The King Of Cross-Overs.

NOTE: Review is on the Japanese Capcom vs. SNK: Pro.

You like chocolate, right? That sweet, delicious piece of brown (white if you like white chocolate) goodness is enough to get your mouth watering. But what do you do when you're thirsty? You drink milk-or better yet-chocolate milk. Never has two unlikely entities teamed up to form such a delectable treat. That is, not until the release of Capcom vs. SNK Pro.

I know, I know-that was a horrible analogy, but the gameplay of this colossus of a fighter will more than make up for it. Competing against each other for years, Capcom and SNK finally meet head-on in a battle to determine who is the true king of fighters. Not only do they combine the best of both worlds, they deliver an experience like no other.

The gameplay is addictive as ever. You choose your characters from either side, and then choose which Super Combo system you would like to use-the Capcom Groove or SNK Groove. Both has changed since Capcom vs. SNK. The Capcom Groove no longer fills when you take damage-only when you deliver a successful attack or block your opponent's. SNK Groove can be filled manually. It charges slow initially, but speeds up the longer you hold the buttons. It also fills up when you take damage, but not when you get hit. Lastly, taunting only fuels up your opponent's meter and not yours. Good if you're up against an SNK Groover with an almost-full bar. Taunting will max out their bar, and then you can jab them and run away like a coward as it depletes.

Balance in this game is more controversial than the current issue on downloading music (not really). Characters make up teams, and whenever one character is eliminated, the next is up the following round. The surviving character gets his vitality replenished a certain amount depending on his performance, but it's never a substantial amount. The characters are broken down into four levels, ranging from numbers 1-4. Ratio 1 consists of the less-desirable characters like Yuri and Cammy. Fan-favorites like Ken or Terry are Ratio 2, which is pretty much how they were in past games. Ratio 3 is reserved for boss characters, the likes of Vega and M. Bison, and Ratio 4 is the toughest-Akuma, Evil Ryu, and Orochi Iori. The lower the level, the less damage you dish and the more you take. Likewise, higher levels take less damage and can certainly bring on the pain. Needless to say, Akuma can rape Sakura alarmingly fast. So what stops players from choosing a team of Akumas? They simply can't. A team can have a total of four levels, and since Akuma is a Ratio 4 character, he's a one-man army. Meanwhile, the opposing team can consist of Blanka, Vice, Dhalsim, and Benimaru-all Ratio 1-though they'll all end up lying down. (In the previous game, it was the other way around.)

Capcom vs. SNK Pro boasts a roster of 33 fighters-a good amount, though the selection is questionable and more variety is needed. All characters (as well as secrets) are available from the get-go and two characters appear here that were both no-shows in Capcom vs. SNK, Dan, the infamous jokester of Capcom fame, and Joe Higashi, a solid Thai boxer in SNK's repetoire. Dan seems to have gotten a lot better, and his Dragon Punch is decent, but Joe fans will be a bit disappointed, as his projectiles are easy to dodge and now it's harder to combo his moves. Both are Ratio 1 characters.

Characters have been tweaked in the name of fairness and balance. Some have been enhanced while others have been watered down. Juggles perform a bit differently than in Capcom vs. SNK, and glitches (nothing really matching the caliber of classic Guile's "handcuffs" of Street Fighter past, except maybe the hold glitch which built up your meter super-quick) have been fixed. Most characters also have an extra mode, which replaces some moves or changes the moves' mechanics. These new moves can make players pwn just about any challengers, but some completely ruin the character. The EX versions are just the older characters from past games.

An interesting tidbit is that certain characters have beef with each other and will be more than happy to show it before the round starts. Kyo throws a short wave of flame at Ryu, Ken throws Terry's Fatal Fury cap at him, Morrigan and Mai have a wet T-shirt contest... err... scratch that last one. A gamer can dream, can't he?

Fighting games demand the best from players, and as such, a point system is incorporated-rightfully named the Groove Point System. Attacks are rated on grades A to D, best to worst. Weak attacks get you D or C, which translates to virtually nothing. Fierce attacks and special moves get you B and A, and more points are awareded with successful counters. An S grade can even be achieved by countering your opponent with supers-which nets you googols and googols of points. What's the point of this system, besides your name etched forever on the high score list? In single player, with a certain amount of points, you can fight computer-controlled secret bosses. Against a human opponent? Infinite plus one bragging rights, of course.

Speaking of single player, the AI is very advanced (rise of the robots! The apocalypse is imminent!) and provides a fair challenge at its hardest difficulty. Definitely a step up from Capcom vs. SNK. Furthermore, if you're the bestest best player in the whole, wide, world, the computer is still better than you. Want proof? It can do impossible things, like three Blanka rolls in a row without ever touching the floor. Bosses also seem to skip a few frames to make them faster. Oh, and it's not a sore loser like you, who needs to claim the computer cheated (though it does as the aforementioned sentence proves) and retry every time he loses.

Of course, the real meat of the game is playing with a friend. And if you live in Japan (which you probably don't-how would you be reading this?), you get to experience nostalgia of the old arcade days, beating all challengers and would-be suckers via the Network Mode. For such a small island, the Land of the Rising Sun gets the longer end of the stick when it comes to games and girls. I think Clayton-or anyone with half a brain-will agree with me when I say Asian girls are the cutest.

Unlike certain games, say Marvel vs. Capcom 2, this game isn't combo-heavy, and you definitely can't win by button mashing, not even against novices (you know, the type who continuously slugs fireballs out of his @ss and/or trips you, throws you in the corner, trips you again, repeats). Rather, players are only victorious knowing their characters' attributes and exploiting their opponents' weaknesses. A well-timed counter can and will end the fight and bring up the KO sign quickly, which is gigantic enough to clobber any of the fighters.

Graphically, Capcom vs SNK Pro is impressive, and then some. Movements are fluid and easy to pull off. The animations are smooth and fit well with the backgrounds, which are interesting and colorful (like the Japanese arcade with Capcom vs. SNK machines and the crumbling dojo). There's also four additional backgrounds in this game, though they're not as impressive as the older ones. The character designs are awesome, while still being classy, and they're definitely a step up for SNK. Character portraits are well drawn (except for a hand few, like Ken's SNK portrait or Morrigan's Capcom portrait-which makes her look more slutty than she really is) and offer a peek at the characters' personalities. The SNK artists especially make the characters look realistic and bring them to life. And the graphics are more detailed than in Capcom vs. SNK, and now has more frames for characters and backgrounds. All this acting in concert makes up the sexiest 2D sprites you will ever see.

The sound is industry-standard. It's loud, has good bass, but other than a new lackluster, techno-geared soundtrack, the grunts and cries are recycled from older games. You can change the music through the options menu and play the classic soundtrack instead.

The controls uses a four-button configuration, which should suit both SNK and Capcom fans just fine (Marvel vs. Capcom 2 uses this). But the digital pad on the Dreamcast controller, as you'll notice, is a bit loose and makes it hard to pull off the simplest moves, and near-impossible to pull off supers. If you slightly touch the upper half of any horizontal directional button, you'll jump in that direction when you only meant to do a fireball. Supers are especially hard since they adopt the Street Fighter Alpha 3 system- directional input twice followed by a single attack button, rather than Marvel vs. Capcom 2's system (directions once and two buttons). My thumbs got sore from attempting supers. Of course, if you're hardcore enough to get this game, you have an arcade stick by now, which is a wise investment thanks to the Dreamcast's large fighting games library-all suffering from the loose directional pad.

Capcom vs. SNK Pro was a long time in coming, but it's definitely a knock-out. Capcom has heard our complaints on its predecessor and has refined the game-and yes, you should still pick it up if you already played Capcom vs. SNK. Impressive visuals and incredible gameplay is more than enough to make a fan's wet dream come true, and is a must-have for fans of 2D fighters. This one will have you playing for a long time, even after the release of Dead or Alive 69 and Soul Calibur: Brutal Butt Sex with a Leather Whip. Capcom vs. SNK Pro is a deeply under-appreciated game and remains as one of my favorite 2D fighters, but skip it if you already have the more expansive sequel.