The phrase "All-Girl-Fighting-Game" are basically magic words to grab my attention, so SNK Heroines Tag Team Frenzy was an obvious fit for Eric Vs. 365. I don't even like SNK fighters very much, to be honest, but I couldn't resist the allure of Mai Shiranui and a wonderfully appealing gender swapped Terry Bogard. Keep reading for my full thoughts on the game.
I suppose I should start with the fact that I got the game on Nintendo Switch for $9.97 new and sealed at GameStop and if it had cost more than that I probably wouldn't have bothered. The manager told me the game was on clearance at that price, so if you want a new copy I'd suggest you hit your local store and grab one. Used copies are still $30, naturally, because GameStop.
This was the first physical Switch game I've owned, so of course I had to taste it. It was awful, as expected, but I had to try it for myself. It did bring up a weird thought, though, that used Switch games are probably pretty gross becasue everyone is always tasting them, right? Maybe the nasty taste they put on the plastic is also anti-bacterial or something.
As for the game itself, SNK Heroines Tag Team Frenzy is pretty mediocre. The fighting gameplay is super simplified to just weak and heavy attacks, a special attack button, and a throw button. That's it. You can't even crouch. All you do is just hammer out different combinations of the attack buttons and the game does all of the work. There is some strategy involved in that special attacks drain a meter, so you can't just spam projectiles all day and have to wait for it to re-fill. An interesting component of the game is that you have to use a special finishing move - mapped to right bumper (whatever it's called on Switch) - to actually end a fight and this finishing move requires a decent chunk of special meter to use, so if you waste too much meter you won't be able to finish the fight right away.
That is where the tag team aspect comes in. I found a good strategy was to go all out with my first character and then tag in the other one at the end to finish the fight because each character has their own meter. This gives the fights a very predictable rhythm that wears thin pretty quickly because everything is so simplified overall. I'm sure there could be some fascinating rock-paper-scissors head games when playing against human opponents, but fighting the CPU is pretty dull and uninteresting.
In a game like this the main draw is fanservice, of course, but even in this area SNK Heroines is rather so-so. The 2D artwork in menus is great looking, but the 3D models used in the game are wildly inconsistent and many of them are just downright ugly. The costumes are also mostly disappointing and unappealing. Between the dumb costumes and ugly models, the game just isn't as titillating as you'd expect.
All in all, SNK Heroines Tag Team Frenzy is a letdown. The gameplay is too simple and boring and the presentation, which is supposed to be the main draw, is wholly unsatisfying. With that said, however, if you can get it for a sub-$10 price like I did it is probably still worth a look just for curiosity's sake to see girl Terry Bogard in action and feel all confused afterward.
