It seems like it should be obvious that CvS2 is better than CvS Pro. But, if you have the Japanese import Dreamcast version of the latter, which I now do, then that's not necessarily true. I've had the PS1 version for some time, and it's notably not very pretty or fluid, although it plays quite well and is a perfectly fine game. The improvements that the Dreamcast version adds make the comparison between the two games a bit more unclear, though—it really does make it a much more pleasant if not even occasionally breathtaking experience. Let's talk about various areas where they differ from each other, and I'll talk about which one offers a better experience overall.
Character Selection. It's clear that the second game has a better character selection than the earlier version. However, this doesn't matter as much as you'd think unless you're a fan of a more esoteric character. I've actually only quite rarely played any character in 2 that isn't in Pro. My go-to characters, down to the second and third string, a bit deeper on the bench, are almost all characters that are in Pro. However, again—there's no doubt that the second game has more characters, and it also has better bosses. Shin Akuma and Orochi Rugal are simply better than the version of Geese and Bison that Pro has. But on the flipside, Pro has a more even theme and tone. While neither game is anywhere near as gonzo and spastic as the Marvel vs Capcom series had become, especially by the time MvC2 came out, there are still some characters that really don't fit the concept of Capcom vs SNK. Which, lets all face it, was really always meant to be about their iconic fighting game franchises, and specifically kind of Street Fighter vs King of Fighters with maybe a Darkstalkers, Fatal Fury or Art of Fighting character that wasn't in KOF thrown in just for kicks. The inclusion of Samurai Shodown and Last Blade characters just don't feel like they belong in this game. And of course while Morrigan was a perfectly fine fit as an unusual offbeat character but not too much so, her sprite was absolutely terrible, and has been mentioned by every reviewer who's ever talked about either of these games. (I should mention that Nakoruru is in Pro, and she seems to show up as a com player way more often than she should.)
I've got to give a slight edge to 2 over Pro, but much more slight than you'd think; only a tiny sliver of advantage.
Gameplay System. I'm covering three different things here: 1) button layout and moveset, 2) the ratio system, and 3) the groove system. While most people would say that 2 beats Pro handily on all three dimensions, I'm going to make the case that it doesn't; it either is the same, or even arguably worse. For my taste, of course.
1) Pro made the decision to switch to a SNK-like layout, using four buttons instead of the default Street Fighter scenario of six. While this meant that some moves had to be abandoned here and there, curiously, nobody's ever complained about the King of Fighters characters feeling move impoverished because they used four instead of six buttons, and nobody has really complained since the first month or two of release about the four button approach of Marvel vs Capcom 2. In fact, in an era when home ports to consoles were becoming much more important than arcade renditions of the games, you could easily make a case that a four button layout is much less awkward than the six button Capcom default. Unless you went out of your way to buy a specialty control pad, after all, you always only had four buttons on the face of your controller. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that I think the four button layout is better than the six button layout, and I've always been slightly annoyed by trying to figure out the best way to map the six button layout to every four-button (plus triggers) control pad I've ever used to play a Capcom fighting game, from the SNES, the PS1, the PS2, the PS4, the Xbox, the Dreamcast and my USB PC controller. Every single one of them would have benefited from being designed to be a four-button game rather than a six button game. Of course, this isn't an issue for the SNK games, all of which are four button games to begin with... if they aren't even three button games for that matter, which a few of the Fatal Fury titles are.
2) I don't like the ratio system for either game. Luckily, there's actually no reason to play it for either game if you don't like it. Pro has the Pair Mode, where you ignore the ratios and pick two characters of your choice, who are merged into ratio 2, regardless of what they originally had been in the ratio mode. 2 has a slightly better selection; offering a 3x3 mode that is like the pair mode but obviously with three instead of two characters, as well as a regular Street Fighter-like 1x1. Normally, I'd suggest that the 1x1 is essential for the way I like to play, because I don't like having to mentally switch gears between characters. This is one of my bigger complaints with the regular gameplay associated with the King of Fighters games, although most of those titles also offer a well-done 1x1 mode as well. I find, however, that picking two characters instead of three doesn't trigger that reaction in me; I guess switching between two characters I can handle, whereas switching between three is too many to be fun for me and subconsciously stresses me out or something. I can't remember the last time that I played either game using the default ratio system, and I can't imagine why I ever would again. The ratio system simply was a bad idea, and even improving it between Pro and 2 didn't make it worth using, when there are better options right there in both games anyway.
3) I suppose some people like the number of grooves that 2 offers over Pro. I can certainly see that, especially if you're a fan of a particular groove that is unique to 2 rather than Pro. 2 has six grooves; C-A-P-S-N-K. C is almost exactly the same as A-ism from Street Fighter Alpha 3. A-groove is similar to the V-ism of Street Fighter Alpha 3. P-groove is most often compared to the Street Fighter III games, because of the presence of parry. Although parry was difficult to pull off in III, and it's even more difficult to master in this game. If you're really good at it, it's probably the best groove, but I'm not, so I don't care for it. S-groove has the manually charged super meter, and Desperation moves when you're health bar is red, similar to the earliest KOF games. N-groove is similar to the advanced mode that later KOF games started to develop, including 97 and 98 (and maybe 96? I'm drawing a blank now on that one.) K-groove is an interesting mashup of Samurai Shodown features and Mark of the Wolves features, making it a unique groove. This choice is great if you like one of the new grooves, or like playing around with optional things in the system and having lots of choices. There's even a groove edit mode where you can create your own grooves. However, after trying all of them out for a bit, I now only play C-groove on 2. I have no interest anymore in any other groove, although if for some reason I had to pick another one, I'd go for N. Pro only has two grooves, and although they don't have the same names, they are identical to C-groove for Capcom and S-groove for SNK. Since I can't imagine that I'd ever pick another groove again other than Capcom/C-groove, and it's present in both games and works exactly the same in both, the additional choices of 2 offer me nothing that I actually want.
I'd say that the button layout is a very slight advantage to Pro over 2 and a similarly slight advantage goes to 2 over Pro for offering the 1x1 and 3x3 over the 2x2 of Pro. Neither has an advantage in groove selection, because both offer me the only groove that I'm still interested in playing ever again. On this dimension the two games, therefore break even.
Presentation. In terms of the sprites, they are basically the same for both games, and there are, honestly, issues with them. The handful of redrawn Street Fighter sprites (just Ryu, Ken, Chun-Li and M. Bison, I believe) and the obviously newly drawn SNK sprites all look pretty good. Ironically, by the time even the first of these came out, many of the SNK characters had migrated to improved looks; Kyo's NESTS saga look was a big improvement over his Orochi saga look, for instance, but it's the latter that got drawn in the Capcom style. Regardless, that's all nearly top of the line for the era, and can't really be complained about. The rest of the Capcom sprites, however, don't look nearly as good. Everyone always points out how terrible Morrigan looks, and while it's true that she has the worst looking sprite in the game, many of the older Alpha vintage sprites really aren't that much better. Not only that, they really aren't drawn in the slightly more serious style that the SNK characters and redrawn Street Fighter characters are. A few new characters (and by new I mean drawn from much older games) from the Capcom side got ported to 2 that weren't in Pro, like Maki, Kyosuke or Eagle, and they also had to be redrawn in the newer style. The Alpha sprites look fine in their own game, but they are somewhat more cartoonish than the style that the SNK and redrawn Capcom sprites are in, which causes further graphical confusion; they just don't all look like they belong in the same game at all. (To be fair, this is also true even for some 3-D models that are in the same game. SFV has characters that look ridiculous next to characters that look really good. The newly released Akira in particular simply looks like she shouldn't be in the same game at all as the totally whiffed up Ken model.) However, while this is an issue, it's equally an issue for both games, so I can't give either game a leg up in this regard. Other parts of the presentation are different however.
While I don't think either game has really very memorable music, Pro's music is substantially better than the really generic Eurodancy soundtrack of 2. In general, I'd say Capcom was really whiffing on their music selection in this era too; this is the era of Marvel vs Capcom 2; the worst music ever featured in a major fighting game, and Street Fighter III. (To be fair, I'm really only familiar with the Third Strike music. But I didn't like most of that either.) Neither game is anywhere nearly as ridiculous as MvC2 (and yes, I realize that the music has grown on many fans. I'm not one of them. If anything, I find it even more obnoxious the more time passes. But I have other reasons for not really loving that game too.) I think 2's music is comparable in its weird badness to Third Strike, whereas Pro's music is comparable in its pretty generic run-togetherness to Alpha 3. Ironically, I once really liked the music to Alpha 3, but after hearing the really well-done remakes of the classic Street Fighter themes, plus the equally cool stage scenes that Overclocked Remix did (both for the HD Remix of SF2, and on their own before even) and the OST for Street Fighter IV, that Alpha 3 has not aged well in comparison. I still think that both Alpha 3 and Pro are fine for the era in which they came out, and they at least don't distract from the game, like MvC2 does, but they really aren't all that good either.
Otherwise, the look and feel of the stages is also very much better in Pro than in 2. Now, I didn't appreciate this as much for many years, because I only had the PS1 version of Pro, but with the Dreamcast version, it's obvious that many of the stages in this game are literally the absolute best 2-D stages ever produced, while the 3-D stages from 2 (and MvC2 for that matter) are probably the worst stages produced in general. Now, I don't necessarily hate 3-D stages in their own right. I think later 3-D stages, like those in KOF 2002 UM or KOF 1998 UM, for instance, look great, and there's some other really cool console port stages of what were originally 2-D stages in the arcade versions for some games that I also quite like. But I certainly don't think doing stages in 3-D just because you can is an improvement, and the stages in 2 are just awful, with only a couple of exceptions (the two boss stages, as it happens.) Really well-done 2-D stages have aged quite well, and have a kind of timeless beauty to them now that the early 00s 3-D video game design simply doesn't have. That era really kind of is a wasteland of very ugly, blocky polygon graphical design that looks terrible almost across the board, no matter the type of game. Curiously, though—it's less the technical limitations of the era that make the stages so unlovely as it is simply the design of them. I've got to give the edge, and it's a more substantial edge than we've seen before in these comparisons, to Pro over 2.
Total. Now, exactly which of those dimensions are most important to you may vary from what are most important to me. And some of my preferences there are obviously fairly subjective. Although I'll note that with the music in particular, I hear people make repeated mention of the "this is true love we're making" track of the London stage, and I've got to think that they've just developed a nostalgic fondness for an ugly track, the same way many have for "I'm gonna take you for a ride" from Marvel vs Capcom 2 rather than because it's an objectively good song or anything. But for my money, I'd have to say that it adds up to me being more likely now to play Pro than 2. Now don't get me wrong. I played a lot of 2 over the years, and I played probably a bit less of Pro when I had it only on the PS1. But now that I have the Dreamcast version, even with the Japanese, which I can't read a lick of, I just think that I prefer playing that one and probably will for the foreseeable future. All of the "improvements" made to 2 over Pro ended up being improvements that I don't really value that much, meaning that in most respects I can consider it an improvement from an academic perspective, but my own personal experience is actually a downgrade.
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