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Review: King of Fighters 2000 |
This is the second strange, out-of-the-blue release for a dead system in the past month. And while Capcom vs. SNK PRO on the PSOne could never have hoped to be anything more than a pale shadow of the original - the Dreamcast has given us one fantastic fighting game port after another - and I’m pleased to announce that we can add King of Fighters 2000 to that list.
Of course, as is almost always the way with DC ports, it’s not quite a perfect conversion, and seeing as we already have a review of the game here - most of what you’ll read here will be focussing on those differences.
KOF2000 is the first Dreamcast KOF port to actually carry it’s proper title over - ‘98 was converted as Dream Match 99 and ‘99 became KOF: Evolution just to further confuse us. 2000 shows up on Sega’s little white coffin with name intact, which makes it nice and easy for me, at least until it comes out on the PS2 under the title “Nintendo’s Mortal Time Killers 2002″ that is.
So, KOF2000 in a nutshell - seventh KOF game; second KOF game with strikers, this time the timeframes they can be summoned have been vastly increased - giving rise to a gameplay system known as the “active striker system”; more NESTS; the best damn artwork of the entire series by a light year; Vanessa; hundreds of infinites; Vanessa; Seth (yay!); Ramon (gay!); Lin (worst character ever); Hinako (DOSUKOI!); Kula (jailbait); Zero (boss, cheap, bad AI) and eight more Vanessas. It’s not the world’s favourite KOF game by a long shot - it sure as hell isn’t mine - but it’s fast and fun and furious and now Playmore (I don’t think the words ‘SNK’ show up once in the entire game) have done the unthinkable to the unsellable and brought it to Dreamcast (I always wanted to omit the “the” from a sentence like that.)
The previous two DC KOFs were great, though not exactly perfect. Aside from deliberate cosmetic changes there were also load times (the resetting music of DM’99 made me cry), slowdown and noticeable sprite size reductions. EVOLUTION wasn’t as bad in these respects, and it’s good to see that progress continues to be made - as 2000 is by far the most accurate KOF port so far. For a start the polygon backgrounds that adorned the previous two games are gone. I can’t say I’ll particularly miss them and having the original backgrounds makes it feel, I don’t know, proper. The 2K backgrounds aren’t really all that wonderful but it’s still nice to have the chance to see them on a big screen with no scanlines, suspicious stains or monitor pixilation.
The transparency effects have been removed too. In the two preceding games - things like projectiles, explosions and other effects were made transparent. They were exactly the same sprites and everything, just, see-though - which made them look pretty stupid really - and I’m glad to report this has been undone. Even the character sprites themselves seem the right size (though I’m not getting my tape measure out to check.)
So visually it seems things are extremely close to the Neo*Geo version. There are a couple of tiny omissions - there’s some dots missing from Kyo’s punch DM apparently, and when the stage you’re fighting on ices over when you meet Kula - you don’t see the characters’ breath condensing any more. Well I don’t know about you, but these two reasons are enough to make me want to boycott Playmore for the next thousand years or so. Disgusting.
One thing the previous DC KOF games do have over this one though is their inclusion of English language options - Playmore obviously hate us and don’t want us reading their nice cutscenes and endings and continue service options. A shame, but no big deal - FAQs exist for just this sort of thing, and you’ve probably played the arcade/ROM version before anyway.
I’m not sure whether having sprite backgrounds instead of 3D ones requires more or less disk space, but another continuing improvement is that of the load times. From the win screen to the stage intro of the next fight is about seven seconds, and the wait inbetween fighters is so short it’s almost non-existent. The screen goes dark. Then it goes light. If you want me to be really picky I’d say it’s a second longer than you’d have to wait in the Neo version. The loading before and after the cutscenes is negligible too, and in all it’s perfectly acceptable, unless of course you’re a braying, smug Neo*Geo owning bastard that is.
Like KOF: Evolution, the music continues inbetween rounds, music identical to the Neo version, with all voice samples intact and perfectly recreated too … and OH! the arranged sound option!
God this is a fantastic addition, I bought the arranged soundtrack a few years ago and have given it many a long hard listening - and to hear it now, accompanying the game - just .. wow. It just gives everything this sense of grandeur and purpose - makes it all seem more important somehow. It’s really wonderful, it makes me feel proud of the game, and I have it playing as loud as my ears will allow at all times. Great stuff.
Aside from the level tracks, the ending and the credits, all other incidental music in the game; the select screen, continue screen and cut-scene music has all been given an arranged makeover too. This is a real treat, as this stuff wasn’t on the AST. The first cutscene with Heidern and Ling just sounds utterly fabulous - I tried going back to the original sound mode and ugh … it just seems so primitive in comparison.
It’s interesting to note that there have been a couple of minor gameplay changes as well. The controller input seems to require more accuracy than before, it’s a lot easier to whiff moves through careless inputting, and command attack combos in particular are a hell of a lot harder to do. The timing on things like CD > special is a lot tighter before, which is kind of irritating but doesn’t take too long to adjust to. As to whether they’ve removed any of the several hundred infinites that exist in the original version? I don’t care. I’m not counting them.
The game is pretty hard too. I went straight to the options to put it on difficulty 8 … and was instantly molested by the women’s team (god that never stops being funny) so I now play it on level 6. Still it’s good to see a bit of a challenge in a fighting game these days, the CPU uses strikers and can fire off DMs with pin sharp accuracy, often out of nowhere. I still hate Zero, though he didn’t make me cry like Igniz did.
Speaking of options - you get all the standard things the NG version has - the single mode, the team mode, the chance to edit play time, super meter, controls and so on. The surprisingly in-depth 2K practice mode has made it over intact too.
So aside from the game, what Dreamcast-exclusive goodies do we get to revel in? Well, not much, certainly nothing as exciting as the exclusive (for about five minutes) KOF99 concept art in DM’99, nor the extra strikers (Vanessa!) in KOF Evolution.
First up we have the admittedly novel PUZZLE MODE. Unlocked after the player beats the game; selecting this option, and then either PRACTICE or CHALLENGE takes you to a gallery of images - and selecting one brings up one of those sliding-square puzzles, where parts of the image have to be slid around and arranged to match the finished image. However as well as sliding, these segments can also be rotated - meaning it can get tricky, especially in CHALLENGE, where the pieces are half as small as PRACTICE.
Your reward? Unlockable secret stages from past SNK games. So far I’ve seen the amusement park from KOF’97, the dojo from ‘98 and NEO GEO LAND from ‘95. According to various sources there are also stages from Samurai Shodown, Last Blade, Fatal Fury and even Metal Slug! These stages won’t show up in the one-player game (there is some semblance of continuity after all) - only in VS and training matches.
The whole thing strikes me as a waste of time really. It’s a fun diversion for ten minutes, and the puzzle mode is something to take your mind off the stomping ZERO just dealt out but that’s all. I mean, if I wanted to see stages from KOF’95 I’d go and play KOF’95. It’s not like they really fit or anything anyway. Still extras are extras, I guess.
Aside from the puzzle option, there’s also that old stalwart extra the art gallery. Here you can view loading screens and official art, as well as the images you just spent 50 minutes poring over in puzzle mode (yeah thanks a lot guys) - once again, great for five minutes, but not something I’ll be going back to.
But no, KOF2000’s strength definitely lies in the game itself (KOF traditionalists explode at this point) not the extras. If you can’t emulate it and don’t have a decent arcade nearby - it’s highly recommended. I’d still recommend it to everyone else - the chance to battle it out with a DC arcade stick, accompanied by that arranged soundtrack (yes oh god yes) on a big-screen TV is something everyone should experience at least once in their lives.
Here’s to Dreamcast KOF2001!
Did I say that out loud?
