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Review: King of Fighters ‘98 |
“…..and then I woke up.”
King Of Fighters ‘98 is the black sheep of the series. Rumoured to have been released due to fan pressure, the game could be likened to a “best of…” compilation - featuring practically every KOF character so far in a game that possesses no real advances or innovations.
Game-engine-wise, precious little has changed from KOF’97 - it retains the stocks, the relationship charts, the choice of Advanced and Extra modes and the pro’s and con’s of those, the F+Button cancellable command attacks…in all it’s very like ‘97. That’s not to say it’s the same game, because it isn’t.
Each character has been upgraded or altered in some way. New win poses, animations and speech samples for everyone, new moves or move properties for most, and some major overhauls for the older returning characters. Athena and Benimaru even get new costumes. By no means is this a lazy rehash, hell, many of the returning characters have been completely redrawn and play very differently to their older incarnations.
I think it’s the new characters and souped-up older ones that give the game a breath of freshness. It’s not like playing KOF’97 on different backgrounds, not at all. With new moves, characters and animations come new combos and tactics, new patterns for the AI to use, new tricks and strategies. There are more team combinations than ever before, and your favourite KOF character is pretty much guaranteed to be in here somewhere.
I can’t say the backgrounds are particularly awe-inspiring though. They are largely generic settings like “a street” or “a dock” - and are drawn to the usual high standard, but lack any character or memorable features. It took me a few minutes to actually recall any of the ‘98 backgrounds at all! Definitely a step down from last year’s great designs.
Fortunately, this blandness doesn’t extend to the soundtrack. Unlike ‘97, every single team has a theme song, (no more ambient noise BGs) some returning from older KOF games, a couple being brand new. As usual, the quality of the music is absolutely first-rate, the furious pounding electric guitar of the final boss is easily one of the most outstanding pieces of music I have ever heard in or outside of a videogame.
In terms of character roster, KOF’98 is pretty much The King of King of Fighters. Almost everyone from ‘94 upwards makes an appearance - the much-maligned USA sports team return totally redrawn and reworked (my god, some of them look cool!) Saishyu Kusanagi returns (from the dead), and nearly everyone who has ever been in a KOF game is there. The only missing characters are Eiji Kisaragi, Mr. Big, Kasumi, Goenitz, Geese Howard, Wolfgang Krauser, and Orochi himself. Mostly boss characters. Go figure.
The impressive total of 38 selectable characters increases even further when you take into account the “alternate” versions of some characters that are available: Billy, Chris, Yashiro, Shermie, Yuri, Robert, Ryo, Andy, Mai, Terry, Kyo and Rugal all have alternate representations of themselves, some of these versions taking moves from Real Bout 2, some from previous KOF games and some being actual alternate characters (the “Orochi” versions of Chris, Shermie and Yashiro). These aren’t just hastily thrown together either, most of these have new moves, DMs and entirely new animations, and these new attacks often completely alter the play style of the character.
With all these characters - you’d expect that the writers and planners will have had to work overtime to come up with stories and endings for all these characters, right? Um…wrong.
KOF’98 has no story whatsoever. There’s no reason for the tournament, and winning it achieves nothing. There’s no sense of events occurring and although a neat cut-scene precedes the final fight, it’s just a “kewl” one - and serves no real purpose.
In this respect, KOF’98 is very much like another of SNKs’ fighters: Real Bout 2 - which is also a “pure fighting” game, which totally ignores the story of previous games, and just gives the players what they want. (Unless it’s a coherent story they want….)
In Japan, KOF’98 was subtitled “Dream Match Never Ends” - and that’s pretty appropriate - for that’s what it is, a dream match - completely irrelevant to the ongoing KOF story. That is why there are so many chronological and factual inaccuracies. The New Faces Team died at the end of ‘97….but so what? They’re back! Rugal has died….twice now! But he’s here! Saishyu died….you get the idea. But it doesn’t matter, because, “Dallas” style, it was all a dream. The people were given what they want and the storyline is left undamaged for KOF’99 to pick up with. It’s actually a good idea, and although it’s never implicitly stated that it’s all a dream - (ie no image of Kyo waking up in the shower), it’s pretty damn clear to me that the events here are have no relevance to the KOF timeline.
Yes, I did say Rugal. Boss character for the third time. Despite dying in KOF94 and ‘95 - he’s back, as cheap as ever, and residing in an awesome H.R. Giger-inspired lair of bones, skulls and cables. To be honest, he’s just too cheap. I hate fighting this guy. He’s got a character-sized variable-speed circular fireball (impossible to jump over), a 3-hit 50% life removing anti-air kick, crazy DMs, appalling priority — and falls for some annoyingly simple patterns. Fighting him fairly is a nightmare: you stay away, he’ll fireball you to death. You move in and flinch, and he’ll half your life in one move. What choice does the average (OK, so I suck) player have of beating him squarely? Not much. I remember fighting him once and he beat my entire team without taking a hit. I got a score of zero for the entire fight. Zero!
But I’m just bitter. KOF bosses have always been cheap and overpowered, why make this year an exception? Plus the eventual victory is so much sweeter this way. Though in line with the “no story” motif this year - there are no endings either, just a series of still black and white pictures and a single tune. Not very rewarding.
For me, the lack of a storyline doesn’t damage the game that much. Though I have bitched about it quite a bit, and I do sort of miss it, you have to think - where does the fun in this (or any fighting game) come from? It’s the game itself, not the eventual outcome. Most people skip endings anyway, so it’s no real loss. And the game in itself is strong enough not to rely on it to be successful.
Because, and let’s not mince words here, what we have here is a brilliant fighting game with loads of excellently designed and rendered characters, fighting it out through slick presentation and a highly precise and competent (if, slightly unoriginal) game engine. Make no mistake, owners of past KOF games should still seek this out at any cost.
