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Full Review: Not quite the Return of the King?
The year 2002 was kind of a depressing year for 2D fans like me because SNK, the makers of the Neo Geo and Neo Geo Pocket Color, went out of business. SNK was perhaps most famous for their one on one fighting games and way back in the year 1994, SNK shocked gamers from around the globe with their first ever King of the Fighters game. This KOF fighting game boasted the one of the largest line up of characters ever to be in a beat them up and you had eight different teams to pick from. Now that SNK is back in action thanks to the new US Company SNK Playmore, the legendary King of the Fighters finally arrives on the Playstation2 in not just one but two complete games. Sure these games were the best of their kind in the day but do they still hold up now?
The whole point of the King of Fighters tournament is to create your own team of four from a huge list of 30 to 40 plus playable characters in both games. Some gamers may even recognize many of the fighters from other popular SNK games like Fatal Fury, Art of Fighting, and the game even has old characters from the shooter Ikari Warriors. Rounding out the rest of the characters are some real oddballs like a couple of secret agents, a young thin girl who practices Sumo wrestling and lots more. Each character has their own list of special and super moves plus you can even increase your characters strength and defensives for a limited time that can help you plan different strategies. These are just a few of the cool things you can do both games that you wouldn't normally see in other fighting games.
KOF also has some fairly good animations and like I said earlier each character has their own style to make them unique. It's not all good though because I don't know how but KOF 2001 in-game graphics actually look worst than 2000. 2001 biggest graphical weakest is the bland backgrounds. Just compare the landscape artwork in other high profile 2D fighters like Street Fighter III and Guilty Gear X2, those games had well animated people in the distance and very detail environments, 2001 has blurry onlookers and dull backgrounds. 2001 not only has questionable visuals but the sound tracks are not too good either. Here I was fighting in lush countries like Mexico and Italy and I had to listen to some of the cheapest generic rock crap ever heard on the PS2. Even the old Neo Geo hit Fatal Fury 2 from the early nineties sounded better then this.
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When it's all said and done, this King of the Fighters twin collection is good trip down memory lane especially for gamers that prefer 2D brawlers to these newer 3D fighters. Unfortunately these games have not aged very well so you have to put up with some disappointing visuals and audio from a 24-bit era. Another big problem with both these KOF games is that they are not too different from one another. Even the end boss is the same in both games! King of the Fighters 2001 is just like the 2000 edition but with a few new guys added to the line up and some new scenery, no big deal. Still King of the Fighters 2000/2001 is a fun package for fight fans looking for lots of style and technique over presentation.
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