THE TASK: Review SNK Playmore’s new King of Fighters 2003 without once mentioning the series’ now-notorious history, ownership, fluctuating quality, nor nebulous half-formed pseudo-concepts like ‘feel’ or ’sense’.

THE CONTESTANT: Neil “moulded resin has feelings too!” Ross, of South-East London.

THE PRIZE: Ten seconds of nigh-unbearable smugness.

CHANCE OF SUCCESS: 0.0000003476% (and …falling?)

So, KOF2K3 eh? It’s pretty great, and stuff!

Yeah!

Uh.

The thing about KOF2K3 is, well, it’s the newest game in the ‘King of Fighters’ series and alongside the usual minor changes, additional characters, team combinations, plot/character motivations as well as aesthetic changes - this year we’ve also got some real crazy new stuff going on.

The big fat significant one, one which has been (incorrectly) predicted for at least the last four years, is the team dynamic. Yes, KOF has finally gone tag-team, actual real on-the-fly tagging. Furthermore, as if the upped pace inherent in such a system wasn’t enough, the whole game has been sped up dramatically. And it feels … really good. There may be a slight resistance at first (”what is this? KOF or MARVEL VERSUS CRAPCOM?”) but it soon feels as natural as a smooth QCF on a warm summer night.

It’s the most radical overhaul to the series since ‘99. The games between then and now have toyed with new concepts; cancels, wires, MAX mode, HSDMs - but they were largely supplemental to the game proper - you could play perfectly well without them and most of the time the effort put into making use of them was disproportionate to the reward obtained.
There’s no escaping the change this time around - not only is the engine radically overhauled, but so are several of the key players.

I like this, ever so much. It’s the ‘newest’ KOF for absolute ages. Too often in recent games characters have had little to no change. It’s fair enough if they’re well-designed, and appropriately balanced, but I’ve always felt part of the joy of a new fighter was checking out what was new, or gone, or looked prettier or had a more limp-wristed stance, that sort of thing. A lot of the ‘core’ characters have been stagnant for years now, despite fancy-schmancy strikers, MAX modes and the like. You could still slob out and do stand C > DM with Terry, or abuse his Rising Tackle, or chip away with Mai’s ‘fan throw’ DM, or do C > HCB+D with Ralf all day long and win quite comfortably. Despite their innovations the most recent four KOFs have, in their hearts actually played it very safe.

But 2K3 isn’t like that. There really is new stuff. Newer than there’s been for a long time. Not just tag team shenanigans, but real, solid things that stand up, slap you in the face theatrically with a leather glove and demand you adapt, improve and get with the times.

Terry for example, my old pal. He’s lost his double-hit C, his Rising Tackle, Round Wave, Overheat Geyser and Triple Power Geyser, and gained a Fwd+C command move, his MOTW double-hit D, three-part Power Charge, Bustaa Vwolf and Brake-able Power Dunk, plus an all-new super-duper DM.

Mai has lost her fan and air spin DMs and gained a brand new one, Andy has a move which deletes his character from the game entirely and complains about it on the internet.. Ralf can no longer combo his HCF throw (although it gains judicious autoguard to compensate) and has an uppercut move and low ‘Lalf Kicku’ in place of his shoulder charge thingy… Benimaru has a new, chargeable electricity attack, the list really does go on and on, and I’m not just saying that.

The moves are for the good, too. No-one is useless, and indeed many are the most fun they’ve been for absolute ages.

There’s a lot of change on the visual front, as well. Character portraits are great, backgrounds, while still not as lovely as KOF’s finest, are another leap above the previous years’. There’s quite a bit of change with regards to how the characters look, too. Athena has a new, frilly costume, plus! The first ever actual in-game acknowledges of her being a singer! The “Athena! On stage!” intro is dangerously precious.

Yamazaki has his Fatal Fury outfit (nigh identical to the old one) and a silly new stance, Benimaru wears a Leopard-skin top (fuck), Kyo has a dark jacket on, and best of all Terry has, as predicted, finally made the
jump to full-on MOTW mode. Jacket, moves, the works. He’s not as bulky as his appearance in that game, but I’m sure he’s got something nice lined up to eat (other than Mary, I mean.)

The music is unspectacular, although part of me wonders how many KOFs actually have what could be termed ‘good music’ if you discount the arranged soundtrack CDs and spiffy PSX/Saturn/Neo CD versions - something 2001, 2002 and 2003 have never had the benefit of. Regardless, it’s certainly more varied than Eolith’s efforts, with a better mix of sounds, and the reintroduction of a couple of slightly more ‘playful’ and upbeat themes. SNKP seem to be a lot better at drawing the line between referencing old, classic stuff and just rehashing it pointlessly, as E*lith were wont to do. I’d certainly be interested to hear an arranged version.

Some of the effects have been ripped from SNK vs. Capcom, which is a bit strange and sad, but more interesting than that is the huge amount of new voices and new samples this year. A couple miss the mark where the old one hit, but overall they do nothing but make the game seem even more ‘all new’.

The team dynamic aspect of KOF2K3 is implemented pleasingly well. The first-picked character starts the round and is able to switch at any time with either team member, by pressing either BC (for the first time in almost five years, pressing BC in a KOF game doesn’t cause some malevolent abusable game feature to leap forth from Pandora’s box) or CD (and yes that does mean CD attacks have been removed, although CD counters remain. Actually a couple of characters do still have their CD attacks mapped to other commands, but there’s no way I could tell you about them in these brackets.)

A pause, a pose, and the selected character jumps in ready to do battle. It is also possible to activate ‘tag attacks’ - QCF + BC or CD - at the cost of one level - which hit the enemy, freeze them in hit stun and allow the tagged character to jump in with a follow-up attack. The tag attacks themselves cannot be combo’d like regular attacks, but there are ways to link them, and it is totally possible to follow up a successful tag attack with anything else you can think of. You cannot constantly tag in and out, there’s a period of six or so seconds after tagging before a little message flashes up above the super meter.

Another truly interesting tag-team feature is that of the “Leader DM”. The character picked first is nominated the “leader” of the team and the game sees fit to impart this leader with a super special, an SDM-style super move, that would not otherwise be accessible. This character variance reminds me a little of the ’super art’ system in the Street Fighter 3 series - how choosing one ‘version’ of a character requires a different play style to the other. While part of me still misses being able to supersize SDM every single super, this is an appropriately ‘new’ and suitable concept for this years’ brawling.

Some of the LDMs are just S-powered versions of normal moves, some are brand new attacks/animations, none come anywhere near the stupidity of 2K2’s HDSMs. I particularly like Terry’s “Wolf Power”, a huge vertical energy output, Iori’s column of light, reminiscent of Nightwolf’s fatality the KOF’97 special ending, Yuri’s chargable, electric “Denjin” fireball and Athena’s “Psychic 10″ autocombo (love the KISS PSYCHO BOMBER ender.)

KOF2K3 takes a novel approach to the character-switching fighting game sub-genre. Unlike every other tag-team game ever, tagged-out characters do not regain health. At all. KOF2003 is no place for running, and hiding and cowering behind your fat mothers’ apron, no sir. Here you tag in order to put forth the most appropriate, counter-character, to build meter (gauge goes up to level 5) and to protect, and then unleash your leader, who hopefully comes out swinging into a LDM. Yeah.

It’s all just such a good, clean system. Everyone is fun to use, it’s satisfying and fast, responsive and accurate, with physics befitting a KOF game, and proving that SvC was just a minor hiccup.

And as well as being a damn good game, there are some pretty sterling characters, too. In fact 2K3 has the best character line-up for absolute years, perhaps the best ever, as it finally dumps wastes of space like Chin, Choi and Kensou, Bao, Lin, K9999, Angel, May Lee and Ramon as well as the moderately missed but no big deal retirement of the lovely Andy (yes Andy) Seth and Vanessa.

The team line-ups are equally new, equally cool. Athena, freed from her imbecile team mates joins the ’schoolgirl team’ (oh god) alongside Hinako and Malin, the ‘Outlaw team’ comprises Yamazaki, Gato and Billy, the ‘women’s team’ is Mary, Mai and King … the loss of some of KOF’s … lesser characters in no way harms it, and indeed I do feel that it makes more of the teams more fun to use.

New character-wise, from the unspeakably wonderful Mark of the Wolves come Gato and Tizoc; the former strong and scary, the latter one of the most well-implemented, fun-to-use, likable grapplers in any fighting game ever. Their inclusion, plus things like Terry’s outfit and movelist, it’s all a little bit MOTW-y. Things are definitely moving towards that game and it’s storyline, and it’s a smart idea - MOTW is practically legendary amongst people who refer to games as being legendary - and I can think of few other fighters I’d like to see KOF moving slowly towards union with.

As for the rest of the characters - the New Hero team comprises of burly brawler Shen, robed mystical ninja Duo Lon (who is awesome, despite looking and moving suspiciously like KOF2001 boss striker Ron/Long and having a DM that has evidently been ripped directly from “Mortal Kombat Trilogy”) and Ash. Ash is amazing. It’s like, K’ just wasn’t cutting it, gay-wise anymore. The outrage we once felt has dulled into acceptance, the unthinkable frisson of attraction now little more than fraternal respect … and then suddenly this whirlwind dervish of absolute total manlove horror blossoms before our eyes - and this time it’s French, wears red leather and has freckles.

Freckles! The soul withers at the very thought of such a suave, charismatic wonder crawling lasciviously up your prone body on a warm Sunday morning. God! SNKP have not only out-gayed K’ and Benimaru (and that’s no mean feat given his 2003 look) but have also neatly stolen the crown of ‘Most Homosexual Sonic Boom/Flash Kick character’ from Capcom’s Remy. What an incredible honour.

My only real objection in this new line-up is Malin. She’s a terrible, sub-May Lee concept, a random collection of left-over character attributes (fashionable, screeching, flying pubescent girl, with a yoyo and electric knives!) that looks shit and plays incredibly tediously. I’d seriously set fire to her, if I could.

As well as the nifty regular guys there are some nifty bosses, too. Chizuru is back again, along with her irritating dead illusory identical sister Maki, forming a tag team of not inconsiderable power.

After the third fight a cut-scene shows a masked female (revealed later to be Chizuru) conjuring a dark-skinned Kyo, whom those who played KOF2K2 will instantly recognise as “Kusanagi”. He’s this year’s “‘95 Kyo” - albeit with the ‘97+ QCF,QCF DM.

How you deal with Kusangi affects the outcome of the game. Finish him off normally, you get one outcome, beat him with a DM, you get another. I like ‘events’ like this in my fighting games. It’s vaguely reminiscent of the ending ‘paths’ in SNK vs. Capcom, although not nearly as frustrating.

From a storyline point of view it’s interesting, perhaps by SNK standards even quite daring. Just imagine - sowing not one, but TWO new storylines at once, with an overall view of interweaving them together. Crazy talk.

The first new plotline, the one you get for the ‘bad’ ending, introduces the player to two new characters; Adelheid, and Rose.

Bernstein.

Yes, as impossible and hilarious as the concept seems, Rugal had kids. A solemn, pretty boy and a sexy young lady with Karin Kanzuki-esque hair, flying around the world in the craft known as the SKY NOAH. There’s no mention of their mother - perhaps it was Vice, perhaps it was Mature. Perhaps it was both of them, at once. Rugal always struck me as the kind of guy who made women pregnant just by passing them in the street, so maybe we’ll never know.

Although neither character gets more than a couple of lines of dialogue, there are still some interesting points raised. Rose seems to be a very typical psycho bitch (oh, yes), while Adelheid comes off as honourable, just and even fair. Internet discussion has indeed transpired over the possibility that he will turn out to be the hero of the saga, especially given the twist in the New Hero Team ending.

The ‘true’ boss of the game is MUKAI: a large, slow, immensely powerful being with dark grey skin, natty trousers and the ability to turn his enemies to stone. With such an array of boss types, it’s forgivable to shudder at the expected, traditional SNK level of cheating. But amazingly, it isn’t the case. At all. They’re hard, yes. They have advantages, yes, they have three life bars each and some characters definitely have more problems with them than others - but their defeat is never an unattainable, nor unimaginable goal. It’s certainly a huge jump compared to 2K2’s horrible AI vaccum that was Rugal or that guy called Igniz or something. It’s a much-welcomed improvement.

Beat Mukai and the endings kick in. KOF2K3 has the best endings in a fighting game I’ve seen for absolute ages. Tonnes of pictures, great art (although I still prefer the KOF2000 artist) and some actual interesting developments. The story, such as it currently stands doesn’t really mean much at this point, there are names thrown around, certain people do certain things, mystery characters appear … but at this stage much of it remains up in the air. Regardless, it’s all very interesting, especially the aforementioned ‘dual storyline’ thing.

I am ever so pleased with KOF2003. In the two previous games in the series there has been fun, but it’s been squashed in between great grey slabs of crapness. Un-fun characters, silly gameplay concepts, whole teams I just couldn’t be bothered with - it really dented my willingness to play the hell out of the games. But in 2K3 I want to use everyone, and find out about everyone. The further-reaching changes in characters, teams and the game itself make for a newer, fresher experience overall, one that is still recognisably “KOF”, with all that entails and yet the remains most radical and successful shake-up of the series since SNK artists looked at the ‘95 sprite sets and said “hey guys, these are shit!”

It is the sort of game I don’t really want to give a score to. The second I do, it’s automatically better than these years, and worse than these years, and it just seems too soon for all that, and almost unfair to rank the game amongst so many legendary titles that people have had years to formulate opinions on.

I will though, and it’s fairly high. The general buzz for KOF2004, as I type this rumoured to be the first all-new game of the series to appear on Sammy’s new ATOMISWAVE hardware, seems positive, and while it’s unwise to ever get too excited, too hyped up over such easily changeable, personal things - it could well be Really Quite Good Indeed, and as a swansong for the MVS, 2K3 couldn’t have been better.

Two thumbs up (the butt.)

And I failed the task, didn’t I?

• Publisher/Developer: SNK Playmore
• Score: 90%