Corona Jumper: Capcom Vs. SNK 2: Mark of the Millennium 2001 (Arcade, 2001)

Sunday, July 19, 2026

Capcom Vs. SNK 2: Mark of the Millennium 2001 (Arcade, 2001)

In Japan, this game is called "Millionaire Battle 2001". Weird, most of these characters don't seem like millionaires. I'd be surprised if Terry Bogard is a thousand-aire, guy seems like he's barely scraping by. Released a year after the other one, this is a huge improvement much like Marvel vs Capcom 2 was over the previous game.

Kyo Kusanagi has taken his place as SNK Main Character, facing down Ryu.

Terry Bogard is instantly recognizable, kind of a fusion of Hulk Hogan and Kurt Russell's legendary Jack Burton. Not sure why they decided to make a new main protagonist for the KOF series and had it be a Generic Japanese Highschool Guy like Kyo here.

There are now SIX grooves to choose from. Three have Capcom art style and three have SNK art style. S seems to be the most similar to what I liked in the previous game.

The character select is now HUGE. Much like MVC2, this is the one where they put the pedal to the medal and gave people a full roster.

Yuri of Art of Fighting fame is probably my favorite character on this roster.

Been trying to take a swing at the AOF series and unfortunately it seems like those games are WAY too difficult to really play in this day and age, so I might not be able to cover them after all. They input-read like crazy and have a lot of the same issues as Street Fighter 1, which is unsurprising considering they follow its DNA lineage. I couldn't even get past like, the second fight on the first two.

"Look at my shoulder!" says Morrigan.

Curious who Rugal is and why he seems to be following the Akuma path of having super-forms. I probably won't be able to do the KOF series though, not if it's got ridiculous difficulty levels and input-reading like AOF.

"Look at my shoulder!" says Joe Higashi.

Geese went bald since the last game and now looks like Yul Brynner.

The most important thing is that they got rid of the character tiers from the previous game. Now you pick 1-3 characters and decide which have more of the four tiers of HP/power. Going with one character at level 4 seems to be the most advantageous because now you gain back some HP every time you defeat an opponent, so hat L4 character is regenerating from knocking out L1 characters. It's less variety but yeah. Being able to make, say, Yuri an L4 character is awesome. This is a massive improvement over the previous game.

Maki doesn't wear pantalones, and Nakoruru seems like a nice lady. She has a pet bird.

OH MY GOD IT'S A STABBING

"AIYEE! MY LIVER!" screams Maki as she crawls on the ground.

Maki somehow survived...only to run into a charged-up Balrog punch. She was 22.

I know Athena from the King of Fighters XIV Magical Girl crew. Now that game was fantastic. Wondering when that series became playable, between the early ones and XIV...

Yuri throws some sick groin-punts. Her real power, however, is in the SUPERMAN BUTT:

King almost looks like she's leaping into position to receive Yuri's attack. "Oh yeah, let me have it" she says.

"Girl you looks good when you back that ass up!"

"You a fine m****f****er when you back that ass up!"

Not sure why Ginuwine was using male terminology during that song, perhaps the era of the Gay Rapper began earlier than they were letting on.

Yuri-on-Yuri action commences as Yuri now has some degree of a projectile. SNK projectiles tend to be huge and character-height, since dodging in those games tends to be more about leaping into the background than jumping upwards.

Yuri can be explosive, and nobody is turning down hot Yuri action in this game.

Akuma is like "I'll have what she's having!"

Speaking of yuri...the hell is going on with Vice? She starts rounds by crawling on all fours.

After winning a round, she mounts her foe. That's right, she straight-up mounts 'em!

Elsewhere in this sick, perverted game for sick perverts, Morrigan has a move where she splits into two.

The two Morrigans then just go full Night at the Roxbury on Athena!

Needing some backup, the new power-team of Yuri and Athena enlist Vega to be their ~~boy toy~~ muscle. They're gonna need him to stand right here with his shirt off.

Athena and Yuri then furiously paw at Vega.

Ryu's Hadoken is a puff of flame in this one. It could be better-looking.

Always liked Vega's claws, and agility. He was one of the things that set the SF series apart from the MK series for me, the fact that some characters could be so fast compared to others.

That was a CLOSE win.

As Vega prances about like the dandiest of lads, throwing flower petals about, Joe Higashi does his best impression of "the cold-hearted handsome devil" Hook.

As the game nears the end, we get a team-up of SF2 bosses. Sagat and Balrog aren't impressed that Vega is slumming it as a professional man-toy.

Vega vs Balrog was a big deal in the era of Street Fighter 2 Turbo. Playing as the bosses? Unheard of! The MK series wouldn't catch on to the idea for another five years. (Back then, five years was a lot)

Sagat looks like his SF Alpha form here. He's the final boss of that game, lending credence to my theory that it's intended to replace SF1.

Weird sage advice from Dhalsim. He's absolutely right though, it's amazing how often one year's unpopular opinion turns out to have been completely justified a year later.

Geese. He needs no partners. He's a solo level 4 bad-ass.

Athena has a really nice glowing uppercut. Think she's second to Yuri for me in this game, which is funny because she was my second-favorite behind Alice in King of Fighters XIV. Athena gets a LOT more air-time over the SNK-verse than Yuri or Alice do, so I might as well get on the Athena Train now.

The final battle of the game takes place in a wrestling ring, which is awesome, against a weirdly random team. We've got Rolento from Final Fight, along with a couple of characters I don't know (I think they're from Last Blade 2)

Athena unleashes a pink energy-clone! It doesn't do anything. Except kiss Rolento, apparently. Truly a warm moment in this sea of brutality.

Next up is...this guy! I have no idea who this is. He's level 2, but for whatever reason put up less fight than the foes on either side of him.

The real threat here is Hibiki, the final opponent. This sword-master is a deadly foe.

Hibiki's sword attacks have sweet Strider-esque energy trails.

Especially the big swings, which have more reach than anything any of my characters have.

After a bunch of tries...

...I manage to eke out a win over this trio, as Yuri leaps in to deliver the final blow with her patented pimp-slap grab attack.

Yuri wins! Yuri always wins. She's on all the lists. Wish she had more of a role in the Art of Fighting series that she's from, besides being the character you have to rescue in the first one and MIA in the third one. She might be playable in the second, at least. She should have been the Mai of AOF.

How weird is it that, after all these DECADES, they announce an AOF3 remaster in the same month where I'm finally checking out SNK fighting games?

Had to switch teams a few times (not in the Yuri way) to defeat that damn Hibiki.

No relation to Dan Hibiki. That's his last name, weird that it's the same as a character from another of their games.

That's it for this game.

...OR IS IT?

If I had to guess, that foot looks like Akuma.

Alright, just started the game over and replayed it. The post was gonna end here, but it turns out if you get to the end with a high score, you fight Akuma as the endboss. I guess I did well enough on the second go, because here he is:

Akuma is level 4, and WAY tougher than Hibiki's Gank Trio.

You get rain and lightning flashes during the battle. Akuma's dark-grey matte outfit is pretty sick. Been seeing that color on a lot more cars lately, and not sure what to call it. Usually it's a bit lighter on cars. It isn't your standard silver or grey, it's...something else.