Next to street Fighter as a young Tween World Heroes was the ABSOLUTE SHIT. My Guy was Brocken. A friend of mine was always J.Maxx.

World Heroes gets a bad rap from alot of Fighter freaks. Some Call it unoriginal or uninspired.
But there's alot that seperates it from Street Fighter. In Paticular the first 2 games have Death match mode but we'll get to that later.

I'm going by the US version here Georgous is the more expensive online enabled version of Anthology.

World Heroes

Ok We'll start at the begining. A near Arcade perfect port for the First Game came to To the SNES but it was very slow. The SNES version also let strong and weak be separate buttons
The first game gives us 8 historical figures or at least based on some.

Hanzo- The Legendary Hanzo Hattori. For years I wondered if this was the Same Hanzo as the Samurai Shodown Hanzo. But there are many varients and many different Hanzos. So no this is not the same one. He has his Ryu Rip off moves. He would later appear in Neo Geo Battle Colosseum

Fuuma- Of all the characters in the Series he's appeared in the most games. the 4 WH Games a very unique fighter called Aggressors of Dark Kombat and NGBC. He's mostly like Hanzo but in later games they do differ.

Rasputin- The Same Rasputin that had his wang lopped off and thrown in a Jar. Sadly none of his attacks involve his crotch.

Janne D'Arc- Basically she's Joan of Arc

Julius Carn- Genghis Khan's Bodyguard

Brocken- Wikipedia explains him quite nicely so I'll just steal from them. He's the guy I always used and to this day still do due to his range.

Brocken is part robot, and his moveset contains techniques involving mechanically-extended limbs and missile 'fists'. Since he is billed as coming from Germany, it's possible his gimmick is that of (watered-down) Nazism, but a cyborg in Nazi Germany is clearly an anachronism. Some fans debate on whether he is based on Stroheim from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, Brocken Jr. from the anime/manga Kinnikuman or some combination of the two. On the other hand, Brocken bears great resemblance to two Street Fighter characters: M. Bison (overall appearance) and Dhalsim (extendable limbs).

Kim Dragon- Here is your obligatory Bruce Lee rip off. Moving on.

Muscle Power- Based on Hulk Hogan. Only less of an egotistical asshole than Hulk is BROTHER.

Geegus- The Shapeshifting final Boss. Cross Urien with Shang Tsung and you got Geegus.
I swear Urien and now SF IV's Seth are based on Geegus' Design.

The First game was a bit of a Lemon but it's merits are fantastic Death Match types (spiked wall death match FTW!!!) and the arranged soundtrack in this collection is Excellent and even with it's flaws It's still playable.

World Heroes 2

World Heroes 2 is FANTASTIC the core gameplay is the same 3 buttons Punch, Kick, Throw
and how long you hold the button is how strong the attack was. the SNES port again let you change this. But the SNES port is missing the bonus rounds. The SNES DOES let you play as the bosses The PS2 version does not but that's fine Dio and GeeGus aren't the best characters anyway. Death match Mode returns and is overhauld to the very innovative sea saw guage The Neo Geo/PS2 includes a Ref the SNES does not have the Ref. However on the SNES you could put the Sea Saw in non death match mode and vice versa something missing from the Original. Music again is great and the arrange (which I'm listening to now Best song to me is Rasputin's) is absolutely Fantastic. All 9 Characters from World Heroes return with 7 new ones.

Captain Kidd- Yes THAT Captain Kidd. Har Matey. Next to Brocken this is my guy.

Erick- Based on the Viking Eric the Red.

Johnny Maximum- The single most unique fighting game character EVER A football player that throws ghost footballs. Wikipedia claims he's supposed to be based on Joe Montana but we never see his face.

Mudman- yahoooo wooooooo whoooooooooo ooooooooooooh His Screams are immortal and he's probably the 2nd wackiest character in the game. He's a Pacific Islander Who throw's ghosts at you. He would later appear outside World Heroes in NGBC.

Ryoko Izumo- Based on the famous Ryoko Tamura judoka. I love Judo based fighting game characters but they feel weird in 2d fighters. She's solid but nobody I use often.

Shura- A very good Muay Thai Character who I also remember using quite a bit back in the day.

Neo Dio- The Final Boss based on a character named Baoh from a Manga/OVA. I also think in part his design inspired Gill as well. He would return as a boss in NGBC as well.

World Heroes 2 Jet

I never got this game as in I don't GET what's trying to do. There are enough changes to warrant it being World Heroes 3. There's an odd training mode that replaces Death Match Mode and the main game has you fighting in a week long tournament in 1 round fights VS
3 different characters. 3 New Characters appear. This game was ported to the Game Boy but was poorly done.

Ryofu- My main Guy in Jet. Based on Lu Bu from Chinese History.

Jack- A weird Punk Rock Interpretation of Jack the Ripper.

Zeus- Based on Raoh From Hokuto No Ken. He's the new Boss and in my opinion New Boss=Sequel.

World Heroes Perfect

Pretty much a full on sequel. The Time Travel Theme is driven home here and there's a new Character just 1. The PS2 Version makes this a 6 button game in Arcades strong attacks were done by pressing the 2 primary attack buttons to make a strong one. Death Matches are still missing and a Hero meter for tricky to do supers are also included. The Default set up had me all 0_o before I got my arcade stick out and set it up like a SF game. Zeus and
Neo Dio Return as bosses. For better or worse this is World Heroes 3 Proper since there are enough gameplay moves and graphical changes here.

Son Gokuu- Based on the same character that inspired Goku from Dragon ball. You can't even play as him in the arcade without a code but here he's playable from the start (on the PS2 version)


Overall thoughts

There's an Ode to back to the future in the storyline. The Man organizing all these historical Figures is named Dr. Brown or Doc Brown and yes he does look alot like THAT Doc Brown.
Sadly it seems this series is finished so we'll never see a World Heroes game with somebody named Marty fighting a Mummy or something.

Overall it's a solid but flawed series. If they kept fine tuning what they did in World Heroes 2 this series could have been HUGE like SF huge but WH2J started to take the polish off and Perfect just made WH another SF clone.