More KOF 2003 Impressions

The local arcade in So. Cal has KOF 2003 on two machines. I played through about 6 or 7 rounds yesterday and loved it. The mechanics are very tight and the combo connections are a bit more fluid. Not to mention everything stays hectic with the Fall Breakers and Multi Shift characters. The play is pretty frantic compared to previous KOFs - a good thing to me. Plus certain specials that you expect to cancel supers with the appropriate moves do wind up canceling - unlike SVC Chaos.

The visuals rank up as some of the best the series has seen. Terry's brand new sprite is awesome and looks to be younger than his MOTW incarnation. His hair isn't as long yet and his face is more slim. In fact all the MOTW characters have new sprites to fit the KOF series. Tizoc and Gato look great even though they don't animate as well. Yamazaki looks even more menacing than before. I'm glad King is back - she should never have been taken out being a KOF veteran, but I'm not used to the new voice yet - it's lighter than the previous voice actresses'. I was hoping my girl Mai would have a new sprite, but she doesn't. Though she does have new win phrases I think.

The backgrounds are pretty amazing. Just when you think the backgrounds have gone downhill - starting with 2000, then onto the horrendous 2001 and improved 2002 backgrounds - 2003 whoops all their asses with a ton of new stages - the train with the field, the roof with neon SNK signs and sparks, the great wall background, even the european streets look fantastic. The colors, textures, and detail really make the backgrounds stand out like paintings this year. They may not animate as well as the '95 backgrounds are 99's rain stage. But they're some of the best fighting backgrounds seen in a while.

That's about it. Glad to see that KOF is back on track and received the huge refresh the series needed. The new SNK is certainly capable of revamping their trademark series' (hurry up and re-do a new Samurai Shodown!) and KOF is a nice example of that.

Add one thing to all of the above, the speed of the gameplay.

I like it ALOT!! IMO it's even faster than 2k2, and it's good.

Uhhhhh...which arcade is this ? Where ?

thanks , i love big reviews , especialy positive ones .

The Aracade Infinity in the City of Industry, CA has it. It's in the chinese Diamond Plaza on the second floor. They also have Metal Slug 5. Oddly enough, the name of the place is the same company name that was sued before for having bootleg games. But they always have the latest NG stuff there.

yep

justdefend said:

The Aracade Infinity in the City of Industry, CA has it. It's in the chinese Diamond Plaza on the second floor. They also have Metal Slug 5. Oddly enough, the name of the place is the same company name that was sued before for having bootleg games. But they always have the latest NG stuff there.

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It's one kof 2k3 pcb connected to 2 cabs.
Even though A-I was in trouble with SNK, they still buy most of the new stuff because besides Initial D and Fzero, KOF's make more money for them then any other game, Jack Tao told me once that on weekends they will make about $500 bucks just on a Kof game al.one

Go there on the weekends especially Friday and Saturday night
you'll have to wait a long while to get a chance to play.

P.s next time you are there go and eat at "The Boat" Best Viet,Thai and Hmong food in So Cal.

So now that this game has made it's way into USA arcades can someone confirm if the in-game story is present and in English? Or do we have another Sam Sho 5 on our hands?

The one at this particular arcade had it set to a different language. Looked like Japanese. But historically, all KOFs have been translated into English; even SVC Chaos was. Just somehow SSV got the shaft.

BTW The Boat in the Diamond Plaza is a great Thai place. Ate there before I played KOF!

Just played about 6 or 7 games of this. Its wonderful! This is my second time playing it and I really really like the color palette (i cant spell) The game has a really different look, really vibrant . The backgrounds look really good and the new characters are really cool.

The gameplay is awsome, but the input feels different, I dont know how to explain it, it just feels a little more like SvC and less like Kof 2k2 for inputting moves. The character changing works well and the rounds go EXTREMELY fast.

I played with a team of Ash, Terry and Joe. Ash is very very cool, his fire balls look cool and seemed extremely effective. He reminds me a lot of Remy in Third Strike. He has a kick super thats exactly the same.

I agree with justdefend, the game is wonderful and a good entry into the series. Im just crossing my fingers that SNK Playmore keep evolving the series and keep it from getting stale.

The gameplay is awsome, but the input feels different, I dont know how to explain it, it just feels a little more like SvC and less like Kof 2k2 for inputting moves. The character changing works well and the rounds go EXTREMELY fast.

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yes this game is indeed built on the svc engine. no that doesnt mean it has hit detection problems etc.. it just means that a: move execution is unforgiving, i have trouble doing ryo's f-b-hcf+punch fb super which i can do without fail 100% in kof 02. b: timing, especially between joystick execution and the move coming out... wakeups are much harder in this than kof 02 once again ala svc engine..

i will also say that the controls are a little unresponsive ala svc also which is of course a downer..

are they as bad as svc? or worse?

what moves do you have difficulty doing? does mashing help? the worst I think was kof96 but I didn't mind but maybe they'll fix it?

its not a "problem" rather a design choice.

like 96 which you used as an example. 97 afair was nice and easy, 98 was less forgiving you needed to do the motions accurately. 2003 is much stricter than 02 as was chaos.

96 was a little irritating but what of the 2k-2k2 games does this mean no mashing difficult moves like k9999hdsm?

I know in 96 it was very hard to do Mr Big's uppercut consistently could just be me, the controls for 2k1 were very good svc can also be irritating at times...I'll have to play it for myself before I can judge.

I didn't have any trouble pulling off moves that I wanted to do, but I didn't try any specific combos to compare this year's against a previous KOF. If anything some of Mai's moves were easier to connect, but that may not be the case with certain characters and/or combos.

The only way to know for sure is to give it some serious play time with each character. But at 50 cents a pop I think I'll wait for the AES to do that

note that kof2k3 is also at winnetka theater here in southern cali (the place where the svc loke test was last year), and as ive said before, ive played the shiznit outta it, very good game! ^__^

also, can someone tell me what problem A-I had with SNK? thats news to me....

KOF 2003

KOF 2003 doesn't impress me much. I really dislike the revamped Fatal Fury team. Except for Terry, his new look is cool. I wish Garou - was followed up with another installment. To me KOF is beautiful in its dynamic fighting splendor, but truthfully I think something new should be done. Garou in my opinion was the breakthrough SNK game that brought a lot of my friends (including myself) back into the SNK fold.

KOF needs something new. I dunno what, but something must be done. New team characters, cool backgrounds, and faster play is not enough. I hope KOF 2004 is better, in my opinion KOF 99 is still the king of the series, with KOF 98 following behind as a close second. Garou - MOTW seriously rocked and reawakened these eyes that had closed on SNK. Now I'm happy to see SNK-Playmore alive and kicking, don't get me wrong, I love my AES cart system to death and would never get rid of it. It's just that I began not picking up games for a brief span there.

Garou 2 would be nice. A revamped KOF would be nicer. That's just my opinion though. Still, its nice to see a new installment to the series, even if it didn't live up to my expectations.

To anyone who has played KOF'03; which characters where used the most?

To anyone who has played KOF'03; which characters where used the most?

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character name [cheese rating out of 5]

benimaru [3]
billy [4]
duolon [5]
iori [2]
ash [1]
daimon [3]
ryo [2]

they are the ones i see most...

beelzebubble said:

character name [cheese rating out of 5]

benimaru [3]
billy [4]
duolon [5]
iori [2]
ash [1]
daimon [3]
ryo [2]

they are the ones i see most...

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It's interesting to see that Terry and Kyo are not in that list.

sorry terry should be [3]

someone cheesier than birry?? ah damn, cheesier than foxy?
man I hate foxy....

PS gameplaywise I've heard it's more like kof99? or is it more like svc?

duolon is super cheese man.

hes got like a j.HK->s.HP->special (dont know it)->teleport->juggle->teleport as they fall and you are behind them requiring reverse blocking (which is crazy hard to do with the auto turn around goin on.... can be done again if the block is missed or just go into a push combo or even (FUCK) do the command grab... just crazy MIX UP pressure games like no one fighter should have!

edit: never really played 99, the armor/power mode pissed me off (those bao unlimited super fireballs mixed with normal fbs grrrr), svc engine yeah but not a similar game system...

sounds rough



a lin and foxy mix!? only thing I can think of that may help is using yuri and her grabbing slap? I'm not too fond of 99 and 97 for a challange...
I'll even take 2k instead, It just sucks when ppl take the cheesiest charas first or only and no proper random select means the better players will only take the cheeseballs instead of 2 cheeseballs and one random...

It is hard to gauge a new kof so much love/hate going on (took me 2 months or so to like 2k2 and now I like it a lot, sort of) I really tried to like svc but it wasn't my style good game tho but just not my style I just hope the same doesn't happend to kof I don't think it will. All I wanted is a mix of 98,2k1,2k2 and 99's graphics... but beggers can't be choosers...

yeah one of 2k2s biggest draws was the balance for me, no more super cheesy chris, yashiro, clark, iori etc...

yeah one of 2k2s biggest draws was the balance for me, no more super cheesy chris, yashiro, clark, iori etc...

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I found it unbalanced compared to 2001. For some reason, my O. Yashiro, Clark and Terry rule in 2002, but in 2001 my Clark game isn't as effective.

1998 still has the best Orochi Yashiro. :9