World Heroes

I remember this game, it was a clear copy of Street Fighter II's formula. You get a bunch of characters who represents a certain country, you make sure to include all available tropes (the weird guy, the woman, America Man, the quiet Karate guy) and you ship it out to the arcades and hope it sticks.

The first time I played it was at a corner store in Tijuana where they had set up some arcades back in the 90's. We would play it on our way back home from church and, honestly, the only good things about going to church on sundays were getting to buy some chips and playing this after. Simpler times I suppose.

The game wasn't that good, it was too kooky to really challenge Street Fighter, it was slower, it was derivative, it was too gimmicky and the art just wasnt there. But it was a taste of other stuff that was out there, specifically on the Neo Geo, a gaming system we all knew existed but could not even begin to hope we could afford.

In the end I suppose it was the pricetag that sunk World Heroes, the Neo Geo and even SNK. Sure they became cult icons but they're not the ones reaping in wads of cash from nostalgia, no its Capcom who's doing that.