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Review: King of Fighters: Dream Match 99 |
OK people, I suppose I should really write and tell you all about King of Fighters: Dream Match 99 - SNK’s first venture into Dreamcast software.
Plagued with rumours ever since its announcement, DM99 has had a lot to live up to. Initial reports of “terrible load times” and hints of CGI intros, 3D stages and new characters flew about the net like….well, insert your own gratuitous allusion here really.
So, what’s the deal? King? Or peasant?
Despite having a “99″ in the title, DM99 is little more than a slightly souped-up KOF98. A bit confusing really, as the *REAL* KOF99 is currently in arcades worldwide. But as long as you don’t expect a whole new game, you won’t be disappointed. I’m sure you know how to play KOF games - and there’s probably a review of one or more of them somewhere on these pages, I just want to sell the game to all you DC owners out there.
So what’s new?
There’s a neat anime intro. Yes it’s too long, yes some bits are a bit badly animated, the Kyo/Iori stuff is dull, but overall it’s very nice. I for one would be happy to see a KOF animated movie/series with this standard of animation.
The biggest change is the 3D backgrounds. Sometimes it’s hard to spot, sometimes it’s obvious, but spend a little longer than five minutes playing, and you’ll really appreciate them. The ‘Train Yard’ stage, which once featured a 3-frame train jerking in, now features wonderful 3D trains, that appear on the horizon and glide lusciously up to you. The night version of the ‘USA Wharf’ stage (yes some stages have more than one colour scheme) is beautiful, and it’s *ALL* 3D, and it never interferes or looks out of place or jars with the sprites. There are also little added extras, like the polygon seagulls in Korea or the sharks and fish outside the Sunken Ship. Sadly the rumours of panning, gliding stage intros are false, and we can only dream about how things would have looked if they had chosen to do that.
Quite a coup, though they were freely available on the net mere hours after the games’ (pirate) release, and are now nothing exciting, are the pictures in the “art gallery” option. Through fighting and earning “character points” - which you convert into a score, you can unlock pictures of conceptual artwork for the ‘real’ KOF99 - things like new characters and costume changes for existing characters (Chin now practically *IS* the old guy from “Drunken Master”)- a nice touch that certainly extends the play time.
Another way to earn points is to connect a Neo Geo Pocket Colour up to the DC. Though really blatant advertising on SNKs part (the 6th option on the menu screen shouts “Neo Geo Pocket Colour”) - it’s another ‘neat touch’ - and just broadens the Dreamcast’s future ability for expansion.
Oh, and the music (always a high point in KOF games) is remixed, and seems to have come straight from the AST CD.
Other than that, it plays just like 98, control is perfect with a 6-button stick, the characters are as engaging, amusing and attractive as they’re always been, and the final boss is as cheap as ever.
The only flaws are loading times of about 2 seconds between characters - this wouldn’t be a problem for me, except the music stops and restarts - a pet hate of mine, as you often never get to hear the part of the tune where the guy on the electric organ/electric guitar really lets loose. A shame.
The character sprites are also slightly smaller, which is either a downside to converting from such a strange machine as the Neo-Geo MVS, or SNK’s secret plan to keep their Coin-ops in demand by purposely doing slightly inferior conversions, depending on which newsgroups you frequent.
And, in my opinion, the style of presentation, which has gone from the stone BGs of the original, to graph-like wire meshes and patterns is not as good.
But I’m just picking pathetic nits here - if you’re a KOF fan, and never really played 98 in the arcades due to the expense/scarcity, or have only seen the Playstation version (snort!) - this is for you.
And I’ll end with the best thing of all, the thing that shows SNK have wholeheartedly embraced the DC’s 128-bit architecture, that shows they are a company truly ready for the new millenium: The Shadows Don’t Flicker Any More. And if that isn’t a Country and Western song title by the end of this year, then I’m Choi Bounge.
