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Review: King of Fighters 2002 (alternate 2) |
There seems to a lot of KoF 2002 negativity kicking around the internet of late. It’s nothing overly venomous ‘ people aren’t frothing at the mouth and sending scorpions in the mail off to Eolith, but most of the places that review it seem to agree that it plays well, but is really rather uninspired and could ‘ no, should - have been so much better than it actually was.
And you know what? They’re all right.
As it so happens, the first words one of my friends said upon loading the game up was ‘they’re just not trying anymore’. Resisting my fanboyish impulse to instantly punch him square in the face, I gave the statement some thought, and came to the conclusion that he was wrong. Eolith ARE trying, but their tastes are warped and foul and usually don’t coincide with many of the fans.
That said, making this latest game a Dream Match was a work of genius. Mature and Vice, take a bow! Yamazaki and Shermie, welcome back! Billy Kane and’ well, you get the point. The character roster certainly isn’t a disappointment, though the Boss team from KoF ‘96 would have been nice as well. ‘Nice’ as in ‘the greatest thing ever’. So, it looks like they ARE listening, and they ARE trying.
In fact, having seen their latest effort it seems that they’ve listened to the voice of these fans, followed through on some of their biggest complaints over the past few games (coughstrikerscough), and looked for things that shone from previous games in the KoF series to implement into their new title.
The problem is that they’ve taken these shining, golden ideas and said ‘Hey ‘ we can improve this! All we have to do is change this thing here’ oops, it broke. Hey, look at that thingy over there'’
You can imagine the consequences. Actually, now that the game’s out you can see the consequences.
So anyway, this is the third time Playmore have converted a KoF to the Dreamcast and it has to be said that they’re becoming quite adept at it. Or perhaps ‘efficient’ is a better word. They’re not going to win awards for the presentation of the game ‘ no animated intro like in ‘98, no CG backgrounds like in ‘99 ‘ just some slightly icky art between the few major loading times and a black space between the ones that last mere seconds.
The menus are rather plain and boring as well ‘ having just played Virtua Fighter 4 Evolution with all the wallpapers and a pleasantly designed front end, changing to KoF’s Sneslike menu system is a bit of a downer.
There’s one fantastic thing about the DC port, however - King and Shingo are back! Back, I say!
Even though they should never have been gone in the first place. Think about that before you start cheering the lovable duo’s return. I’d really rather that they didn’t steal Vanessa and Angel from the arcade KoF 2003, only to have them put back in the console port. Still, well done them.
Other than this, there’s the usual selection of one player and two player modes you find in every KoF, some new challenge modes thrown in an effort to extend the game’s home life (and also how you get your mitts on King, Shingo Rugal and Kusanagi ‘ 95 Kyo) and the usual game configuration options and the like.
The lack of an English option is annoying, though. As badly translated as SNK’s translations undoubtedly are, they’re always fun to read ‘ Kim Dong Hwan in Mark of the Wolves calling Kain a ‘poof with an attitude’ was both amusing and a real eye opener. I’m still not sure how they got away with releasing it in America unedited.
Rather than waste time giving an in depth description of the new gameplay features, I’ll just run over them briefly.
There’s a custom combo mode that allows you to cancel special moves into each other and finish with a super at the cost of a single bar before the timer runs down. The damage given out from these custom combos is less than half the usual, non custom versions, though with proper use they can still dish out the pain.
There’s the usual move tweakings (they removed a lot, changed a few ‘ although it’s cool that Leona can go Orochi halfway through a match nowadays) and these new supers called HSDM’s that you can only do if you’re in Max mode (think stock break, allows aforementioned custom combos) and have less than 25% health remaining. Some of these are cool (Yamazaki and Whip spring to mind) while some are not. Their effectiveness is certainly dependant on the character, and the motion / button inputs required to get them off can be very, very strange.
Oh yes, and these HSDM’s are accompanied by a brand new special effect that Eolith took it upon themselves to create just for this new KoF!
A special effect which looks really, really crappy. These moves would honestly look more appealing if the special effect had just been left out altogether. I think it’s supposed to signify warping through space at the speed of light or something, but it just gives the impression that someone in the background has activated the worst disco strobe light effect in history for no discernable reason.
That said, when you’re looking at Yamazaki’s arms turning into rubber bands in order to lash his opponent senseless right before he bites them in the face, you can almost forget the horrific background effect. Almost.
The music in the game is a mixed bag. There are some new tracks in there along with old favourites from throughout the series. The old tracks are generally nice to listen to, the new ones generally’ not. One thing they all share in common, however, is that every track in the game sounds like a slightly upgraded MIDI composition, automatically lowering the overall quality of the BGM several notches. Why they couldn’t have just stolen music from some of the older KoF releases is quite beyond me.
Oh, wait. They did, and they somehow managed to screw them up.
And, especially for the home version ‘ low music and loud sound effects that you can’t adjust, topped off with NO arranged soundtrack! Huzzah!
The backgrounds aren’t really up to scratch either, sad as it is. Few of them instil any sense of drama into the proceedings, and their overall quality tends to vary quite wildly.
Come to think of it, some of them are fairly decent concepts ‘ but they rarely have any real detail in them, other than the amount of guest appearances by other SNK characters. I even saw Kushnood Butt kicking around, and I almost displaced a limb in joy. I’m still looking for B. Jenet, of course.
However, one of the backgrounds contained within this game is by far the worst I’ve ever seen in a 2D fighting game. The designer should be dragged away and shot, as well as his family and anyone he’s ever come into contact with in his entire life. For when you get to Rugal, one of the hardest bosses in all fighting history, you will also see his stage. As a result, you will dread fighting him for two reasons rather than just the one.
I can’t describe this thing. I don’t know what it is supposed to be. It looks like a really old, really hideous ’space wreck’ stage from some badly designed 2D shoot em up from back on the days of the Snes. In fact, I feel that this one part of the game is so ludicrously without any merit whatsoever that I feel it deserves further explanation. Yes, I’m about to take a whole paragraph off so that I can describe just how utterly wretched Rugal’s background truly is.
Had this game been made in the era of the Sega Megadrive/Genesis, it would have been laughed off the stage. It’s so utterly, incredibly bad and painfully eye molesting to gaze upon that I now believe the Nazi’s got let off lightly when they opened the Ark of the Covenant at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark. Had they been exposed to a screenshot of Rugal’s stage, their very souls would have been rent asunder as their eyeballs shrivelled up, blood spurting everywhere, right before collapsing inwards and drilling backwards into their brains in an effort to end their pathetic, squalid existence.
And that, dear friends, is being more than generous to the sheer horror that is… Rugal’s background.
If you really want to know why I’m being so anal about the backgrounds, just go and check out KOF 98’s Street or Dojo stage, KoF 99’s Airport or Garden Stage, KoF 2000’s Sandstorm or Factory stage. In fact, go back even further and check out the stages from KoF 96 ‘ almost all of which were awesome and fit the characters perfectly. It’s amazing how much great music and beautiful backgrounds can do for a fighter.
BUT, and that’s a very big ‘but’, with capital letters thrown in for emphasis no less, there’s just something about the KoF series that hasn’t abandoned this game. Something magical that flows softly as an almost unnoticed undercurrent while you’re playing. The things that are flying out and hitting you in the face, all those crazy, crazy decisions that Eolith made with the graphics, characters, moves and music still can’t kill off the feeling that, beneath it all, it’s still a damn good game.
Which, of course, is a blessed relief.
It’s not the game that 98 was, though. Hell, it’s not the game that 99 or 2000 was, just because Eolith have had so much fun tearing out so many of the character’s moves so that there’s no longer as many ways to formulate your gameplan, leading to more standard, subdued fights than ever before. The hit detections can be off at times, and it’s not as tight a game as it used to be ‘back in the good old days’. (Waves to Kaiser)
It’s just a plain, stripped down KoF that plays very well indeed and suffers for the fact that there’s really nothing to play for beyond the joy of simply playing it.
I don’t know, as enjoyable as the game is, it just feels as if you’re playing it for the sake of it. It’s like you’ve nothing to accomplish, you can’t really show off your ‘mad skillz’ as you could in the past any more, and only the prospect of having Angel or Vanessa coming up next is keeping you going.
Overall? It’s still an excellent game, but a disappointing one at the same time. For every addition made to the game that I like, there’s a subtraction torn from it that I despise. Based on this, it’s hard to tell if Eolith are taking the series in the right direction ‘ they merely seem to be picking their path at random, practically stumbling across good and bad features as they go.
It’s definitely worth playing ‘ that goes without saying. The tougher question to answer is whether it’s actually worth buying. I’m not going to answer it for you, though. Give it a try and see how you like it before buying it. If you’re lucky, maybe you’ll find an arcade kicking about with the arcade version inside, and you can see what you think at the cost of a few quarters.
In closing’ does anyone else miss the special counter gameplay feature in 98 whereby countering a special or normal move with a special of your own made you invincible for a frame?
Just a random thought.
