinda like Mercs with ninjas, and is loosely tied to Ninja Combat. The Shock Troopers games are both fun for overhead run 'n guns, too, and I know you're already looking for 'Nam 1975, which I love to death. Sengoku 2 and 3 are worth playing, too, and are both crazy better than the first.

[Az]

Maybe they changed the move set but Dragon just wasn't doing as I know he can do but I just really tried it once then threw the reset button

His Dragon Kick move is totally different from 2 onward, not only did they change the joystick direction but they also added a 1 second charge time. On WH1 all moves that are back/forward or down/up don't have a charge time like they do in SFII so it's really easy to bust them out in a moment's notice.

[Tanooki]

Well right now I'm trying to tie down zupapa and super spy on ebay but the guy isn't going to let it happen. He's got them well over what they sell for with an obo, then when I fired off a sort of low starter to get it to a good place, he only takes off $10. So I put a solid offer in, left a note pointing out the price it actually sells for on ebay as a cart only, probably not going to get anywhere with greed being I think a motivator here which is a shame. I get wanting to get the most, I do it too on stuff, but when you're in a niche arcade market, people know what stuff goes for, and you re-list stuff like that and get nothing you think a moment would hit when you figured you're in the wrong. These aren't NES games where you can put some bs number then wait for some few fools to panic over escalation and then your number is realistic weeks later.

[Edmond Dantes]

Mutation Nation is super good. I like Blue's Journey, too.

Blue's Journey was actually the first Neo-Geo game I owned. Fun game, though a part of me thinks it feels like it belongs on the SNES, and that it feels kind of like it has an identity crisis, as it has like three different gimmicks (the stunning/picking up enemies thing, the shrinking at-will thing) but doesn't seem to really run with any of them.

But I laughed my ass off when I beat the final boss, then had to have one last duel with my rival for the princess' affections... and we wound up both hitting each other, leading to the "princess chooses NEITHER of us" ending. Totally did not see that one coming, and totally wish I had been recording.

[Tanooki]

That one is on a short list of games I'd buy despite owning it on the multicart. Blue's Journey is just a nice mix of good fun and nearly out of place on the system given it's notable edge for T/M level blood play in 1on1 and other type games.

[Bloodreign]

I own the PS2 collection and #2 on SNES, but I love Perfect the most. Maybe it's the 4 buttons, and the fact it feels more like a fighting game I'm used to than the others. The CPU though, as per norm for SNK, it can eat you alive (all of them). Always felt Ryoko from this game, and Fighters History were one and the same, but someone once told me she's based off some martial artist competitor, whom I know nothing of.