I don’t know if I’m just paranoid, but I definitely think that there’s some force that’s trying to get me to go out and live a more “wholesome” life. Every time I buy a big, expensive and further-social-life-destroying piece of technical equipment, there’s always tonnes of things that go wrong. It’s as if god, or some other higher power is saying “look, stop wasting your life with these antisocial toys and go out and get some friends.” And is trying to disillusion me by making everything I do in this field go wrong. My PC. My new sound system. My import Dreamcast. Every stinking time.

Anyway, the most recent case of this divine intervention is KOF99. Because of the unavailability of Neo-Geo stuff in my country (damn, I sound like that guy in the Costner Robin Hood), and the fact the rare and holy places that do sell them are sometimes charging the equivalent of $500 per cartridge, I am resorted to playing the ROM images. Ssh. Just keep it between you and me. Anyway, the *obstacles* I had to overcome to get them working you would not believe. Corrupt zip files, prematurely-terminating downloads, faulty ROM sets, missing sounds…..and the whole time I swear I could hear the angels chanting “you don’t want to play this, you want to go and meet a nice girl…”

Well I triumphed over adversity once again. And here we are.

If you read my review of KOFDM99 (the DC version, which was basically ‘98) you will probably remember being annoyed by my complaints about the lack of storyline. Well this one has one. So is it better? And if so by how much?

We’ll ignore the fact that subtitling the 1999 edition of the game “Millenium Battle” is a bit…hmmm…maybe they mean “battle for the Millenium.” Works for me.

Anyway, the KOF world is now ready for the next thousand years, no longer does the story focus on ancient curses, feuds and gods, now we’re into cloning and genetics.

The story revolves around said themes, plus the introduction of a menacing cartel called NESTS, (whose motto “Our future, is now!” is suspiciously like SNK’s old motto on the older Neo-Geo machines…:)
Yeah, OK, me too. On the first mention of cloning, I groaned audiably. This idea of an army of cloned warriors created during a fighting tournament really has been done to death, most recently in Streetfighter Zero 3 and Streetfighter 3: 3rd Strike.

But give it a chance. It’s a good story when you get into it, with some nice touches. You even end up sympathising with the end boss, that poor guy *sniff*. Plus, the very ending sets next years tournament up as well. How cool is that?

It’s nice to have cutscenes between certain fights and proper endings once again, and the artwork for these is the best yet. Even the text translations, which are ususally unintentionally hilarious, have come out well this time. “Holy shish-kabob K! You’re gonna be toast!” indeed.

Anyway, after KOF97 (98 never happened, that was why it was subtitled “Dream Match”) - Kyo was kidnapped, and cloned by NESTS. He then escaped, but the mysterious cartel are intent on using the clones for world domination. They just need the fighting data to implant into the dulicates…and what better way to collect fighting data than by organising a tournament?

Not including the “alternate versions” of characters, there were 38 selectable characters in KOF98. This year, it’s down to 32.
Characters who have gone AWOL this time around are Daimon (good riddance), Vice (noo!), Mature, the New Faces Team (Yashiro, Shermie and Chris), Heidern (though he is in the cut scenes), Saishu, Chizuru, Yamazaki, Billy, the USA Sports Team (Lucky, Heavy D! and Brian) and of course Rugal.

This may seem a fairly drastic culling, and there are fans of the series who are upset by the loss of these characters (one HerV member, who shall remain anonymous, is mortally distraught by the loss of Shermie:) - but, and here I come to SNK’s rescue once again, if you think about it, all of these characters really have no place in the new tournament. Daimon’s latest retirement must have been his final one, and as the Hero Team no longer has Kyo in it, he has no reason to show up. Vice, Mature, Yamazaki, Billy and Chizuru are no longer interested now the Orochi storyline is over. (Mary is still here, but she’s so cute, I’ll forgive her) Saishu and Heidern have no need to fight, as Rugal is dead, the USA Sports Team had no story anyway, and Yashiro, Shermie and Chris actually died at the end of KOF97.

Kudos to SNK for actually having the storytelling skills to realise that if a character dies, they won’t be around to fight next year (*cough, Capcom and Charlie…*)

It feels a little weird to me - seeing the Kyo/Iori thing so ignored. They still obviously hate each other - but the story pays very little attention to this, or their ongoing saga. Oh well. I suppose it was getting a little stale…

So, are the replacement characters worthy successors to their hereditary peers? Well, to be honest, no. Not quite. But it’s a close thing.

We are introduced in “Millenium Battle” to K’ (a wiry, leather-wearing youth, with the power of Kyo implanted in him, and tragic genetic secrets to uncover), Maxima (a bulky, cybernetically enhanced grappler with natty sideburns), Kyo-1 and Kyo-2 (clones of the man himself, one playing like 95 Kyo, one like 98), Whip (sassy asassin girl with a whip, newest member of the Ikari team), Bao (little kid with major league psychic powers), Kasumi (from KOF96 and Art of Fighting 3), Li Xiangfei (from Real Bout 2) and Jhun (Kim-a-like).
The real Kyo and Iori are hidden characters, who can be accessed by meeting a certain score requirement, and I must say I do like Kyo’s new outfit. What a geezer.

Although there are 32 characters, I must repeat the fact that 3 of them are Kyos. Kyo-1, Kyo-2 and real Kyo. That’s a teeny weeny bit Mortal Kombat-y for my tastes. Oh well. They all *play* differently enough, but…hmmm….

Anyway, so the story and characters get a thumbs up. And the game?

Well, it’s faster and more furious than in previous years. The big thing is the ’striker’ system. Basically, think “helper character from Marvel vs. Capcom” and you’re there. You pick four characters at the start, then pick the order you want to play them as, and the 4th selection will be your striker. Pressing BC will call him/her out during the fight, and they will perform some action, be it hitting the other character, lowering their super meter/raising yours, healing you a bit or knocking them up in the air for a juggle. They can be hit mind, so you can even use them as a shield. You have a limited amount of times you can call the striker, so you can’t just hold down the buttons and go to sleep.

Is it a good thing? Well, I like it. As I said, it makes things faster and more furious, and it’s not uncommon for four characters to be onscreen at once, all kicking lumps out of each other - a testament to the MVS hardware, which is pushing about eight years old by now.

It certainly doesn’t stop the game feeling like a KOF one, and after a while, you’ll be using it without even thinking. In fact, it now feels weird thinking of previous KOFs with only three characters per team. Four per team seems so natural now.

Other major new additions are the two new modes, “Armor” and “Counter” mode. Activated by pushing ABC or BCD respectively, both requiring 3 full levels of super meter. ‘Armor’ mode makes you flash yellow, and for the 8 or so seconds you’re in it - you don’t reel from hits. You still take damage, but you don’t get knocked back. If you’re thinking “super armor” from any of Capcoms’ Marvel or Vs. games - you’re exactly right. Counter mode lasts longer, and enables you to cancel certain moves into specials, and specials into supers that you wouldn’t be able to normally. I found this feature a bit superfluous at first - I preferred to have 3 DMs to hand rather than ‘wasting’ it on one of these modes, but as play becomes more sophisticated and in-depth, the benefits of these modes, Counter especially becomes more obvious.

This year also sees the reintroduction of the “red flashing energy” - like in KOF96, and EXTRA mode in 97 and 98. No more POW-exploding to use SDMs - once again it’s back to DMs normally, and (infinite) SDMs when your life bar is flashing red. There’s no more passing stocks between players either - and no inter-character relationships any more. Each character starts their fight with nothing. For the first time in a KOF game - your other team members don’t appear in the background, so there’s no more jumping in to save a dazed/held player.

You no longer have a choice between EXTRA and ADVANCED mode either, but a play style that is sort of a combination of the two, albeit with some tweaks and alterations. You run by pressing F,F, but F+A+B is a sort of dodge, a slide dodge, invincible to most attacks - and a feature the CPU will use way too much at higher difficulty.

Back+A+B now makes you hop back, then dash forward automatically, instead of the usual back roll. I find this a bit annoying, I guess it’s designed to make play a little more offensive and “in your face” than usual. You can cancel into a special midway through…but still…ergh..

Another tweak that speeds up the flow is the reduction in charge times. Now you need only charge for one second before completing the motion.

It’s interesting to note that the number of characters with both a fireball and an uppercut has decreased this year. Terry, Mai, Robert and Benimaru have all been “de-shoto’d” in one way or another, which is annoying to crappy players like me, but good for the overall balance and non-scrubbiness of the game. Robert has in fact completely changed in terms of attacks. He’s now completely (except for his DMs) a charge character. And, in my opinion, charge charas have no place in KOF. I hate Robert anyway, the greaseball, so it’s no great loss.

I suppose I should fawn irritatingly over the music - I have done all the other times. And this year it is especially good. I must point out that there are *no* recycled or reused themes this year - every team/single character has a brand new theme, and some of them, notably Real Kyo’s moody guitar theme, the Japan team’s electronic, pounding tune, the Art of Fighting team’s hugely aggressive electric guitar, and the incredible industrial sounds of the final boss fight are outstanding. I can only drool over what the Arranged Sound Track will sound like…

All characters have new animations, poses and wins. Some have new stances, or new taunts. It seems that the hardware used is a little strained by now - the characters now only have 3 win poses to choose from, when last year they had four. I guess that seeing as most of the lost poses reappear in the form of the striker actions, taunts and the Armor/Counter mode animations - there was a finite amount of memory that could be used, and they ran out.
Memo to SNK: Get better hardware. Thanks.

The backgrounds are also casualties of the memory restrictions. Although most of them look nice, the lack of animation, notably in the museum (nothing moves, only lightning flashes = palette swapping) and the Airport (er…the air wobbles) is very pronounced. Only the glorious 3rd incarnation of the “English manor house in a rainstorm” (which is brilliant, and for once, looks almost English) saves this paragraph from being *ooh!* a criticism.

But all in all KOF99 is a thunderingly brilliant addition to the series. The art is wonderful, the music excellent, the characters are all great. Even the final boss is actually defeatable this time round, without me having to resort to crap-ass tactics - (for some reason, ‘98 Rugal springs to mind…) in order to win.
Although some people have professed dislike for some of the features, and raised consternation over the character losses, I laugh at such arguments. I myself am much more adaptable (read: gullible company whore) and easy-going when it comes to such changes, and therefore I gladly throw myself under the wheels of the SNK teams’ cars in honour of their greatness. Splat.

• Publisher/Developer: SNK
• Score: 90%