SNK Heroines: Tag Team Frenzy is an all female-led fighting game where players pick two femme fatales to take to the arenas with. All of them featured in the history of SNK titles ranging from King of Fighters to EX Fighting. How did these ladies fair? Find out today with our review.
When you play a fighting game, what do you look at first? Do you look at the character models, do you look at customization features or do you dive into the meat of things and become accustomed to the core mechanics of the game? Just like other fighting games, SNK Heroines Tag Team Frenzy follows the same basic laws of other fighting games tend to follow.
You can block attacks, you can counter attacks and you even have light and heavy attacks followed by special abilities that you can use. But when it comes to how these mechanics work, SNK Heroines: Tag Team frenzy isn’t your standard fighting game affair. Instead, it’s more of an arcade fighter, one that focuses on its arcade gameplay elements brought to life by its fanservice filled aesthetics.
The real changeup with this game is the fact you aren’t going to just beat your opponent down until their health bar has been depleted. Instead, SNK Heroines Tag Team Frenzy does change it up a bit by making it so that players don’t just beat on one another as they would in order to win the round or even the match. Instead, you have a finisher, an attack that has to be charged up in order to finish off your opponent.
If the bar isn’t filled, you can just as easily switch over to your characters tag team partner. The tag team partner could quite possibly have the special needed in order to eliminate an opponent. Unfortunately, SNK Heroines: Tag Team Frenzy does come with one drawback compared to other tag-team fighters such as Tekken Tag tournament or Marvel vs Capcom: Infinite – both characters share a single health bar. They don’t get two separate ones.
The issue here isn’t that SNK Heroines: Tag Team Frenzy has attempted to do anything new, but rather, step back to the way things used to be. Each character can switch in-and-out as expected, each character has their own unique approach to combat, but fighting itself is a very simple button simple due to how the game is approached. You have special moves tied to Circle/A, light attacks are bound to Square/Y, heavy attacks tied to Triangle/X while the block button is tied to L1/L, throw is bound to the X/B button (depending on PS4 or Switch versions) while finishers are bound to R1/R and character changes being bound to R2/ZR.
That’s it. That’s how simple this game truly is to learn. It’s too simple for fans of more structure and complex fighting systems. Honestly, it takes away the fun of fighting games, the hallmark tradition of complex combo systems, special moves, and the focus on finishers being rewarded rather than handed to the player. Each button on the d-pad or with a joystick dues as you would expect. One will perform a high, low, or even mid-body kick depending on the direction used and offer very little diversity to the mechanics put before you.
Sadly, the variety in special attacks isn’t exactly all that astonishing. Almost every character, whether you are using a mid-range fighter or close-range brawler, you will find that every special is almost the same whether you push down, up, or side-to-side. Almost every character performs a similar move, each with a slight variation due to their signature approaches to combat.
Even visually, the characters are rather diverse from one another, each coming with their own trademark looks from their respective games, but each doesn’t feel all that different when you enter the arena. If you master one character, it’s almost guaranteed you can master all the others rather easily. The only real addition that changes things up is the assists you will collect over the course of every battle. These items include things such as a poison that degrades your opponent’s health for a limited time or perhaps the bomb that will drop and click into place for a few minutes before blowing up under their feet.
Even here, things don’t get much better. The smoke and mirrors are almost a distraction to the obscenely easy-to-learn fighting game. While I certainly found online matches to be rather unique, fun even, it doesn’t take away that the fanservice, the addition of obtainable items and the female-alternates of the well renowned Terry Bogard just aren’t enough to really mask a few of this games ultimate shortcomings. It ultimately comes down to the ability to block, kick, punch, jump and time your specials in order to beat your foes down as quickly as possible.
Toss in online into the mix and things do get a bit more interesting. Players can take their in-game earned currency and wager on their very own matches or join in on lobbies where players can bid against one another. Fighting online does take away from a few of the games lowest points but won’t help take away from the fact that some of the games biggest flaws are on the surface and need to be addressed in the future.
SNK Heroines: Tag Team Frenzy
Platforms: Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4
Version Reviewed: PlayStation 4
Developer: SNK, Abstraction Games
Publisher: SNK, Nippon Ichi Software, NIS America
Release Date: Available Now
Cost: Standard: $49.99
But if a mild game of rock-paper-scissors doesn’t bother you nor does the amount of fan service the game has to offer you, then SNK Heroines: Tag Team Frenzy is the game for you and it’s a game that may just give you some pick-up-and-go action when you need something quick and entertaining to play. For those looking for a game with the depth of fighting franchises such as Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat or Tekken, you may want to avert your eyes elsewhere and let this one pass on by.
Our review is based upon a retail version that was provided to us by the publisher of the game. For information about our ethics policy please click here.
Final Score: 6 out of 10
About the Writer(s):
Dustin is our native console gamer, PlayStation and Nintendo reviewer who has an appetite for anything that crosses the borders from across the big pond. His interest in JRPG’s, Anime, Handheld Gaming, and Pizza is insatiable. His elitist attitude gives him direction, want, and a need for the hardest difficulties in games, which is fun to watch, and hilarity at its finest. You can find him over on Twitter or Facebook.