SNK Heroines: Tag Team Frenzy is a Fighting Game by SNK. It was released on September 6, 2018 in Japan and on September 7, 2018 worldwide for the Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4, with the latter version seeing a primarily digital release in Western countries, though a physical disc was available exclusively as part of a collectors edition package.
The game is set a couple of months following the events of The King of Fighters XIV where several female fighters, and one male fighter turned female, are sent into a parallel world for unknown purposes.
In the months leading to the reveal of the game, SNK ran on their Twitter account a 4koma called Nariyuki Quest loosely based on the game's plot. You can find the entire comic here.
EvoJapan Trailer, Features Trailer, Terry Trailer
Roster
- Base Game:
- From Psycho Soldier: Athena Asamiya
- From The King of Fighters: Leona Heidern, Shermie, Kula Diamond, Luong, Sylvie Paula Paula, Zarina, Mian
- From Fatal Fury: Mai Shiranui, Terry Bogardnote
- From Art of Fighting: Yuri Sakazaki
- From Samurai Shodown: Nakoruru
- From Dragon Gal: Mui Mui
- From Sky Love: Love Heart
- DLC Characters:
- From SNK Gals Fighters: Miss Xnote
- From World Heroes: Jeanne D'Arc
- Guest Fighters:
- From Million Arthur: Thief Arthur
- From Fighting EX Layer: Skullomanianote
- Final Boss: Kukri
This game provides examples of:
- All Just a Dream: Turns out the whole thing was just a collective dream Kukri forced on the girls. Usually after beating Kukri, they're sent into another dream before waking up for real, with the exception of Skullo, Jeanne and Thief Arthur, they wake up in their default world instantly.
- Art-Style Dissonance: In their endings, Leona dreams of going berserk and killing all her friends and Sylvie dreams of being tortured by NESTS goons. Both scenes are portrayed in cutesy chibi artwork, with Leona whacking her fellow Ikari soldiers with a toy hammer and cartoony executioners coming after Sylvie. Terry's nightmare where Rock kicks him off a building, however, is Played for Drama with the standard art style.
- Artifact Title: Mostly due to some of the DLC fighters being Guest Fighters; the first DLC character is from Square Enix, while the second one is from Arika.
- Back from the Dead: Shermie did recall she died in 1997, she came back and was able to participate due to Verse's defeat in XIV releasing her soul and the rest of the New Face Team members. None of her former opponents bats an eye on this and were just glad she's back after being missing so long.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: In Kukri's dimension, the fourth wall generally tends to be considered to be a little non-existant; so Kukri and some characters can slip up some fourth wall jokes, such as Kukri threatening to beat up Kula so hard that the game's rating is increased as a result. Shermie also points out that the last time she met Kula was at 2002 (A Dream Match Game, canon-wise she was dead when Kula debuted, so they never met at all), or mistaking Nakoruru as Rimururu (They only met in NeoGeo Battle Coliseum, which is obviously non-canon, and Rimururu wasn't there).
- The Cameo: Several endings feature characters outside the series:
- Yuri: The cast of Art of Fighting 1 (Ryuhaku Todo, Jack Turner, Lee Pai Long, King, Mickey Rogers, John Crawley, Mr. Big, Mr. Karate)
- Nakoruru: Haohmaru, Rimururu, Galford D. Weiler
- Terry: Geese Howard, Rock Howard
- Shermie: Kyo Kusanagi, Iori Yagami, Yashiro Nanakase, Chris, Orochi
- Mai: Andy Bogard
- Luong: Hotaru Futaba, Kim Kaphwan, Gang-il
- Miss X: Mature, Vice, Benimaru Nikaido, Goro Daimon, and Kyo Kusanagi -the latter three are all in drag, just like him
- Jeanne: The whole roster of World Heroes Perfect, minus Zeus and Neo Dio.
- As revealed in the artbook, G-Mantle (an old mascot of SNK) appears as the default announcer.
- Character Customization: Allows each of the characters to be customized further with three costumes that can be accessorized further and four voice sets.
- Comeback Mechanic: Your spirit meter length increases as you lose health, so you have more opportunities to use specials and supers the lower it is.
- Damn You, Muscle Memory!: The game is toned down in control scheme via having two attack buttons, one special button, throw button, super button and tag button, as well as the right analog stick being used for items. What's more is the removal of crouching (meaning high-and-low mixups are non-existent), as well as normal special attacks using up a resource (a la Art of Fighting) and iconic supers only being used as finishers.
- Denser and Wackier: Whereas KOF XIV was a regular fighting tournament, or as close as it can be in the KOF universe, here the entire setting is a parallel dimension created by Sandel Darknote for nebulous purposes where he decides what the girls will wear and even is able to turn men into women.
- Distressed Dude: Yuri's ending had her play a role reversal with her brother Ryo at the events of Art of Fighting 1, meaning Ryo gets kidnapped, and Yuri starts kicking everyone's ass to save him (Robert is strangely absent). Not that it ends nicely for Yuri.more
- Downloadable Content: Three characters so far: two Guest Fighters (Skullolady from Fighting EX Layer and Thief Arthur from Million Arthur: Arcana Blood, a Square Enix 2D fighting game) and Miss X (the crossdressing Iori Yagami from SNK Gals Fighters, although now turned into an actual female).
- Jeanne D'Arc from World Heroes becomes the fourth DLC fighter and the first guest from an SNK-owned property.
- Fanservice: In spades. Have you seen their outfits and the photo booth mode? Tho it can go the other proper way as some costumes are references to other characters. (Like Athena's 3rd outfit being based on her ancestor and Kula's default costume being Angel's outfit.)
- Fisher Kingdom: The parallel world in Tag Team Frenzy is responsible for the items used during battles and the outrageous alternate costumes they wear. Official artwork makes it seem that the majority of them aren't big fans of anything that isn't their default clothing.
- Gender Bender: The only logical conclusion behind trying to insert Terry into an all-girls fighting game is to turn him into one, stated to be the result of the "prank" which dragged him into the same reality as the others. Needless to say, he doesn't enjoy it any more than they do. This isn't the first time he became like this.
- And now Skullomania from Fighting EX Layer finds himself turned into Skullolady. Seems like this is the rule within Kukri's dimension: Any male other than Kukri will be turned into a female.
- Iori manages to get around this rule thanks to his "Miss X" persona from SNK Gals Fighters. Of his three outfits, two of them are of him gender bent like Terry (one in his usual Miss X dress and the other dressed as the female Kyo cosplayer "Kyoko") but his third outfit is just him crossdressing, as he did in Gals Fighters.
- Guest Fighter: Surprisingly, Thief Arthur, from the Million Arthur: Arcana Blood fighting game, will be a playable guest and the first DLC character. This also goes both ways as Iori Yagami will be a Guest Fighter in that game.
- Joining Arthur, Skullolady makes her debut as the second guest/DLC character for the game. As with Terry, it's Skullomania from Arika's EX Layer universe turned into a girl. Similar to the above example, it appears to be in exchange for Terry paying a visit to Fighting EX Layer.
- Jeanne D'Arc is the third guest character and the first character that comes from SNK's own character library (visiting from World Heroes).
- Iconic Outfit: The characters' regular outfits are available as unlockables, or available as their only outfit in the case of Guest Characters.
- Impossibly Tacky Clothes: The Frenzy character artwork shows that the majority of the roster hate or are outright embarrassed by the alternate costumes that they're forced to wear, usually indicated by them blushing, having sweat marks and generally having angry or nervous looks in comparison to the more relaxed expressions they display when in their normal wear. A few of them take these a bit beyond in different directions. Zarina seems to try and force herself to enjoy her new clothes, Shermie looks like she's unironically enjoying herself, Leona remains stoic and stone-faced (her render in her catgirl outfit is her saluting with no shenanigans), Terry is outright flustered in everything he's forced to wear given the circumstances and Jeanne D'Arc looks like she's still wearing her regular outfit.
- Limit Break: Fights can only be finished by one, which are called "Dream Finishes" here.
- Limited Wardrobe: Guest Characters Arthur and Skullomania/Skullolady lack alternate outfits and thus, restricted to their regular outfits. You can still customize them with accessories though.
- Mana Meter: A big thing in this game: Spirit is the primary resource for specials and supers (indicated by a pink bar). If it's low and in a rainbow color, you're not able to use it for anything until it refills. The lower one's HP bar is, the higher their spirit cap will be. Throws also remove a set amount of spirit from the victim.
- No-Respect Guy: Kukri, despite being the instigator of these things, weren't taken that seriously at all. Most girls take turn in making fun of him or immediately guessing his identity thanks to his crude way of speech.
- Paper-Thin Disguise: Kukri tried his best to look suspicious and ominous while not being seen. But his voice is a total giveaway that even those outside his team (Sylvie and Mian) recognize him right away.
- Pixellation: One of the items available causes the entire screen to become pixelated for a few seconds.
- Shout-Out: A few of the girls' alternate costumes are references to characters they are associated with:
- Athena has a costume based on the goddess she descended from and her namesake.
- Leona's second alternate is based on her father Heidern's military uniform, complete with eyepatch. Her catgirl costume is taken from one of her unit variants in Metal Slug Attack.
- Zarina has her own take on the ninja garb worn by her teammate, Bandeiras Hattori.
- One of Kula's alternates is an all-black outfit similar to Angel's.
- Terry's default appearance as a girl (longer hair, his white shirt replaced with a tank top which still exposes his new breasts to an extent, short shorts as opposed to pants) is reminiscent of how he looks like when he's hit by Demitri Maximoff's Midnight Bliss in SNK vs. Capcom: SVC Chaos. The cheerleader alternate he has is colored blue with white stars normally, referencing the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders.
- Mai's cow-themed costume is likely a reference of the fact that she gets turned into one when she loses a match to Athena (the goddess, not the pop star) in SNK vs. Capcom: SVC Chaos.
- Skullomania's reveal trailer's title is a callback to his Street Fighter EX 3 ending.
- Slapstick: The game doesn't shy away from the playful jabs at the female characters.
- SNK Boss: Kukri upholds the tradition by having a nasty AI that will catch the player on long combos that quickly demolish their HP and having an exclusive SP Item than grants him super armor and immunity to all and any status effects, an effect that is completely unavailable to the players.
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Spiritual Successor: Of SNK Gals Fighters. - Soundtrack Dissonance: The ending theme of the game is a light and happy J-Pop song which works for the silly nature of each character's endings. Except Terry's ending is surprisingly dark and doesn't work with the song at all.
- Stealth Sequel: SNK has confirmed that this game is actually canon, and a sequel to The King of Fighters XIV. Sure enough, Shermie's teammate Yashiro makes a return to the roster, also having been resurrected, with hints implying that she will return as well.
- The One Guy:
- Under most circumstances, from the vanilla roster, Terry would absolutely fill this role given that he'd literally be the only male character in the game, but here he is outright transformed into a girl and a pretty-looking one at that with no shortage of outfits to make use of his new femininity. The issue here is that he doesn't like it. At all.
- Kukri is the person who instigates the plot and drags the roster into his parallel world, although this does seem to be a lot out of left field considering what little we know of him outside of being both condescending and a bit perverted.
- With DLC, this would've included Skullomania and Miss X, although the latter has one caveat. Due to Miss X's third costume being a crossdressing Iori as opposed to him being turned into a girl, he is literally the only male character playable on the roster to date.
- Too Kinky to Torture: Unlike the other women, Shermie seems to enjoy wearing the revealing fanservice costumes. Justified as she works as a model, so she must be used to it.
- Jeanne also doesn't seem too bothered by the costumes she wears, on account of her being a Proud Beauty.
