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Review: King of Fighters EX: NEO BLOOD [GBA] |
It’s depressing to think that despite all the excitement generated from announcements that the Gameboy Advance was going to be host to many ports of big name fighting games, each one has been released to disappointment.
Even Capcom’s Super Streetfighter Revival was, in some senses a let-down, and each subsequent release has failed to scale even the shallow peaks of mediocrity. When you consider how many beautiful fighters the ill-fated Neo-Geo Pocket had, it just seems such a sad waste.
KOFEX:NB is an ill-advised combination of King of Fighters ‘99 and 2000, handled by, yes, a third party company that no-one has ever heard of. At first glance the game looks like KOF’99; it has the techno-DNA-strand presentation, and the select screens, menus and character art all come from ‘99. However the lifebars, super meter and striker meters all come from ‘2000, and the gameplay itself seems to err towards the later game as well, with a less rigid striker system, striker actions from KOF2000, the “super meter into strike bomb” taunt thing and B/F+AB rolls rather than 99’s slides.
The characters play, for the most part like their ‘99 incarnations too, though there are exceptions – Terry doesn’t have those spinning attack things, Iori’s missing the DP+K and Benimaru has his DP+K back. Again. I don’t know if these were left out to ‘balance’ the game somehow, or because of memory constraints. It’s confusing, and makes me wish they’d made up their minds what game they were supposed to be porting.
The character line-up is a harshly toned-down version of KOF:99’s list. There’s no K’ or Maxima (except as secret strikers), no Krizalid or Kyo Klones, and the “women” team is gone completely – meaning no Mary or XiangFei or Kasumi. King now fights on the AOF team, replacing the absent Takuma, and as if this wasn’t enough, each of the remaining teams now consists of three playable characters, and one “striker-only” member who is otherwise unselectable. For the Japan team it’s Shingo, for the Fatal Fury team it’s Joe, for the AOF team it’s Yuri, for the Ikari team it’s Whip, for the Psycho Soldiers it’s Chin and for the Koreans it’s Jhun. On this bombshell the total number of selectables plummets to eighteen, plus two secret characters, and the three hidden strikers – K’, Maxima and the lovely (oh!) Vanessa.
The two unlockable characters are the two bosses, bosses who I might add have to be beaten three times each – Iori and (dramatic chord) Geese Howard. Iori is ‘99 Iori really, sans DP+K move that is, and Geese returns with his KOF’96 sprite.
He is, however, my all-time favourite incarnation of the Geester – boasting not only the easy-combo Jai-Ei-Ken and Reppukens, anti-air DP move and huge range Shippuken of his ‘96 persona, but also the Deadly Rave SDM and a lovely combo-able command attack – a FWD + A no less. I just love doing jump D > Stand C > FWD+A > Jai-Ei-Ken combos, and I wish this version of Geese was playable elsewhere, he really is a lovely fellow. Stupidly easy boss though.
KOFEXNB (the sequel to KOFADFKSDDGVSJBNSBSVKJDVFS) also has a single all-new character in the form of Moe Habana. I guess she’s the “neo blood” the games’ subtitle refers to. She’s a new addition to the Japan Hero team … and she sucks. Really, she’s just such an identikit character. Any idiot can think of a busty young girl wearing a tight green top and cycling shorts (I do it all the time) and her moves are just so generic – a flash kick style anti air, a three-part punch attack, a rushing DM … wow. It seems to me that just so little effort was put into her design, and what effort there was was ill-informed and unoriginal. No, “boobs” and “cherry blossoms” alone do not a good character make.
Even with SUPAR-GEESE, it’s still not the greatest of character rosters – several favourites have been removed, presumably because of memory restrictions and it begs the questions why a larger cartridge wasn’t used, and why the hell is Bao still selectable?
The cutbacks also affect the sound and graphics too, I guess it’s more noticeable because KOF games are traditionally fabulously animated and full of high detail, with a gorgeous thrusting soundtrack; and making a port of a game without those features just makes it seem all the worse. The character graphics are recognisable enough, but the smaller screen and decrease in resolution makes everything fuzzy and indistinct, and worst of all the animation has been absolutely decimated. Walks, attacks, poses, everything – butchered, no more character intros and just a single winpose for all. I guess it was to be expected, but that doesn’t make it any less heartbreaking. There are a couple of brief cutscenes at the end, though it’s just game sprites and a text box. The story involves Geese and Iori, and apparently Orochi is mentioned as well, but it’s all in Japanese. Too bad. The endings are sprites and text too. Whoopee.
The backgrounds are a little better – cut down and edited versions of KOF’99 stages that they are, often missing elements and without the cool between-round transitions that the Neo/DC/PSX versions had – part of the appeal of the ‘99 backgrounds for me were those changes between rounds, but never mind. It’s strange to see how the quality varies from stage to stage – the “English Manor” stage looks very good, and is full of detail and colour, while the Hong Kong street is abysmal, looking like it was done in four colours, all of them brown. There are two new backgrounds – the battle with sub-boss Iori takes place in what looks like a very blue warehouse, and you fight Geese in a typical penthouse arena full of evil looking statues.
The audio side isn’t much better – character theme tunes all come from KOF2000, and the cut-scene and menu tracks are brand new (or “rubbish” as I call them.) Now the GameBoy Advance isn’t a world-leader in audio technology, that’s for sure; but the music here is flat-out NES quality badness – with the same beeps and “cchk” and “ttch” noises substituting for instruments just like the old 8-bit console. There are a few samples for each character – a ‘pain’ noise, an ‘attack’ noise and the odd snippet of speech played at an incredibly low sample rate. Moves without dedicated samples are often given half-assed combinations of existing sounds – Terry for instance has a sample for his “Burn Knuckle!” and “Power Wave!”, but his ‘Power Dunk’ and ‘Power Geyser’ are accompanied by the “power” part of the previous speeches, then the ‘pain’ noise. “Power ugh!” in other words. Still, speech is speech, and it helps raise the quality of the overall presentation a bit. Fuck, something has to.
But what hurts the game worst is the game itself. It doesn’t scream “CRAP”, but there are a lot of faults, bugs and glitches that just work together to degrade the overall quality.
Like everything I seem to review these days, the collisions and hit boxes are messed up. Not as bad as, say, that game, but bad enough to irritate, and in a game where a whole round can hinge on one move hitting it’s mark, just not good enough.
The moves and characters have a different feel about them, seeming lighter and less substantial. Now you can blast off four standing As or Bs and they’ll combo. I’ve seen the CPU do what is little more than a chain combo (A, A, C) and the combo meter actually counted it. Autoguard properties are changed, I’ve kicked straight through Chang’s ball, yet have bounced off Ralf when he was just standing still.
The super jump arcs go way too far (and on that subject, the super jump and DM/SDM shadows are all bright yellow. Why?)
Augh these crappy physics, sure, not as bad as Mortal Kombat Advance – but still I’ve seen a character be hit by a move and instead of flying backwards as they should, just dropping straight to the ground like a stone. Certain juggle combos no longer work because of the unreliable engine, and a few that shouldn’t work now do. Hit properties of some moves are different now, Terry’s Power Dunk makes the victim float super high up in the air after the second hit. The difference between a successful hit and a blocked one are a lot less obvious. And a casualty of the reduction in animations is a kind of deficit of inertia. When you run or jump, you start and stop instantly, with no transitional animations, making it feel even more jerky and floaty than before.
After the GBA button layout proved tricky to handle in Capcom’s Super Streetfighter port, Marvelous Entertainment (great name there guys) have tried something different. There’s a choice of the standard (non-configurable) four-buttons, or a new three-button layout. This combines the C and D buttons into one, with punches being the default, and holding towards while either crouching, standing or jumping to kick. While commendable for easing the strain on the finger that would otherwise be reaching for the awkward L button – it’s not good for much else, as moves like Kyo’s DF+D disappear (replaced with the standard crouch D), and any character with moves that share a command, again like Kyo’s QCF+C and QCF+D attacks just lose the kick move altogether! It’s a nice idea, just not really given much thought.
Now, it’s not Mortal Kombat Advance or anything, and indeed from now on, any game I review earns 10% extra for just not being Mortal Kombat Advance, but it’s still below par for a KOF game, and as such cannot be anything but a disappointment, especially after Capcom’s SSF2XR and those beautiful Neo-Geo Pocket KOF games. It’s even sadder to see such a sloppy, incomplete-feeling port, especially on a more powerful system. I can’t help but wonder how much input SNK had into the whole thing, and whether a bigger cartridge size would have improved things.
As much as I love SNK and the Gameboy Advance – I won’t be buying this game (yup it’s another emulator review) – its’ flaws are just too numerous and annoying to warrant either purchase or extended play – it’s a pale shadow of its parent.
