User Score
6.5

Mixed or average reviews- based on 55 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 30 out of 55
  2. Negative: 16 out of 55
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  1. Sep 9, 2018
    8
    SNK Heroines is a game fully aware of what it is, and has fun with it. This isn't a turn of ideology so much as focusing on one aspect of fighting games.

    Fighting games have always had a sex symbol character in their roster, SNK's Mai has at times been more known than SNK or King of Fighters itself. SF had Chun Li, Darkstalkers has Morrigan, Ivy in Soul Calibur etc. Those showing
    SNK Heroines is a game fully aware of what it is, and has fun with it. This isn't a turn of ideology so much as focusing on one aspect of fighting games.

    Fighting games have always had a sex symbol character in their roster, SNK's Mai has at times been more known than SNK or King of Fighters itself. SF had Chun Li, Darkstalkers has Morrigan, Ivy in Soul Calibur etc. Those showing alarm or giving negative reviews due to the fan-service nature of the game have been asleep the last 30 years.

    Let's review the game based on what it set out to do, an accessible, wacky fighter throwing logic and convention out the window all for the purpose of a fun experience with tons of eye candy and personality.

    The fighter is very accessible, specials are a direction and a button and your "super" finishers are simply a button. Normals are limited, there is no crouching, and you can use items. To rate the accessibility you have to balance it in terms of depth and enjoyment however. There is that to be had as well, I do think other games have accomplished this better, but it is complex enough to not be boring and simple enough to be accessible. I miss no special inputs and the move set is limited, but there's a relaxing feel to the game that serious games like Guilty Gear won't be able to achieve due to the amount of focus they demand.

    Is it wacky? You bet, there's gerbils that explode in glitter and stars on every attack, or carrots and corn on the cob or other crazy particle effects that are nothing other than wacky. When you dash toward an opponent and stop, you hear the sound of wheels screeching. It's about as wacky as you can get without being too disruptive. So mission accomplished there.

    Is it a fun experience? In my view yes, you get to actually appreciate the characters and animation since you aren't spending so much time reading blockstrings and finding a gap, it's a very laid back game that's just meant to be fun and nothing else. The over the topness and how self aware it is of that are part of the fun and achieve their goal with a bit of polish.

    The eye candy and customizations are zany and fun, though at least out of the box, the number of customizations you can purchase with in game currency (earned not real $) equip seem more limited than I expected, more could be unlocked though or be patched in. The roster is rather small also vs what I expected but more are in the works. At least we see Shermie again.

    Now, I rate this game about an 8, it did what it set out to do, and did it well and with some polish. You can tell though it wasn't the #1 priority project for the company though, but it did well enough given its attention. It's not King of Fighters with 50 playable characters for example. But you do get 3 costumes, all customizable for every character which is more than most fighting games ever give you in terms of costumes, most fighters are lucky to have two costumes for a character.

    I think the game deserves somewhere in the range of 6-8 depending on how you view certain aspects. However some reviews seem to give it a way worse rating simply because of the fanservice.

    We can all agree that in real life objectifying women as objects or treating them as prizes is wrong. However, those hating on the game simply because it has fanservice, and saying fanservice disrespects women are also wrong, just in an annoying and less serious way. If you can't separate fantasy from reality, you're not better than those blaming real world violence on video games. People being terrible to women isn't because of a video game. If this is exploitative then so are magazine covers, super hero outfits, romance novels featuring scantly clad men on the cover and full of sex scenes, and most media really. I think what really bothers people is sex itself it's just a very uncomfortable thing to far too many people. Appearance is something that has value in itself, that's why there's drawn art, why some women are models for a living, why a lot of things. Valuing a person based only on their appearance is wrong, but saying it's disrespectful to women to enjoy fanservice (the appearance of fictional characters) is wrong, to a lesser degree. In short, people that say this aren't consistent in their views and are wrong.

    I think the game is a good effort by SNK to make a niche wacky accessible fighter. Hopefully it sells well and lays the ground for more games in the future from them, as they have successfully used one of SNK's biggest assets in this game, their rich and diverse cast of characters.
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  2. Apr 8, 2021
    10
    Excellent game, lots of fun. 10/10 please play.

    Two main complaints I see about this game are: (1) over sexualization; and (2) lack of gameplay depth. I will address both. This game is not supposed to be serious, it is supposed to be funny. Maybe a little shocking. The antagonist knows that he is a creeper. He does goofy dances while babbling about fetishes. He knows he is
    Excellent game, lots of fun. 10/10 please play.

    Two main complaints I see about this game are: (1) over sexualization; and (2) lack of gameplay depth. I will address both.

    This game is not supposed to be serious, it is supposed to be funny. Maybe a little shocking. The antagonist knows that he is a creeper. He does goofy dances while babbling about fetishes. He knows he is objectifying women, the whole plot is he's trying to "collect" them and make them fight each other like super heroine barbie dolls in his pervy fantasy world. That's what makes him the villain. The plot has a bit of a fourth wall thing going on too, so he will definitely make you uncomfortable.

    Also, these sorts of costumes have been normalized. They are complaining about a juvenile male fantasy in a fighting game, what did they expect? There are literally dozens of swimsuits, pajamas, revealing party dresses, leotards, and tons of cleavage and bare bottoms in Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, Blazblue, other SNK, Dead or Alive, etc. I guess these critics just don't like being confronted with how it's actually lewd? Yes there is a lot of sexualization in this game. It serves a narrative purpose. Anyone complaining about it is totally missing the point, and it would be hypocritical for them to dismiss the same (perhaps even more arbitrary) issues in other fighters.

    As for gameplay. The only buttons are light attack, heavy attack, special attack, throw, block, character swap, and super.

    Running forward with a heavy attack will give you a dash attack that can lead to a wall bounce combo. Grabbing will beat a blocking opponent. You can grab opponents in mid air. Long strings can cause a blocking opponent to become dizzy if they block too much. You can also air dash to make your aerial approaches ambiguous. You can cancel the ending frames of your attacks into special moves by spending meter, giving you more damage. You can cancel your special moves into super, if you have enough meter. If you get blocked or miss, you can end up getting over-extended and can take a bunch of damage.

    The right joystick uses items you can pick up mid-battle, which introduce some randomness. Items give your opponent another thing to manage, can be used on offense or defense.

    Directional inputs can change your special attack and your throw, and depending on the character your super. Not your light or heavy. There are no motion inputs. No crouch. Block is relegated to a button instead of your joystick. That means no high-low mixups, no left-right mixups.

    For defensive options, you can dodge roll in either direction, you can dodge in the air, you can back dash, if you get knocked down you can get up immediately if you have good timing, including waking up to the left, right, or middle, or you can delay wakeup. You can throw tech by hitting the throw button right after an opponent grabs you, but doing this means you won't be blocking so you will be vulnerable to attacks. If you block and you want to get out of pressure you can cancel your block-stun into a left or right dodge roll by spending a bit of meter.

    You can also tag out for your team member if one of fighters is running low on meter or health, including with cancelling a successful attack into a tag.

    Comeback mechanics and winning. You need to manage your meter carefully because if you spend it all on getting damage, you won't be able to close out the round. You need to KO with a super, and supers take a lot of meter. The amount of meter you have stocked is directly related to how much damage you have taken. The less life you have, the more meter you can spend. So you can be a threat to win right until the round closes out.

    This game checks every box for things that FGC veterans complain about. Don't listen to those people. They don't understand how to play. They just want the game to be another street fighter clone and they're paying attention to the wrong stuff. If they say there are no mix-ups, then they forgot how to shimmy in and out of range to bait out a throw. They forgot about staggering offensive pressure to trick people into letting go of the block button. They might have even forgotten how to play footsies. All of those things are in this game.

    If they say the combo system is brain-dead, then they don't realize that the low-effort plays give low-effort rewards, and they can carry high risk. If they complain that there isn't enough of a reward for good execution, they aren't taking into account that you need to actually practice to get the timing on your wall bounce combos, air chases, and your special cancels right.

    This game is not about obtuse complicated commands or memorization. It is about navigating and controlling the space between the fighters. In some ways this game will teach you how to play neutral better than street fighter will.

    Great game. 10/10 please play.
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  3. Apr 23, 2019
    9
    Sure SNK Heroines: Tag Team Frenzy isn't going to be the next Tekken, sure it probably isn't going to have a thriving competitive scene, but you have to look at it for what it was designed to do. This game was designed to be a casual, simplistic game with fun and colorful visuals (all of which it does extremely well).

    This is the kind of game that you can sit down with your friends and
    Sure SNK Heroines: Tag Team Frenzy isn't going to be the next Tekken, sure it probably isn't going to have a thriving competitive scene, but you have to look at it for what it was designed to do. This game was designed to be a casual, simplistic game with fun and colorful visuals (all of which it does extremely well).

    This is the kind of game that you can sit down with your friends and play, even if none of you have ever played a fighting game before. I'd consider this the perfect way of getting into this game genre and learning the basics of attacking, blocking, and combos, before diving into a more full-on game like Tekken or Street Fighter.
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  4. Mar 10, 2022
    9
    It's not the best fighting game but you can't say it is bad either. This game is very beginner friendly when it comes to SNK fighting games with easier and simple Mechanic's, characters are fearly good designed with good graphics. Basic and Simple storyline.The roster isn't huge but if you are very into SNK female fighters you shouldn't complain that much.
Metascore
60

Mixed or average reviews - based on 24 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 4 out of 24
  2. Negative: 4 out of 24
  1. Dec 6, 2018
    45
    SNK Heroines is a weird spin-off of KOF XIV that aims at the male audience by selecting the female protagonists of the game. But the gameplay has been ruined for the sake of accessibility, and the oversexualized leftover has us still puzzled.
  2. Sep 27, 2018
    60
    This is a casual fighting game where SNK heroines come together, and while it may succeed in serving that purpose, the game’s main modes and graphics are far from ideal.
  3. Sep 25, 2018
    60
    SNK Heroines: Tag Team Frenzy is not going to reinvent the fighting game genre and it certainly lacks content and feels too superficial but it also manages to be fun and appealing to fans of SNK fans and features good amounts of humour that will keep the game enjoyable, especially when it comes to the characters' interactions with each other.