After June 2020, this version became censored during the time when SNK was mainly under the rule of Chinese corporation 10cent. At first they removed just the mention of Taiwan from the game, however after many fans across many platforms globally pointed out their dissatisfaction with such sneaky patch, SNK "fixed" the issue and made things just right. Thus they removed every nationality flag in the game, every mention of geographical location, changed emblems of teams and altered the audio to skip over some lines. It's only fair that way after all. So we ended up with this weird version... the gameplay is there, just the teams have lost the flavour and are pretty generic now. For a fan of the game it feels like some bootleg version. Game itself is alright, I mean it's a NeoGeo classic arcade title from 1992. What new could be said about it? This port would be ortherwise alright by Dotemu standards at least, just the "how to play" instructions are missing since the original attract screen is gone here too. There has been a tiny bit more effort put into this release than many other barebones Dotemu ports of SNK games on PC. Not the quality of CodeMystics or even Digital Eclipse though. Only wish they wouldn't have gotten away with the censor patch so easily, at least here on gog of all places anyway. TL'DR: If you happen to have the original uncensored version installed or backed up (setup_baseball_stars_2_gog-3_(12273).exe), keep it and DON'T update to this current hackjob we have now as our only option here. Since gog doesn't acknowledge it as an issue at all (I've tried to talk sense to support to make the original version available too as a bonus), it likely won't change anytime soon. It's up to us now to preserve the originals and truly make classic games last forever. Taipei Hawks FTW!
Thanks to Code Mystics' fixing the previous port, we can finally enjoy this swan song to FatalFury series in all its glory in this must-have version. You can expect amazing design, detailed characters/backgrounds, memorable tunes and fluid animation from SNK's halcyon days . Rollback netcode has been added too with various tweaks, fixes, quality of life features and bonuses, making this CM version vastly superior to the previous DotEmu version in every aspect. Speaking of the devil, consider the reviews from prior to 2020 as outdated in regards to the quality and performance of port. They are all about the somewhat average and now deprecated DotEmu Version gog-1 (which was preserved as optional download for those who are curious to see the difference between editions, or getting those old achievements).
"4,5 Meals out of 5! - IGN" Pixel-perfect 2D MetroSoulVania. Tech-wise there are no ugly pseudo-HD blurry scalers with fake scanlines, everything is nice and crisp on your common resolutions. Responsive control-wise with re-definable keys/buttons on both gamepad and kb on my setup: Forced exclusive fullscreen as any unity3d game (command line argument: -window-mode exclusive) + same in game options, 60fps cap in the gpu driver + rad antilag. Unfortunately there's no mouse support. In general I dislike the "souls-like" tagging, however it fits like a glove here. Similar case as Salt&Sanctuary, this pretty much is GameKitchen's own take on 2D-Souls. And what a take it is! You can expect meticulously crafted interconnected world with verticality, TONS of secrets esp. if you stray from beaten path, shortcuts, breakable walls, collectibles, side-quests, back-lore on every damn item, wicked design everywhere you look: all soaked deep in this grim medieval fantasy based on European folk (most notably Spanish). Very little to no handholding (with on/off gameplay tips). Combat and approach here is slower than in Hollow Knight, it's more focused on staying CoolCalmCollected, avoiding button mashing that just gets you killed. There are upgrades to your hp, flasks, "mana", sword: e.g. combos and their finishers (dealing more damage than first 2 basic hits), dash attack, drop attack, charged slash, each giving you more options to deal with enemies. There's magic system where your "mana" charges up as you hit/execute enemies, or you can sacrifice your own HP to generate some in time of need. Rosary & beads you find are stat/property-changing bonuses for you to tweak the character and gameplay your way. tl;dr: 100% recommended - the audiovisual art alone is worth the admission fee! Pros: Everything! Except... Cons: No mouse support whatsoever for menu-ing / inventory. Voice acting can be inconsistent at times. Some actors are very good, while some are more or less mediocre.
