It's new to me: SNK Gals' Fighters

This column is “It’s new to me,” in which I’ll play a game I’ve never played before — of which there are still many despite my habits — and then write up my thoughts on the title, hopefully while doing existing fans justice. Previous entries in this series can be found through this link.

Before there was SNK Heroines: Tag Team Frenzy — and gender-swapped Terry Bogard, aka Cutie Terry — there was a very different SNK fighter featuring just women. Back in 2000, SNK was supporting the Neo Geo Pocket Color, a handheld system meant to compete with the likes of Nintendo’s Game Boy family and Bandai’s WonderSwan, and because it’s SNK, that meant it had a whole bunch of fighters. And higher-quality ones than what portable systems were used to: SNK made the switch from 32-bit arcade hardware to 16-bit handhelds by bringing over simplified systems that made sense for the limited inputs, while also turning all that beautiful, detailed sprite work into chibi versions of the characters that could replace some visual intricacies with chunky cuteness to paper over the differences in appearance.

It gave the games their own distinct visual style, and since SNK still put in the work of wonderfully animating all of these sprites and ensuring that the fighting system had depth to it, the difference between these games and ports of arcade and console titles to the Game Boy, like Mortal Kombat II — which didn’t even include high or low strikes — was immense. Also helping? The Neo Geo Pocket Color had a microswitched joystick instead of a D-pad, which helped add complexity to the moves available on a portable with just the two face buttons and no shoulder inputs.

SNK first worked on portable versions of King of Fighters games — King of Fighters R-1 and King of Fighters R-2, the second of which received a North American release — and then switched to something completely original with a new storyline instead of one adapted from existing titles: SNK Gals’ Fighters. The cast for this one was notable for two reasons, in that it was a crossover featuring characters from the SNK fighting games Samurai Shodown, The Last Blade, Fatal Fury, King of Fighters, and Art of Fighting, and also all of them were women. Well, one of them was a character from King of Fighters dressed up as a woman, but hey, Iori Yagami wanted to host the Queen of Fighters tournament and also serve as its final boss, so let “Miss X” cook.

Despite all the different franchises in play here, SNK didn’t actually include all possible women from their games who could have fit. For instance, there is no Metal Slug representation in the game beyond Leona, who is actually from King of Fighters originally but eventually ended up in SNK’s run-and-gun franchise well after the release of Gals’ Fighters. That being said, this is a portable cartridge fighter from 2000, on 16-bit hardware, in a game that already featured 11 characters. So maybe that was all that SNK was able to do here — Big Bang Pro Wrestling, released in the same year, had just the 10 to choose from. (Then again, King of Fighters R-2 had 15.) Still! Fio Germi debuted in Metal Slug 2, released in 1998 — an even dozen would have been even better, but hey, maybe I just really like Metal Slug. This was before SNK truly went all-in on crossing over their properties regardless of genre, and SNK Heroines, released in 2018, had just 19 characters to choose from despite all the distance between these releases, so maybe they just weren’t in the Smash Bros. frame of mind here of putting all their action figures into one place and figuring it out.

If this is the only real complaint to muster against Gals’ Fighters, though, then it’s doing pretty well. The only actual issue with the game is that it’s a bit on the easy side, at least for fighting game veterans, and I know this to be true because I enjoy fighting games a lot more than I am any good at them, and I was cruising through this on its standard difficulty. You can crank up that challenge a bit, at least, but even the high end will still be lacking a bit for those who have mastered SNK’s other fighters. For a game designed for on-the-go bouts, however? Being able to plow through the Queen of Fighters tournament in short order like this is highly satisfying, and it makes learning new characters you might not be as familiar with a simple task.

“Easy” and “unenjoyable” don’t have to be the same thing, though, and since the game is also multiplayer there are also opportunities to face others who have mastered the depth that is there, and see who can come out on top. What gives Gals’ Fighters said depth is the multiple layers of attacks — there are basic ones, and then different kinds of specials, not all of which can be performed whenever you feel like, as well as the speed. This game is fast-paced, and can be even faster if you go to the options and make it that way. There are your basic attacks — punches and kicks — that can also be performed from a crouching position or while jumping. While there are just the two face buttons, one for punches and one for kicks, the length of time you press said button determines the strength of the attack performed with it. So, if you want a stronger kick, hold down the B button for longer, and for a weak one just quickly tap it.

Then there are command moves, which use joystick input to perform a different attack than if you were just standing (or crouching) and pressing an attack button. Special attacks are the ones that require a series of directional inputs and a button press, and while they can be blocked like more standard attacks, they can still at least do minimal damage even through the block. The danger with a special attack is that, if you miss, you are left open to a counter because your actions are otherwise paused for a moment — it’s not high risk, necessarily, but there is more of it than there is for your other attacks, is all. One potential consequence of missing a special? Your opponent will have an opportunity to perform a throw, which is exactly what it sounds like: you’ll be picked up and thrown in a way that befits the fighters’ style.

Notice the secondary gauge at the bottom of the screen in the above screenshot? The top one is health, but the bottom is the “Gal Gauge,” which fills up whenever you inflict or take damage. It can increase to three levels before it’s completely full, and then gauges are used to perform two different kinds of techniques: a “Mighty Bop” and a “Pretty Burst.” The Pretty Burst isn’t an attack, but it can instead do things like restore some health or even lower your opponent’s own Gal Gauge, with each characters’ having a different effect — it uses a single bar of the gauge, and can be performed by pressing down, down, punch, kick.

The Mighty Bop is your true special attack, which can either be used as a finisher because it’s so devastating, or a way to come back from a serious beatdown and give yourself a chance to win. Like with the special attack that impacts your character, there is a pause for a second to prepare to unleash the Mighty Bop — it can be blocked, like any other move, but if it isn’t blocked then your opponent is in serious trouble. Observe, as Mai becomes a wheel of fire that puts an end to any hope of a Yuri comeback before she can utilize her fully-charged Gal Gauge:

An aside: isn’t that animation excellent? Sure, the limited color palette sticks out on the characters themselves, but it’s also in service of putting loads of colors elsewhere. Check out that background in the stage in that short video, for one, and consider all the effort that went into that Mighty Bop animation, as well as the change in background to static images of Yuri seeing all kinds of recognizable faces in the moment leading to her defeat. There’s a ton that went into making this all go harder visually than “these characters are two-tone at most” suggests.

Back to Mighty Bop itself: mastering this is even more important on the higher difficulties, since opponents will show a little more urgency with the whole trying to defeat you thing, but you can figure out the necessary combinations on standard and then unleash hell on hard. If you’re like me and not a pro at this sort of thing in a fighter, anyway. You can also use the game’s Training mode to learn the ropes or a specific character before heading off into the Queen of Fighters tournament, as well.

There is another major wrinkle to consider in SNK Gals’ Fighters, and that’s items. While you start out with no items, you unlock more by completing the game and specific unstated goals in your fights. The hairpin shown in the above image, for instance, is unlocked by defeating Mai without using any special attacks, but they also aren’t one-and-done unlocks. You can lose an item if you lose a fight, which means you need to unlock it again. Not a terrible thing to need to do when the requirement is something like “Defeat Whip,” which you are going to do a lot of, but “Defeat Nakoruru in 15 seconds or fewer” is tougher to manage.

These items can impact gameplay in different ways. While some of them don’t do anything at all, the game will at least tell you the effects, and they might give you additional Gal Gauge to work with or make your special attacks even more powerful or limit your opponent’s health. And even the duds still have a purpose: collecting all of the game's items goes toward unlocking Miss X as a playable character. It’s that or win 100 matches, whichever comes first.

There are the eight characters you begin the game with — Akari, Athena, Leona, Mai, Nakoruru, Shermie, and Shiki — and there are also three to unlock. Miss X, organizer of the Queen of Fighters’ tournament who is Iori Yagami in disguise, Whip from King of Fighters, and Yuki, the girlfriend of King of Fighters’ star Kyo Kusanagi, in her only playable appearance in an SNK fighter. But sure, no room for Fio, fine, whatever. You unlock Yuki by either completing a Queen of Fighters tournament without using a continue or winning 150 matches, Whip becomes playable by clearing the game with the eight originals or winning 80 matches, and Miss X you already read about the conditions for.

Each character has a unique ending, tied to the point of the Queen of Fighters tournament: winning the mysterious K’ Talisman that can grant any wish to its holder. If you think the wishes are all going to be serious ones, then don’t worry, that just isn’t how Gals’ Fighters works. Leona, for instance, decides to enter the tournament so she can wish away pain in one of her teeth — when her squad mates question why she didn’t just go to the dentist to treat this instead of doing something as dangerous as fighting in a tournament featuring some of the world’s best fighters, she simply said that she “would rather die.” That’s the good stuff right there, enough so that you will want to see what every characters’ ending skit is about.

Sure, Gals’ Fighters could have a deeper roster featuring more of SNK’s catalog, and yeah, it can be a tad easy on the standard difficulty. But it’s loaded with charm, the animation is fluid and impressive, and it’s visually appealing and max effort despite what the two-tone coloring of the characters implies about it all. This game is one of the jewels of the system, and you don’t even need an Neo Geo Pocket Color to experience it, since it’s included as part of Neo Geo Pocket Color Selection Vol. 1, on the Switch and Windows. Grab it full price, when it’s on sale, whatever: it’s a nifty little diversion with a lot to love about it, even if you aren’t a fighting game die-hard.

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