On the surface, SNK's various fighting game series seem to be a direct rip-off of Street Fighter II, and in some ways the earlier Fatal Fury and World Heroes games played like clunky, uninteresting and shallow updates of the formula.
However, with The Art of Fighting, SNK brought on the next evolution of 2D fighting games. It wasn't as influential as Street Fighter II and the game itself played like crap, but its' innovations rocked the genre to its core. Now every new fighting game had to have some kind of super moves that rewarded playing well rather than just doing as much damage as possible.
The Fatal Fury series branched out as well. Though its plane system never took off in 2D fighting games, it served as the inspiration to the 3D fighting games that took hold of the genre (and still dominate it today). Eventually, all of SNK's fighting games became a unique experience in its own right, that is until 1994.
The King of Fighters '94 was meant to bring together two of SNK's most popular franchises, Fatal Fury and The Art of Fighting. Though both series would eventually continue (each culminating in some of the greatest final installments of all time, Garou: Mark of the Wolves and The Path of the Warrior: The Art of Fighting 3), but KoF was now SNK's flagship series.
The formula was simple, players chose a team of 3 and decided the order before each match. After winning a match, the winner is awarded with a small chunk of health and the loser's next fighter steps up to try and take down the (hopefully) weakened victor. Once all 3 members of a team were knocked out, the match was set. As a positive trade off to this decision, the game moved much faster than the average fighter so as to keep a constant stream of quarters pouring into the machine.
Unlike other SNK fighting series, KoF did not change much from year to year and the major improvements trickled down almost to a complete stop after the 1996 edition. That said, the first 4 games in the series, almost all alike, were uniformly excellent and fans rejoiced when the 1998 special edition came out that had almost all of the characters from the first 4. These became known as "
The Orochi Saga"
(note, "
The King of Fighters: The Orochi Saga"
, a compilation of the entire Orochi Saga and "
The King of Fighters '98 Ultimate Match"
, an update of the 1998 special edition are both coming to the US fourth quarter '08!)
In 1999, SNK finally decided to change up the formula with controversial results. "
The King of Fighter '99"
kicked off "
The NESTS Saga"
and made a number of changes. The main character Kyo Kusanagi was nowhere to be found, the two systems for powering up were both nowhere to be found, replaced with a brand new system. In addition the 3 man teams were now 4 man teams though only three actually fought. The fourth was the designated "
striker"
, an extra character that could be called in under certain conditions to perform a specific attack, in '99 they were useless, the system was improved in the next two games.
The Striker system was so unpopular that in the next special edition in 2002, the three man teams were back (although the NESTS special system was there to stay (in retrospect it IS the better system, so stop complaining).
"
The Tales of Ash"
saga's "
The King of Fighters 2003"
was easily the biggest change in series' history, now partners could be tagged out at any time making matches a single, action-packed round. However the gameplay was somewhat rudimentary compared to 2002, the sleek MAX system was gone and tagging really didn't do anything except allowing you to change tactics on the fly.
The King of Fighters XI takes everything that was great about 2003 and makes them better while adding a good deal of new features to make what is easily the best KoF since 1998.
The biggest addition to KoFXI is the skill gauge, an additional meter over the power gauge. These allow you to do certain actions, most of them involving canceling. Though there is a notable lack of anything as open ended as Guilty Gear XX's "
Roman Cancels"
, you can immediately avoid an enemy assault you are blocking against by switching out for another character or interrupting with a thrust attack, you can opt to string together multi-charactered combos, cancel into super moves (supercancel) and, if the character is your designated leader (another new addition), unleash an extremely powerful move and, of course, cancel into it (Dream Cancel).
The roster is a little bigger than 2003 and is about as well done. The most glaring omissions are Ryuji Yamazaki and Billy Kane, both of whom were fan favorites since their inception in the Orochi Saga and neither of which have any reason not to be playable. Some surprises are here as well such as Eiji (who's only past appearance was in KoF '95) and a handful of characters from NeoGeo Battle Coliseum that may be unlocked, both from KoF and from other SNK games (there are even more in the PS2 port bringing the total to over 40 characters).
But the greatest achievement of KoF XI is that even with all of the enhancements and "
The Tales of Ash"
style of gameplay, it preserves the KoF feel. I think it was best said by a professional reviewer whose name slips my mind at the moment (I believe it was on
www.1up.com) that Street Fighter is more 'polite' than KoF. In other words, whereas SFII feels as though two experienced martial artists are sparring, looking for openings, keeping up a constant defense, etc., KoF feels like a brutal, all out fight. The sound effects are all stylistically overdone and the focus on normals and command moves rather than special moves give it an "
up close and personal"
edge. It's less about ducking fireballs and more about punching the other guy in the face.
But enough about how it compares to past games in the series, the nuts and bolts of the fights are heavily dependent on normals with every character having both fairly good dash capability and an evasive roll. Most characters also have some kind of move that involves maneuvering or countering and these are mostly used to set up powerful combos. Like most fighting games, all of the basic attacks have both throw distance and medium range versions, but they greatly vary from one other in almost every facet making mastering each character's movement speed vital and precise control imperative to stringing together combos.
Even with its superb gameplay, expansive character roster and brutal feel, KoF XI falters in a few areas. The PS2 controls are certainly more precise than past years and will satisfy even gamers looking for high level play, but they don't quite reach the level of Garou: Mark of the Wolves. In addition, the final boss, Magaki, is incredibly cheap, even for an SNK boss. Furthermore, as in all new KoF installments, some of the character changes will upset fans, especially for the characters ripped from NeoGeo Battle Coliseum and, as stated earlier, some of the omissions are startling.
The PS2 version adds a number of interesting modes to the normal arcade mode. The most notable additions are the two modes from the old NeoGeo carts, Team Play and Single Play. Single Play works the same as ever (instead of fighting in teams you choose one character and fight other one man teams) and, surprisingly, so does Team Play. You can opt to eliminate the shift mechanics altogether and fight with characters bowing out only when KOed like in the older games of the series. This is a great mode if you want to go back to the old style without giving up the skill gauge, but most players will prefer the arcade mode as you can not use Advanced, Extra or MAX, making the experience slightly more simplistic than the old games.
Another mode is Endless, identical to the Survival Modes in most every fighting game released since Tekken, you pick a single character to fight other characters until you are finally knocked out. This is home to one of the stupider decisions in KoFXI, you don't have the option to fight as a team. Of course the majority of the Arcade Mode are team on team fights, but they only span one difficulty level and there is that painful chore of the final boss waiting at the end.
In addition to the standard Practice Mode (a fine one with a lot of interesting features), there is the Challenge Mode. Challenge is reminiscent of Street Fighter Alpha 3's World Tour Mode or Soul Calibur's Mission Battle/Weapon Master Mode, though it is a good deal shorter and more difficult. You fight under various conditions (such as only being able to damage your opponent with certain moves) and varying objectives (KO the opponent, preform 10 escape rolls etc.). These are almost uniformly really, really hard, but they are the only way to unlock some of the secret characters (at the finale in number 40, a Raising Storm of fan service is waiting for the vigilant...).
KoFXI is undoubtedly one of the greatest fighters of all time. Fans are still playing 6 months after its US release and any fighting game fan who never tinkered with the series or wrote it off as a cheap SFII knockoff owe it to themselves to give XI a shot.
____________________________
Director of the Department of Orderly Disruptions
[Last edited by Snacko at 05-20-2008 01:34 AM : Cleaned up some of the prose.]
