Ahh, fighting games. The genre is like comfort food for weary gamers, and the Neo Geo was a great platform for them. It lacked Street Fighter II but SNK’s output more than made up for this with a line-up of brawlers that were full of character. Other developers used the 24-bit arcade platform for their hits as well. One of these such companies was Alpha Denshi (never heard of them? Me neither). They wanted to make something that would compete with Street Fighter II. World Heroes is what they came up with. Today we’re going to take a look at the first installment in this storied franchise. Does World Heroes hang with the big boys? No, and today I’m here to tell you why.
So what’s the story here? Well there’s a time machine, and you’re gathering the strongest fighters through history to compete against one another! That’s unique at least, and sets the scene for what could be a cool roster of characters. Unfortunately this premise is mostly squandered. You have two Japanese fighters that, from what I’ve read, are based on real people from Japanese history. I’ve never heard of them though, and I imagine you haven’t either. There’s also Joan of Arc, Rasputin, a Hulk Hogan wannabe, and a few other odd choices. I thought the roster was lame to be honest.
World Heroes is your basic 2D fighting game. You and your opponent fight it out and try to reduce their life bar to nothing. It’s your basic best of three matches. Gameplay is best compared to that of Street Fighter II of which I’m certain World Heroes is a direct clone. You even have the same basic input types for the special moves. This includes sweeps and punches to commit projectiles. This is very prominent within the genre so it’s hard to fault World Heroes so much on this aspect. It’s a bit shameless however with not only a Ryu clone, but also a secondary version ala Ken. That’s pretty hilarious if you ask me especially considering their movesets are copycats.
Where the game differs from Street Fighter II is in its simplicity. You have just one punch and kick button. If it’s a strong or weak attack is based on how hard you press the button. That’s just lazy design in my opinion especially considering there were four buttons at the disposal of the developers. You block in typical fashion by holding back which again is questionable considering there are two other buttons they could have used. Personally I don’t get it. If the developers were trying to copy Street Fighter II they should have seen it through and gone the distance.
The major problem with World Heroes is the how slow the game moves. I’m a fan of the original version of Street Fighter II but this one is a notch below that on speed. I thought I would like this but as it just so happens I got bored during every match. Your characters move like they’re in a wind tunnel. This isn’t helped by the fact that attacks seem to do less damage than normal, and the computer opponent blocks more often in this game. It’s really uncommon that the clock runs out when I’m playing a fighting game, but here it’s basically every other match. It always comes as a surprise because World Heroes doesn’t really give you any warning besides the countdown timer.
Another issue I have is that the characters don’t have that many differences between them. You have projectile attacks, and basically the same range on punches and kicks. It’s all too boring if you ask me. The Ryu and Ken clones can perform a double jump, and that was the only way I was really able to trick the computer opponent. I also had issues with the counter system. There’s a noticeable lack of ways to counter punches and kicks from your opponents. Basically you should lead with kick for everything because punching doesn’t seem to have an advantage against it. That’s pretty lame if you ask me. World Heroes is a fighting game made by people who had little passion for it.
What’s unusual is the fact that this game offers two different modes of play. You have tournament and deathmatch. The first is your standard fighting game campaign where you drain the life bar of your foe and that’s it. The latter is pretty much the same thing except in some of the levels you can win simply by knocking your opponent into a hazard at the edge of the screen. That’s a gimmick which I don’t care much about to be honest, but it does seem to be forward thinking. Aside from that the only mix up you have is a bonus stage wherein you carve out an a piece of art from a rock.
World Heroes fails to take advantage of the Neo Geo hardware in any meaningful way. This game looks like something that could have been pulled off on the PC-Engine to be honest. The characters have very few frames of animation, aren’t particularly detailed, and don’t have much color. The game looks very dull. Fatal Fury featured a ton of color and was an earlier game so I’m not going to cut this one any slack. The art style is also very ugly. The soundtrack is very plain. Nothing takes particular advantage of the 24-bit hardware. There’s nothing as catchy here as the Guile or Ryu theme. It’s all pretty lame if you ask me. This is not a soundtrack I’ll be tracking down.
World Heroes is ultimately forgettable. That’s one of the worst things you can say about a Street Fighter II clone from this era though. The game is playable, but it’s nothing special. The roster is laughable and cheesy, and with a premise as promising as this it doesn’t make sense. If you have a time machine why would you bring back Rasputin to have him fight Joan of Arc? Come on, you can do better. Here’s to hoping the sequels have more to offer than this.
