The King of Fighters 97
===============
Well - that took me long enough, let's take a look at the 97 iteration of King of Fighters.
After a nice introduction showing off many of the characters with a rock theme we are presented with a total of 9 teams and 2 solo characters (one of them being Iori).
It's a bit of a shame, that the game does not introduce the players to the storyline - so we can't learn who the other solo character (Shingo Yabuki) is, until an internet search is performed.
I guess the people of '97 had to buy magazines to get a clue what he was about - though I DID buy magazines at that time and wouldn't remember any infos about him.
However - we will not meet him again in this review. (In the SNK Wiki he is described as "comic foil" to Kyo and "everyday guy" which did also make him not at least interesting to pick for me)
I played this one for the longest time of all KoFs so far I guess, simply because:
1.) I didn't find the time to have an excessively long session
2.) The game just seems to go on for ages with rounds after rounds
Still - this allowed me to explore many different characters and though I'm still not convinced I found my "personal dream team" I did settle with Terry, Leona and Kim in the end.
Terry) I do like Terry anyways - also a nice bread and butter combo was suggested in this thread
Leona) Nice charge character, though I can't use her to her full (or even half) potential, it is a nice diversion from the usual Ryu style characters I play, also stuffing a dynamite stick in the opponent is just badass
Kim) I managed to beat the game when I tried him out for the first time, have to say I used him most of the time for chip attacks starting with his charged slide attack
The overall style screams "TV broadcast" all over the place this time, with inserts, cameramen in the back and an attempt to create "realistic" stages with pixel art - which in my opinion unfortunately fails horribly.
The worst stage is the "disco" one, which has "pixel rendered" people all over the place - the most hillarious addition is a girl with a book in hand who seems to try to open it and smash her face into the letters written in it over and over.
There are also others I like better (the idea of Monaco and fighting on a racing track is quite nice), but all in all I miss the love for detail other iterations of the series provided.
The gameplay offers a choice between 2 modes (advanced and extra) and personally I'm not a big fan of extra. I like my super meter to charge itself and not have to do the hard work by pressing buttons. (perhaps better players find that advantegeous, I have a hard time positioning myself anyways with out "charge cooldowns")
Advanced though works pretty smooth, ABC burns your charges to get a temporary damage boosts and better supers - works very well and I didn't have any issues with the controls.
Starter combos are also very beginner friendly, as the tend to begin with a jump in and a standing hard punch or kick - which usually results in an easy 3 hit combo. (which can be followed by specials, etc.)
Usually I managed to get some of those combos off as well as practicing the execution of some extended chains on the first three stages, after that the CPU becomes more aware and I was required to start combos in "mid-fight" which I hardly ever was able to pull off.
The single player mode is tedious regarding the number of matches, as there are so many fights to do and even after you win the tournament you are required to go on more fights (who would have thought).
Nevertheless after practicing over the course of the last months I was able to clear the whole game on 2 credits on standard difficulty.
What amazed me the most of all was how quick the boss fight was over (mind you - still on standard AES difficulty 3 - but other games still brutalize you on that level).
I managed to beat "Orochi" (or some ghost of it) on the first try just by relentless offense and continuous Leona 3 hit combos paired with jabbing.
(chances are great the guy will beat the hell out of me on a 2nd try, but I was too reluctant to play through the whole game again after finishing it today)
All in all: A nice iteration of KoF, but I would have liked it better with a less intensive "Orochi" story (Orochi! More Orochi! Everone is Ooooooooaaarochi!) and a little more love for detail regarding the backgrounds and consistent feel of the game.
I really appreciated the times when there was a KoF tournament that just existed for the cause of some guy wanting to show you that he's the greatest and beating the shit out of everyone.
What I did not like:
*) perceived long single player mode
*) lack of love for backgrounds and "realistic" humans in the background
*) The story is rather poor, cutscenes are nice between fights with the TV inserts, but the conclusion screens are not very impressive (mostly normal character models in a normal stance)
*) The "Geese howard boss team" became the "Outlaw Team" - well I like the chars well enough individually (Blue Mary, Billy Kane and Ryuji Yamazaki), but that those form up a team seems to be a bit weird
What I did like:
*) Advanced Mode
*) Gameplay and easily performable "entry combos"
*) During the gameplay it seemed to me that the power gauges did not carry over during rounds, when going into my "playthrough" round however I realised, that power gauges DID carry over.
It seemed weird to me at that time, but I considered I did misremember the behavior of the game. After doing a quick research I found the statement:
"The characters' relationships to each other also has a bigger effect on the game, as when a member of your team is defeated, your power gauge will be carried over to the next character, dropped back to zero, or even get a bonus depending on how much your teammates like each other. Fortunately, you don't have to follow the past three games' storylines to know who gets along with who, as on the character select screen you can bring up an icon over each characters' portrait to show their preference for the character you currently have selected." on
http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/kof/kof3.htm
I didn't test this to a big extent yet, but the idea is pretty cool (would be even better if the game gave you at least any idea who likes whom except their teammates)
All in all a nice addition to the series and a good game, though my favorite of the ones I played is still 96 at this time.
1.) Art of Fighting 3
2.) Samurai Shodown 2
3.) Kizuna Encounter
4.) Fatal Fury Special
5.) Waku Waku 7
6.) King of Fighters 96
7.) World Heroes 2 Jet
8.) Kabuki Klash
over 8999) Galaxy Fight
Samurai Shodown
----------------
2.) Samurai Shodown 4
3.) Samurai Shodown 3
4.) Samurai Shodown 1
Fatal Fury
-----------
2.) Fatal Fury 2
3.) Fatal Fury 1
Art of Fighting
----------------
2.) Art of Fighting 2
3.) Art of Fighting
King of Fighters
-----------------
2.) King of Fighters 97
3.) King of Fighters 94
4.) King of Fighters 95
World Heroes
-------------
2.) World Heroes 2
3.) World Heroes
Kizuna Encounter
-----------------
2.) Savage Reign