Capcom vs. SNK again

Well, it turns out that I did erase all the color edits, at least for the characters that I was looking into. But I did have all the characters and EX characters unlocked. Strange. Anyway, I ended up spending some time while I was waiting for a repairman to arrive playing around with making two new Akuma color edits on the old Capcom vs. SNK Pro game that I have, and then playing through it just for fun. I had thought that with Capcom vs. SNK 2 in hand, the older game wouldn't have much charm for me. I guess with a few characters, there's actually not a lot of differences between them one to another. Since I prefer playing C-groove in CVS2, which is identical to Capcom Groove in the earlier game, and since I can pick the same character twice in pairs mode, just with a different color scheme to remind me if I'm on my first or second "life", for certain characters there really isn't much difference after all. And I do remember now how much I really liked a few of the stages, especially the train-ride on the fictional Orion Pacific railroad through the butte and mesa country of the American southwest, the car wreck and flame at night in a crowded Japanese street, and the craggy cliff-like coastline of somewhere in rural Japan with the big statues looking out of the surf. And I love Capcom's take on some traditional SNK arenas, like the top of Geese tower, or the Pao Pao Cafe.

I also picked up on a few little details; like the Orion Pacific railroad, for instance, or the News Combo 7 anchor, which carries forward to the sequel game as well. And I've always liked that soundtrack better than its sequel's too--even though much of it is blend together generic electronica.

One thing I don't like about both of them is that the SNK characters feel really dated. Although the movelists are not necessarily, the look of the characters comes from earlier games that were already going out of circulation when these games were released, and which have become even more dated looking since. Athena is wearing her '94 or '95 outfit, for example. Kyo is wearing his Orochi style school uniform. It's inevitable, no doubt, but as time marches on, they feel more and more outdated, making the experience of playing this game feel more and more like a relict. Too bad, really.

Again, I'm left asking myself if maybe mugen isn't something I wouldn't be interested in trying out. I'm not interested in some of the really crazy mugen matches that I've seen on youtube and elsewhere; what I'm really interested in is creating a game that has my favorite stages, my favorite system, and my favorite characters from Fatal Fury games, King of Fighters games, Street Fighter games, Darkstalkers games and maybe a handful of characters from the Marvel line-up as well, and have that be my gold standard in fighting games. Can mugen even do that? I don't know. Probably not without a lot of work. And probably not completely to my satisfaction even then.