KoF MI (PS3/360) and KoF MIRA2 (PS2) Canceled

So says SNK in the latest issue of Famitsu. I'm guessing this has something to do with Falcoon no longer working for SNK.

I wonder if SSEoD's 360 exclusivity is meant as a consolation to MS for the cancellation of MI 360...

AAAAAGGGGHHHHHH

I guess that means no US port of MI2RA then.

What the fuck is up with this company?

That's a shame. MI2 and MIRA were good games. With a little bit of tweaking, an HD update could have been great.

I actually enjoyed MI 2 and MIRA. I'm sorry to hear there won't be any more games in this series.

I wonder if this decision has to do with them wanting to refocus the company and allocate those resources to something else (like, maybe KOF XIII), or if this is a bad sign that they don't have the money to work on them.

Although, as I recall, none of the MI games were really embraced by the faithful for various reasons. Maybe SNK-P just made a decision that wasting resources on a series that already had a questionable legacy wouldn't be a good idea.

This could be addition through subtraction. I just wish they'd tell us what their plans are for the main KOF franchise moving forward, already.

Not surprised since that was al Falcoon's work.

Taiso said:

I actually enjoyed MI 2 and MIRA. I'm sorry to hear there won't be any more games in this series.

I wonder if this decision has to do with them wanting to refocus the company and allocate those resources to something else (like, maybe KOF XIII), or if this is a bad sign that they don't have the money to work on them.

Click to expand...

I think that's the more likely thing. It's too bad, really. The MI engine, retooled a bit to give the games more of a traditional KOF flow (hitpauses, please) and physics more like the series proper, could be a great vehicle for further games. I really enjoyed some of the stuff added to MI2, like the new DMs.

I agree, with MI/MI2/MIA they were fun and obviously a lot of work, but the engine never made the game feel intense, so the games weren't addictive like a 2D KOF. It's sad that SNKP does so much work on a game, then stops just before the tweaks that could make it a real winner. KOF XII is the same way, good netcode and AI is just gravy on top of the extremely difficult task of redoing the animation and engine for PS3/360. From what I hear, Samurai Sen is more of the same, they did a knockout job on the art and music, but the control scheme is dumbed down so the game doesn't play like Samurai Spirits.

These little things are killing SNKP... they aren't doing less work than SNK in its heyday, they just make these strange decisions and doom their own products.

...and for the 3 of us who care, that Iroha DS game has also been canceled.

What kind of game was the Iroha DS thing gonna be?

Taiso said:

What kind of game was the Iroha DS thing gonna be?

Click to expand...

From what I remember, it was going to be some sort of raising sim where you'd interact with a cutesy rendition of Iroha.

Sounds like a lot of protos are on the loose now.

This is a job for Billy Pitt.

Now that MIA2/MI3 are postponed/cancelled, I wonder if SNK-P will take the time to restart development for MOTW:2.

Hakkai said:

Now that MIA2/MI3 are postponed/cancelled, I wonder if SNK-P will take the time to restart development for MOTW:2.

Click to expand...

I kind of want them to get back on track making good new fighting games again and showing they've learned from their mistakes with the home release of XII and what looks to be another crap release with SS: EOD (although I'm reserving final judgement until I try it despite the red flags put up by many knowledgable peeps) before they try to do a sequel to MOTW.

wasabi said:

Sounds like a lot of protos are on the loose now.

This is a job for Billy Pitt.

Click to expand...

Oh god, I remember this guy. haha

While not totally unexpected, it's still a shame to see the MI series canned.
It looked like it was hitting its stride with MI2.
Nevertheless, it was certainly fun to play as 3D versions of classic KOF characters (the original characters and terrible storyline we could've done without; seriously, the main boss wants to build a ship... to go into outer space? This is clearly something out of a bad fanfic). It certainly could've been a better game if they had fixed the "Sweep Kick Slowdown".

The future doesn't look too bright for SNKP (as far as I know), with the only future titles being Metal Slug XX for PSP, Samurai Shodown: EoD (a.k.a. everything that SNKP did wrong with KOF: MI1, only with swords and "fatalities) for X-Box 360, KOF: Sky Stage for arcades (yeah, like a shooter's really going to save their credibility, much less one with KOF characters), and Tsukibito for the DS (whatever the hell that game's supposed to be). Add in the fact that MMORPGs are being developed by (whored out to?) third-party developers in Korea and China, plus the numerous games being developed for cell phones (Japan only, of course), and it's starting to become fairly clear that SNKP has slowly devolved into a two-trick pony with a dated one-track mind.

At this rate, if SNKP really is in dire financial straits, I'm certainly willing to help neo-geo.com buy bits and pieces of the beleaguered company. (I call dibs on Money Puzzle/Idol Exchanger, though since it came from a now-defunct third-party developer, it'd probably be fairly difficult to track down and acquire. Give BBH Shock Troopers, Steve can have World Heroes, and Bobak can have whatever he wants because he's... well, Bobak.)

Fine, then I call dibs on Cool Cool Toon.

I guess SNK-P was recently interviewed at some French (I think) site and they stated that they had something 'top secret' in the works that they weren't able to talk about. I wonder this new project of theirs needs the resources from some of these other game linups, and they figured that with Falcoon gone the MI series was an easy write off.

Here's the link to the source article (which I can't read and am not going to bother putting through a tranlsation engine because I just don't care enough right now):

http://www.jeuxactu.com/article-40155-exclu-tgs-2009-kukino-evoque-kof-xiii-.html

I originally got word of this from Cyberfanatix.

Also, they announced Iori and Kula for KOF: Sky Stage. Aren't your nipples hard just thinking about that?

Lord Wolfgang Krauser said:

Oh god, I remember this guy. haha

Click to expand...

Haven't heard that name since SvC Chaos PCB release.

I think it's good to see that SNKP is redistributing the resources being spent on these games to other projects. SNKP has much more interesting games in development that would benefit from these resources :
- KoF XIII
- New HD arcade Metal Slug (I remember that this was announced a long time ago and it's also mentioned in massimiliano's SNKP interview)
- XBLA version of KoF 2002 UM
- KoF Sky Stage
- The new "top secret" project (if it isn't already mentioned above)

I'm also hoping that this announcement means that SNKP is focusing more on developing 2D games.

This is a little disappointing. Well, not the 360 version; that was announced back in like 2005, so it was obvious that it was never coming. But this series got progressively better with each new version; Regulation A was awesome, and I was looking forward to A2.

Oh well. Samurai Sprits Sen on 360 is certainly no consolation prize though, since that game is a steaming nugget of shit.

Just make KOF XIII good -and actually complete- SNK.

Lyte Edge said:

This is a little disappointing. Well, not the 360 version; that was announced back in like 2005, so it was obvious that it was never coming. But this series got progressively better with each new version; Regulation A was awesome, and I was looking forward to A2.

Click to expand...

Well, the announcements don't seem to say that A2 is completely dead.

From everything I've seen:

(a) They never announced that the arcade (TypeX2) Regulation A2 is cancelled, just the PS2 version. At TGS 2007, it was originally announced as in development for TypeX2 and PS2.

(b) The 360/PS3 cancellations weren't for planned Regulation A2 ports, they were supposedly "Maximum Impact 360" and "Maximum Impact 3".

(c) SNK never stated there wouldn't be a console port of Regulation A2, just that it won't be on PS2. Still leaves the door open for a 360/PS3 port, which honestly wouldn't surprise me in the least. It's not as if SNK has been in the habit recently of releasing anything in the arcade and NOT porting it to something. It wouldn't be surprising if they're just finally leaving PS2 and moving to the next generation (which they've already started to do with KOF XII and Samurai Spirits Sen).

Yeah. It's probably dead. Completely. Maximum Impact has always been a home series first. Regulation A got about a four week head-start on the PS2 version.