Yo G1s! Can’t believe it’s been almost a month since I’ve written the first part of my King of Fighters retrospective. I was planning on writing it sooner but I’ve been really busy with school. =T Anyway here is part two. In this segment I will cover the next “saga” of the King of Fighters series, from 1999 to 2002. A few personal friends of mine who read my previous blog told me that it wasn’t nearly as detailed as it should be. I take constructive criticisms well and I wrote this one as detailed as I can Enjoy. Oh btw if you haven’t read the first part, you can do so by clicking here: http://screwattack.com/node/14669 I covered the beginning of the KoF franchise from 94-98. --- In 1999, SNK has been facing some financial troubles. They lost a lot of money after releasing three consoles that did not sell at all; the Neo-Geo CD, Neo-Geo 64, and the Neo-Geo pocket. These three systems put the company in a grave financial situation. The only source of income for SNK is their arcade titles, mostly with KoF 98 and Metal Slug. Many of their franchises such as KoF and Metal Slug were ported to their rival consoles such as SNES, Playstation, Genesis, and Saturn. Unfortunately, the company becomes more focused towards staying in business than making good games. The next few titles, at least in my opinion, are some of the worst KoF games ever made. The King of Fighters 98 (technically it was 97) concluded the Orochi saga and 99 started a new storyline, later to be called as the “NESTS Chronicles.” Kusanagi Kyo and his rival Yagami Iori has been knocked off the main characters throne and is now replaced by a new guy, K’ (pronounced K-dash). He was a fighter who got captured by an organization called NESTS and they implanted him with Kyo’s DNA in order to make the ultimate fighter. But instead he betrayed NESTS and seeks revenge against them for using him and wiping his memories. Kyo and Iori are still in the game, but not as a part of the main cast and don’t belong to any teams. A huge change to the gameplay was the striker system. Each team now consists of 4 characters instead of 3, and the 4th character becomes the striker, where you can call upon in the middle of a match to rush in and perform a special move. While it is interesting and has a lot of potential, the striker system sucks. The only use for it is to force an opponent to block at times when you’re in a pinch. Anyone can see the attack coming from a mile away. The “extra” and “advanced” super meters were taken out and players are given a single type, much closer to the advanced type. This super bar mechanism would stay with the KoF series until 2003. The boss of this game is Krizalid, another Kyo clone by NESTS. Now that I look back on this game after 10 years in retrospect, it’s really not THAT bad. Don’t get me wrong this game is crap compared to the good KoF games, but I think people bash it way too much and I’m guilty of that myself. They tried something new during an economic crisis and weren’t all that successful at it. I think one major reason why 99 bombed was because 98 was so damn good. It easily overshadowed 99, 2000, and even 2001.
Onto Y2K… The year that spawned a worse game than 99, if that was even possible. 2000 was essentially the exact same game as 99 with a few minor changes. The striker system is back, except now you can use it anytime and is refillable with taunts (but depleting a super stock). In other words, the striker system went from totally useless to totally cheap. Certain strikers such as Nakoruru (holy **** they put Nakoruru in a KoF game!!!) can refill a player’s health when called. Do I need to say any more? All I can say is this… SNK is in a financial crisis so they basically took their previous game, put a little makeup on it, and it turned out horrible. Unfortunately, it was the last KoF game produced by the original SNK team, it really sucks that they had to end it in such terrible fashion. The only 2 things this game accomplished were developing the NESTS storyline and introducing a new fan favorite character, Kula Diamond as a bonus character. Other than that, I can’t really put any more criticisms on this game because like I said, it is pretty much the exact same game as 99. POWER KNUCKLE TO THE FACE!! This, G1s, is the reason why Kasumi never made it to 2001 :P By 2001, SNK has declared bankruptcy. The company was sold to a Japanese Pan*****o company called Azure, who used the SNK characters in their Pa*****o machines. They also used the characters in an effort to make some money out of Capcom by letting Capcom make Capcom vs SNK1 and 2, but I’ll save those games for part 4 in the retrospective. Anyway, onto The King of Fighters 2001… This game was not developed by SNK as they no longer exist when the game got released. This game was produced by a Korean company called Eolith and developed by a small company formed by former SNK employees called Breezzasoft. It was later on ported to Dreamcast and PS2 by the newly established SNK Playmore. This was… alright. It still wasn’t as good as 98 was but it was a hundred times better than 99 and 2000. My major complaint about this game is that somehow throws do absolutely crap damage unless you’re a special grappler like Clark or Daimon. Regular throws are just not even worth using. The super system works like this: you have 1 bar to charge your supers, the length of the bar depending on the # of strikers you have which I’ll get into later on. Each super takes 1 stock and by default (4 characters, no strikers) you can stock only 1 super at a time. The striker system is back but now it’s like a mix between 99 and 2000 in a sense that it’s not cheap and it’s not completely useless, but more closer to being on the useless side I believe. You are allowed to pick 4 characters but you don’t have to have a striker. However, this gives you a very long super bar you have to charge and only 2 stocks. By limiting your playable characters and increasing your strikers, you get more stocks and a shorter super bar. For example, you can have 3 playable characters (most people pick this option) and 1 striker, you will have a shorter bar and 2 stocks, which allows you to perform a more powerful super that takes 2 stocks at a time. Notice in the screenshot below that the Ikari team has all 4 members and one long super bar while the Korean team has Choi as a striker but a shorter bar (and can stock up to 2). This system is much more balanced, but unless you like to spam supers like no other, generally most people stick to either 4 characters or 3+1 striker. There are a few spinoffs in this game that I must mention. First, in response to the rivalry with Capcom’s Street Fighter series, the character Yuri has been given 2 supers: Shin Shoryuuken and Shungokusatsu (raging demon) as her lv2 Super. The character May Lee has been added to the Korean team, she is a spinoff of a popular Japanese super hero Kamen Rider (Masked Rider) as you can see in this pose: Also, Angel, a new character in the NESTS team is actually a spinoff of The Rock. Don’t believe me? Take a look: King of Fighters 2001 concluded the NESTS storyline as Igniz, the mastermind behind the NESTS organization was defeated by Kyo and Iori, surprisingly, since K’ is still the main character. The King of Fighters 2002 was much like 98 because it is a dream match. There is no storyline, it’s just a huge royal rumble of every KoF character from all of the previous games (except for the USA team, no one cares about them). This, in my opinion is the GREATEST KOF GAME TO THIS DATE /fanboyism. The game is made by a Eolith and a newly established SNK Playmore, who purchased Brezzasoft and rehired their old development team. They also sued the crap out of Azure for copyright infringement (Hell yeah! **** those pan*****o bastards using the SNK characters!) KoF 2002 was the starting of the rebirth of a company and their most prized franchise. Kof 2002 get rid of the striker system (finally!) of 99-2001. The series returned to its roots of the 3v3 system since 94. The super system is pretty much identical to the advanced mode in 98 (or if you prefer, the N-groove of CvS2). I can’t say anything about the storyline because there isn’t any. And My words won’t do the gameplay any justice, so take my word for it and pick up a copy for PS2 right now because it is THAT DAMN GOOD. Fortunately, SNK Playmore is re-releasing this game on the PS2 next month called KoF 2002 ultimate match just like what they did with 98 a while back. The new version will include a few characters who were not fortunate enough to make it to the original 02 like Heidern and Kasumi. And no, they’re not adding the USA team back and we don’t care. In the next blog I’ll talk about a new story arc in the KoF franchise. A new main character who’s an antagonist (!!!) New gameplay elements, graphics upgrades, and the series dropped the yearly titles. Oh my! Stay tuned This is G1 Se7enthMoon’s second part of the King of Fighters retrospective. Hope you guys enjoyed that. Peace