I’ll open this review with an interesting Anectdote. I’ve been playing The King of Fighters 2001 for quite some time now, maybe a month or so. Today I went into the arcade for my final game before reviewing it, and I was actually in the mindset to give it a positive review, however, it was as if the Gods of Games said, “No Mister Manzy, you will NOT give this game a good review, not TODAY anyway fag-bot.”

Because as soon as I started trying the final few characters that I hadn’t gone through yet, and I was enjoying myself thoroughly, until some Asian dude in a button down comes around. He begins to plop his money in and I say, “Wait a second bro, don’t play me, I’m experimenting.”

“Ok, I’ll wait.” *plops money in and presses start*
“Hey I thought you said you’d wait?”
*silence*
“>:|”

So then, to add insult to injury, he does a May Lee infinity on me IMMEDIATELY, and then, once I beat his May Lee, he does a Benimaru infinity using wire attacks.

The way that the game is presented is pretty damn unimpressive. It’s not flashy, and it’s definitely not gonna make you god “DAYUM,” like the MVC2 presentation would, but it is not completely terrible either. The cut scenes inbetween stages are pretty cool and nostalgic. They are similar to KOF97 in virtually every way. I mean, I liked the 97 presentation, but that’s basically what this is, and well, that was done in 97, so it’s time for something new.

The graphics have not changed at all for the most part. The only difference is that they made the sprites larger in order to take up more of the screen. I think that this was a bad move, because the characters look far boxier and a lot less fluid, and with games like GGX that look like they are right out of an anime, well, you would think that the developers would want to steer away from a dirty, unfinished look the best that they can. I can honestly say that the previous installments have looked better visually, which is a damned shame.

The art in this game ranges from decent, to downright BAD. I mean, it’s a far cry from the amazingness that was 2000, but the artist instilled a lot of personality into the character art, so I’m kind of torn. One drawing stands out among others. Mai’s winning graphic is just so ecchi. she has her fan clasped inbetween her breasts like a phallus, it is the most hilarious thing that I’ve ever seen, and I thank Eolith for being this openly perverted. Another good one is Yuri’s and I like Xiangfei’s as well. The cutscene artwork is damn good, everyone’s in proportion, the ending scenes are clean, and the slight animation here and there isn’t too awkward.

The best thing about this game has to be how the story totally makes a 180 in the opposite direction of it’s predicessors. All of the sudden, Yuki, Kyo’s girlfriend, who was sacrificed by Orochi is alive and well again, as if that whole Orochi business way back in 1997 never happened. Being that I am someone who follows the storyline of KOF very closely, I was highly disappointed by this, but the Kyo winpose where Yuki sucks him off after the match makes it entirely ok with me, especially since Kyo shoots flames out of his penis and her head explodes and she dies, but she immediately comes back to life, because KOF characters can do that now, apparently. Other strange anomalies, include Goro’s baby, which he actually eats in his prefight intro.

The cast in this game is pretty sweet, they brought back two old favorites, Heidern and the Man, the Myth, Goro Daimon. Many of KOF’s Most Wanted are still missing though, Heavy D, Mr. Big, Geese Howard, and of course, this year, the most disappointing exclusion, Jhun Hoon!!! If I missed any, I’m sorry, but I’m well aware that there are a lot. The returning newbies from KOF2000 have been toned down and changed quite a bit, all of them have changes ranging from subtle to enormous, the only character who didn’t get his gameplay raped was Ramon, and that’s ONLY because he was pathetic in 2000. All of the returning characters in the game got at least one attack redrawn, and that’s pretty cool, some got complete overhauls in their attakcs, like Athena.

This Year’s new characters are pretty much just like the new characters every year; minimally bug-tested, and either, extremely overpowered, extremely underpowered, or just completely screwed up. First I’ll talk about Angel. She is an extremely different character, she plays a lot like a tekken character with connect-the-dot combos, but she is extremely innovative and cool for a KOF series character. However, in terms of competitive use, she is completely screwed, because she can be juggled repeatedly by ANY character until her life is completely depleted. This is a shameful thing really, because it makes a cool, fun-to-play, well-animated character, completely worthless. Another thing about her that really makes me mad is that in her concept design, she had some huge freaking knockers, however, in the game, the jubblies are nowhere to be found, now, being extremely “H,” myself, I felt robbed by this… but that’s just a personal gripe really.

Next up, Foxy is a character that I was really impressed with. She has some neat attacks, is animated in a decent fashion and she can play the skin flute pretty well too. She comes equipped with a fencing sword and she knows how to use it, it makes her into a powerful range character with a great deal of speed. Foxy also has two of the best supers in the game. The first one is a clone of Kasumi’s super, except that she performs it in the air, and it comes from the opposite side of the screen. In her other super, she performs something of a combination of the Otoko No Michi and Raging Demon, it’s a 100% super, but, but it does 100% damage to her and her opponent, it’s good against Igniz and Original Zero, heh, instant win.

K9999 is the end of the earth, as far as I’m concerned, he kicks major ass. I am going to steer clear of any Tetsuo jokes, because I am not an uberfag. My main problem with K9999 is that he has more supers than specials. He has two special attacks, one of which is a flame attack that’s kind of poor looking, but effective, the other attack consists of him throwing a gust of wind that destroys everything in it’s path, just like Tetsuo. He has 3 supers, all of which are extremely effective, but the best thing about K9999 is that he brings back Geese’s legacy of supers which are impossible to pull out in the heat of battle, as 2 of his supers have extremely awkward motions, one of which is directly ripped from Geese.

Rounding out the new cast members is May Lee, a spunky new character with a lot of “juice.” She is sort of like Angel in the sense that her moves sort of link in a circular fashion, creating ENORMOUS combos and all sorts of unrealistic movements. She also can chain from regular attacks, into specials, into regular attacks, into specials, which is the most evil thing ever. She was extremely minimally bug tested and she has all sorts of infinities. To top it off, she is like Gen of SFA fame, in the sense that she has two fighting stances, normal mode, and hero mode, both of which come when their own arsenal of attacks that make her into a sick powerhouse. The HK kids around here love her, because she is virtually unbeatable since she has the ability to do infinities without the use of of strikers or even supers. I mean, I am an 8 year KOF veteran, and it really makes me sad when some dude comes and tries to prove that his penis is larger than mine by knocking me off of the machine with 3 infinities in a row. Things like this make me not even want to use her.

The backgrounds in this game are kind of wishy-washy, in my opinion. None of them are animated too well, they’re ALL generic, and only a few of them really even feel like “KOF.” For example, the Formula 500 stage is totally retarded, why the hell are they fighting at a race? Who the hell is watching, and uhm, aren’t they in the pit? Another stage is the snow stage, this one is VERY boring and lame, nothing about it really calls out to me. The Japan and USA stages are pretty cool because they give the game that, “official tournament” look, as all of the people are watching and cheering and everyone’s happy. The US stage is funny because they placed an enormous US flag in the middle of the stage, you know, in case you forget it’s USA. The biggest thing that I noticed about these stages was the visual downgrade from last year and even the year before that. The don’t seem to have more than one layer. Your proximity on the screen doesn’t change the appearance of anything in the background. I say, “Boo!!” to this, because it was in last year, and it’s not even visually impressive anymore, it’s just expected because at this point in time, that’s what you’re supposed to do in 2D games.

The gameplay, for the most part is your run of the mill, KOF groove. But there have been quite a few changes, some for the better, some completely destroying the game. For one, the importance of strikers has been GREATLY toned down. They don’t really play a major role in the game anymore, and nobody really uses them this year, however, if you so desire, you can use a team consisting of one character and three strikers and call them all out at once and make the orgy happen. Super cancels are in this one, which I find to be totally gay, especially when I catch myself accidentally doing them, when you do them, your character flashes for a couple of pixes during the interruption of the attack. The worst addition to this game, however, is a thing called “Wire Attack.” In a wire attack, you apparently hit your enemy with so much force, that the slam into the edge of the screen and bounce back in your direction, in order to be juggled by you please. To me, the idea of bouncing off of a non-existent wall, just because it happens to be the edge of the screen is incredibly heterosexual, and I hate it more than I hate my father for making me passive agressive and introverted. Eolith let a lot of infinities slip in too, I don’t know what all that was about, but I’m pretty disappointed about that, it doesn’t hurt so bad, considering that KOF has been letting infinities pass since 99.

The game’s AI is incredibly slow, until you get to Original Zero, who is phenomenally powerful, then it all goes down hill from there lol. I won’t say much about the game’s AI, as it’s basically a training game this year, as the computer sort of sits back and lets you whip on it. Interestingly enough, the programmers made it so that the computer tries all of the cheap tactics that HKers used in 2000, but nothing that a few days of observation won’t facilitate you with the ability to detect and avoid/counter/destroy. The bosses of KOF2k1 are so obscenely powerful, they rival Omega Rugal in strength. They are both INSANE. Original Zero is just a beefed up Zero with a couple of new attacks, or so it seems. Upon further investigation, however, you realize that he has 3 strikers, and no super guage, meaning that he just relentlessly rapes your characters. His regular attacks are all multi-hits that do an upwards of 30% damage per connection, he takes literally PIXELS of damage no matter what you do, and doesn’t fall for Zero’s old tricks. Ignis is even worse, he is the end of the earth. I have been able to conquer Original Zero a couple of times, but I CANNOT beat Ignis, it seems almost impossible. The only time I’ve even seen guys do it is when they continued and used “get advantage” to knock him down to a 3rd of his life. These are some intense bosses, I think that fans of KOF’s Demi-god bosses will be pleased.

This is a hard paragraph for me to write, because it really hurts to have to say this about KOF, but, the music is HORRENDOUS. There is not a decent track in the game, not one single, decent track. I am hurt and appauled by this. KOF has always set the standard for videogame music with their high-quality, anime-influenced, fighting tunes, and then Eolith delivers this midi, low sound processor crap, it really upsets me, it’s unbelievably half-assed. I really want to break Eolith’s collective faces, I haven’t been more upset or disturbed by a single occurence since I saw Freddy Got Fingered.

In closing, I want you guys to understand that this IS an enjoyable game, don’t get me wrong on that there is a great deal of fun to be had while playing, but the fact is, it’s a step down from the previous years, and veteran players may just want to stick to 98, and people who play for the aesthetic appeal of KOF just may want to stick to 2000. 2k1 is a solid game, it has it’s ups and it’s downs, but it’s definitely not a pretty game, seems a little unfinished too. This is the first year since 96 where there have been absolutely NO secrets or easter eggs whatsoever to be found in a game, so that’s pretty unfortunate too. So the verdict that it gets from me is that it’s thoroughly mediocre and unimpressive, thumbs down.

• Publisher/Developer: EOLITH
• Score: 75%