King of the Monsters

Template:GameInfoboxKing of the Monsters (キング・オブ・ザ・モンスターズ) is a fighting/wrestling game released by SNK in 1991 for arcades. It was later ported for the Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis by Takara. The game uses giant monsters that are reminiscent of Kaiju and tokusatsu characters.  

A sequel called King of the Monsters 2 was released a year later.

Gameplay

Players choose one of six monsters (four in the 16-bit ports) for battle, and two players can join forces to fight the monsters together. Battles end when one of the monsters is pinned for a three count or if time expires (in which case the player loses).

The game consists of 12 total levels (8 in the 16-bit ports) which takes place in 6 cities in a futuristic 1996 Japan. Each city is featured twice with the game beginning and ending in Tokyo. Other cities include Kyoto, Okayama, Osaka, Kobe and Hiroshima (the latter two are omitted from the SNES port. The Sega Genesis port only features Tokyo with the other cities being "Mega Port", "Dragon City", and "Castle City"). The player first must defeat all six monsters, with the last monster being oneself, but in a different palette. Then the player must defeat the six monsters again, in the same order, but this time in different cities.

Characters

• Geon
• Woo
• Astro Guy
• Poison Ghost
• Rocky
• Beetle Mania

Other appearances

In 1992, a sequel called King of the Monsters 2: The Next Thing  was released. In 2005, three characters from that sequel (Cyber-Woo, Super Geon and Atomic Guy) was featured in Neo Geo Battle Coliseum. These characters also appeared as character cards in the DS game SNK vs Capcom: Card Fighters DS.

In addition, to the original ports, King of the Monsters was included in SNK Arcade Classics Vol. 1 featuring many rare pieces of the game's production art production art. In 2018, the game was ported to the Nintendo Switch Shop by Hamster. The port features two extra features in a High Score Mode and Caravan Mode. A Neo Geo CD version was advertised and even previewed, but it never released.

Gallery

• Box art 1.jpg

  Neo Geo AES Box art

• Box art 3.jpg

  Sega Genesis Box art

• Box art 2.jpg

  Super Nintendo Box art

• Box art 4.jpg

  Super Famicom Box art

• Box art.jpg

  Astro Guy and Geon seen on SNK Arcade Classics Vol 1 box art

• Mock.jpg

  2016 April Fools joke for fake movie using Maxima and King of Dinosaurs as stand-ins for Geon and Astro Guy

• Hiscoregirl.jpg

  Rocky and Geon cameo in High Score Girl manga

Videos

• NGH-016- King of the Monsters - Neo Geo Generation - Basement Brothers - Neo Geo Collection