The King of Fighters has always been considered Street Fighter’s main rival. Even with Mortal Kombat and later Tekken in arcades, most people kept comparing the latest King of Fighters games to the latest Street Fighter entry and vice versa. Asking a fighting game aficionado what their favorite fighting game is will mostly result in one of two games being brought up the most, Street fighter 3 Third Strike or Garou: Mark of the wolves(A Fatal Fury game which The King of Fighters spawned from). Without a doubt, both The King of Fighters and SNK are highly regarded and respected names in the industry. Somewhere from the 2000’s until 2014 SNK had a rocky road with most of their franchises being used for Pachinko machines instead of games. In 2015 SNK announced it was acquired by a Chinese company who decided to change course with the company and go back to its roots of being a video game developer. The King of Fighters 14 is the new SNK’s first game. After all this time and such a rocky road the fighting game series is back. But is it actually worth your time?
The King of Fighters begins NOW!
With a new era for the series also comes a new arc. This King of Fighters game drops the much disliked and hated Ash-arc and goes to new places. A multi-billionaire eccentric who claims to be the world’s first and original King of Fighters champion is now hosting the next King of Fighters Tournament. In a nutshell, that’s it. The game’s set-up isn’t award-winning or particularly interesting. The participants and background of the tourney however are. Every character team has a specific ending. What makes the “story” so much fun is that in between battles little dialogues open between random fighters. Usually, these go into rivalries, histories or are just some fun banter between to combatants. Most of these dialogues give character relationships a bit more depth and most of the time are pretty comedic. One of these scenes might be between Ryu and his rival Iori taunting each other before a fight. Or a more lighthearted and comedic chat between Terry and The King of Dinosaurs where Terry clearly knows who KOD is while he poorly tries to pretend that he does not know who Terry is or what he’s talking about. It’s scenes like these that give The King of Fighters its character and comedic tone. Seeing the CG cut scenes where the organizer Antonov does anything is also a treat. The game takes a much lighter and more comedic tone and it fits the series well. The story mode works just as it does in any other game. You pick your fighters and fight through several fights with the before mentioned cut scenes and dialogue giving the player a small breather. At the end of the story mode, the player has to take on two separate bosses before seeing drawn still endings. The final boss comes out of nowhere and disappears just as fast, setting up the new arc. King of Fighter’s quirky dialogue between characters makes its story mode more fun than most arcade modes you will find in other fighting games.
The interaction between characters in the game is great.
HEY, c’mon c’mon!
While visually the game looks a bit rough this is still a King of Fighters game through and through, and one of the better once at that. The King of fighters games are 2D fighters where you fight with a team of three characters. Unlike something like Marvel Vs. Capcom or Tekken Tag Tournament players can only play as one character at a time. Other characters can’t be swapped in or assist and can only be used when the character on the field is K.O.ed. While you can’t create a team that is optimized to work with one and another for assists, it does allow players to take any three characters they like. Once one character goes down the next character in the team will replace the downed fighter in the next round. The victor of that round will stay in and fight the next character with only a sliver of health being regenerated. This makes the game not only incredibly fun but it gives newer players who are not as good as their opponents some more motivation and enjoyability. There are million of different types of jumps, a dodge move, canceling supers into more powerful supers and ridiculous inputs so this is still the good old King of Fighters players know and love. While this is the same old King of Fighters game it does bring some new stuff to the table. One other new mechanic that will make it easier for new players is the Rush mode. When at close range the player can mash light punch and the characters will do an automatic combo that ends with a super depending on the meter. MAX mode is also a new mechanic. When activated it will use one bar and allow the player to do a huge amount of enhanced(EX) moves. While it makes the player stronger it’s also a very clear warning that the player is planning on doing some big damage. Combined with the short duration mode it makes for a real intense change of pace in the match. This is a King of Fighters game through and through. It simply a blast to play.
The game plays like some of the best King of Fighter games out there.
Get serious.
By now, word has probably gotten around to the visual quality of the game. The King of Fighters series was known for it’s masterfully crafted sprite art. 2010’s King of Fighters 13 is considered to have the best sprite art in the industry. Now with SNK rising from its ashes, the company has less of a budget to work on sprites and instead opted to create 3D models. Their first venture certainly leaves something to be desired. It’s a shame the company had to move away from sprites to create the game but what makes it sting even more is that the 3D models are a bit rough around the edges. Graphically the game doesn’t look too good. Flat and simple textures make some characters looks awful. Animations are either a hit or a miss. Things like Terry’s backward walking animation look horrendous while something like Sylvie intro animations is great. Aside from rough-looking models and awkward animations this game carries the King of Fighters spirit like all other games before it. The new characters fit so well and look like King of Fighter characters. Same with the stages and music. The stages while again graphically not the best manage to channel that King of Fighters spirit so well. They all have so much going on and their color palettes are tight. The music is very KOF too. With a lot of themes using rock sounds and electric guitars. While it might not look like it, this is a King of Fighters game in its presentation through and through.
While its graphical fidelity is below average, its characters and stage designs are still top-notch.
Closing note:
The King of Fighters is back. While the loss of sprites is lamentable it was a necessary move in order for this game to actually exist. The stages, music and characters are as King of Fighters as King of Fighters can be. Mechanically it’s in one of the better KOF games. This is one of the more lighthearted KOF games and it’s quite comedic. 14 is an amazing game with some slight flaws. SNK’s return to the video game industry is a solid effort. Now let’s hope they can iron out the visual problems for the next project.
8/10
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