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Review: King of Fighters 2002 (alternate) |
Just before writing the introductory portion of this thingamajig, I noticed that Neil had already gotten a KOF2002 review up. Well, all I have to say is, I’ve got your simple, speedy, insight right here and well you can suck on it mister. I’m not going to read your review until after I have mine completed. I think that was a pretty adequate introduction. Now let’s get right into the game!
Playmore just wants your love, baby, PLAYMORE JUST WANTS YOUR LOVE!
Ladies and gentlemen, that’s exactly what I was thinking as I played through and experimented with the latest incarnation of the KOF series. Yes indeed, KOF has had it rough in recent years. Is Playmore’s KOF2002 for the Dreamcast the new KOF savior? Well, obviously fucking not. However, I will tell you why this game may be a step in the general vacinity of the right direction! :x
Playmore has served up the last three Dreamcast ports of the KOF series, and it would seem that they have it down to a laser-like precision, as all three ports are virtually the same. If you’ve seen the loading screens in KOF2k or KOF2k1, you’ve seen the loading screens in KOF2k2. The same goes for the menu screens and options. On the other hand, when you delve into the actual game itself, you will notice a pretty vast difference from KOF2k2’s direct predecessor. The character portriats and winning art is actually good! The game’s art is actually relatively pleasant to look at, in comparison to KOF2k1. The entire menu pretty much sticks to the same old assortment of prime colors that they use in the other KOF games, and that’s getting quite a bit tired.
The roster itself remains very much unchanged from KOF98, surprisingly, and unfortunately, with many characters returning and quite a few missing as well. I’m sure that everyone would have preferred a more ambitious cast, especially when you consider the options. This is a 9 year old series, after all.
Of all of the returning characters, about half ot the cast got many of their attacks completely re-animated, or severely changed in terms of properties. No character, however, remains completely unchanged. The reason for this is that Playmore decided to go in and randomly take out one or two of each character’s attacks! WHY would anyone want to do this? One of my favorite things about KOF is that there are so many special attacks and options at each character’s disposal, so you have to be a relatively quick thinker.
I pondered this for quite some time and the most plausible conclusion that I could come to, after playing the game for quite some time, was that Playmore wanted to make KOF into less of a rushdown oriented game. I am convinced that the reason for this is because it’s harder to attract new players to a game that they immediately get raped in. Gay. That isn’t the way to fix this series.
A few notes about a choice few of the actual characters themselves. Up until the announcement of SVC:CHAOS, I was very disappointed with the changes that Playmore made with Takuma. However, playing him in KOF2k2 for the DC, I find some gratification in the idea that what Playmore did to Takuma, was change him into a pure Karateka. I’d like to believe that this incarnation has some divine, poetic relationship with the inclusion of Mr. Karate in the upcoming SVC game. Personally, that just makes him kind of cool to use.
Shermie-kins. As much as I love Shermie, I noticed that she had a running, unblockable grab that she can link from a standing C. This is outside of KOF’s physics and shouldn’t be able to connect. I really don’t like this because it makes her into an obscenely overpowered grappler, and no other grappler in the game can pull off the same combination.
I personally don’t like what they did to Kim Kaphwan. At first it seemed all right, but upon further inspection, looking at his huge, wavy, baggy pants in his well-animated standing animation, and then seeing him transform into his old sprite during certain moves is just REALLY ugly. To me, it looks like in Super Street Fighter Turbo, if you were to do the Tenshou Kyaku with Chun Li, the attack would look like a completely different character.
I have a lot of trouble accepting the gameplay aspect of KOF2002. It’s just not there for me. From a deep, technical perspective, there are only two new aspects of gameplay that actually serve a true purpose in battle. Secondly, the only other new addition aside from that is completely useless.
I’m talking about the newly added custom combo system, and a new counter-roll addition. Essentially, the way supers work in KOF2k2 is somewhat like KOF98, the only difference is that when you power up, you can super cancel special attack after special attack, and then a super, until time runs out. This is a really powerful weapon that changes the game in a dramatic way. After 5 minutes of toying with this system with Kyo, I developed a 55% damaging combo, that only uses one stock, and is relatively easy to do. I’ll list the combo here: power up, close c, qcf a, qcf c, qcf a, qcf a, hcb b, qcb, hcf c(hold)
Essentially every character in the game has something like this. I’m sure that you guys can imagine the possibilities.
HSDMs. Wow, what can I say, this is certainly a unique addition to the KOF series. HSDMs range from mediocre adaptations of previously normal DMs from past games in the series, to the usual ranbu attack, to completely new, inspired and humorous special supers.
Many of these attacks are very well worth seeing, and have pretty complicated commands as well. I have no doubt that Playmore payed zero attention to whether or not these moves were actually useful, balanced, or integral in any way to the character’s game plan. Billy has a great counter HSDM that just has to be seen to be believed, and everyone has heard of Yamazaki’s, already famous HSDM.
The other neato thing that they added was the ability to counter-roll after YOU attack. Essentially, after any normal attack that you dish out, you can tap AB, at the cost of one super stock, and roll forward right after. I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THE FUNCTIONALITY OF THIS TECHNIQUE IS! Someone PLEASE clue me the hell in! It’s just a totally random addition that has zero to minimal bearing on the way that this game plays.
I’m gonna bite the bullet here and say that the sound in this KOF incarnation is among the worst that I’ve heard in the series’ home adaptations. At first I thought that I was going def, because I couldn’t hear the music very clearly at all. It’s very low. This is compounded by the fact that the voice samples are quite loud. I think that Playmore went in the proper direction for the moment with the music. They just decided to subtly remix old tracks from various SNK games, including Fatal Fury and past KOFs. They put their own little unique touches on the sound effects too that I thought were pretty funny. For example, the AOF characters make the classic AOF hard-hitting sound when they complete certain special attacks. I personally thought that was a nice touch. The seiyuu in this game leaves quite a bit to be desired, among some of the worst, sadly, are Kyo, and the strange, more vocal interpretation of K’.
Playmore, as with their last two KOF releases, have included a pretty fair share of extras in the game. This time, perhaps the most inspired of extras, as opposed to puzzle games and shit, are extra characters. Shingo and King make their somewhat moderately anticipated return for the dreamcast edition of KOF2k2! Both, originally rumored to be planned for the arcade game, Playmore took it upon themselves to include them in order to please the masses and use up some of that extra Dreamcast processing power. Good effort, Playmore!
Among the other extras are Kusanagi, which is basically BLACK KYO from Animecon, adapted into an SNK game as some form of unholy homage, and Cyb0r Lugar, the absolute poorest incarnation of Rugal, ever. He’s back, jerks. Of course there are the now mandatory KOF gallery, and the Challenge mode, which offers two, very superficial incarnations of survival mode and a mission mode.
The last extra, and quite possibly the greatest of all time is the incredible engrish announcer! I am pretty much convinced that Japan does this specifically for the few english speakers who cater to their games. This guy is totally over the top and absolutely hilarious. As soon as you start the game, you hear, with the force of a sonic boom, “PEEKA YOU PAHTNAH!” and throughout the game, the announcer persists with similarly worded announcements. I won’t ruin them all for you here, you just have to hear them for yourself.
For my conclusion, I’ll go back to what I said in the beginning. Playmore just wants you to love them. This KOF, while still quite a bit messed up, is substantially more polished and complete than the prior game in the series. They are making a few improvements here and there, despite the fact that there are huge holes in the gameplay and something really needs to be changed. But in their defense, the game is 9 years old, and gamers are evolving with the games, how much more can you do to improve upon a series? Well, according to this game, not much. But it’s still a much better effort than KOF2001 and it’s a sign that they are learning through experience.
They want you to like them, they really do! They added special win poses along with new special intros, they brought it out on DC, knowing full-well that it’s a no one else is seriously developing for it, as if to say, “We know you’re gonna pirate it. BUT PLEASE, JUST PLAY IT!” We complained that the games weren’t enough like KOF98, so they brought back old favorites and attempted to recreate that magic. It’s hard for one company to pick up where another left off, and while Playmore may not be going about it in a flawless manner, they are expressing a hint of dedication to the series and it’s fans, and I can’t go against that.
I think that there is a lot of enjoyment to be had in this game, and the challenge mode adds a little kick to the replay value of the game, and it has Shermie. On the other hand, there are some problems with this game that purists can’t overlook. If your purpose is to own a fun KOF game or a relatively engaging fighter, then by all means, get your hands on this game in any way that you can. If you are looking for the KOF messiah, then you’re going to be disappointed. If you’re looking for hope, there is a great deal to be found here. As much as I’d like to, I can’t hate this game one bit, and I don’t think that you should either.
