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Overview
After the NESTS saga, SNK, now SNKPlaymore (goodbye Eolith) designed the third KOF Dream Match, after ’94 and the legendary ’98. No history there, sorry, but ’98 didn’t have one either and is’t one of the all-time favourite games for KOF fans. So what does KOF ’02 bring to us rabid fighting game players?

Graphics 6/10
Well, well, we already know how this works. With the Neo Geo system, Playmore couldn’t create beautiful graphics to compete with Guilty Gear or SFIII. The original game had the best animated sprites ever (look at Yashiro, his stance is freaking awesome) in KOF, but in exchange we got awful backgrounds. I really hoped the backgrounds would be redrawn in this port, but regrettably they weren’t. There is actually a new scenario, in a hangar-type place, with a 3D helicopter on it. Actually, the backgrounds have been polished, and now some elements of ‘em have been 3D ‘ed. Even though, is not the best 3D I’ve seen, tell you the truth.

Another thing I noticed, now on the special effects, is that, when the background goes evening or night (each background has three versions –except for Rugal’s- of it: day, evening and night) the sprites are like, orange-shaded or blue-shaded, which is a very very nice addition to the game. About special effects (special attacks, fireballs and stuff), we got the same that SNKP brought to us in the previous PS2 ports: some transparences in fire-based attacks, energy balls and similar stuff. I personally prefer the original effects, but the new ones look good too.

Now let’s talk about sprites. Some of’em are just the same ones in the last years, some of ‘em have been partially redrawn (Yashiro and Kim’s stance for example) and some are totally new (Rugal). So the newer sprites look better than the older, but the difference is not that much (don’t worry, this is not CFJ, there are no 10 year old sprites here).

Another shit is loading times, they really really long and annoying.

As a last comment, I actually hate the presentation of the game and the fonts. The intro is ok and all, but all we got later is a blue background with a horrible yellow font. The letters are also awful when the word “PERFECT” appear, and same goes for the training options. Compared to the previous KOF ‘00/’01 port, SNK drops the quality of the overall presentation here.

Gameplay/Controls 10/10
Finally I can talk about the greatness of KOF. As I said before, Dream Matches have no story, then why are they fan-favourites. Raphics and sound are similar in evry KOF. You could say, the roster, yeah. But the main reason is gameplay. The battle system in KOF ’02 is my favourite of all the ones appeared in previous and later KOF (I haven’t played NeoWave, though).

Let’s get started: triangle for strong punch (SP), square for light punch (LP), circle for strong kick (SK) and cross for light kick (LK). Forward and either SP or SK to throw. LK+LP to roll. Press twice forward to run, twice back to back step. Press L1 to taunt, L2 is used for emergency evasion, and pressing R1 you go into MAX MODE (requires 1 power stock stored)

When you are in MAX MODE, you can cancel some attacks and perform chain combos. You can also perform Desperation Moves without consuming power stocks. And you can use 1 stock to perform Super Desperation Moves. Finally, if your life bar is low, you can perform the definitve combo: Hidden Desperation Moves. When you perform these kind of attacks, your Max Mode will go off, though.

Now, with the general gameplay. Just like the way back it was in ’98, almost every character is now balanced (except for that bastard boss Omega Rugal). Every player has his/her own favourite characters, but you can make anyone into a decent fighter, even freaks like the useless K9999 have gotten new moves to make them stronger. Some characters have been toned down, though, to maintain this balance.

This also apllies to the new brand super-cool Hidden DMs. There are some which are actually painfully strong, but need some crazy and almost impossible combinations to be performed, or can be asily avoided, or things like that.

Another fact worht of mention is, the different fighting style every character have. The newer characters (Whip, Ramon, Vanessa, NESTS Team) were given never-seen before fighting styles, and some of them are top tier (and yeah, they got no fireballs). Even though there are some characters, specially Terry, Ryo, Iori and K’ who have little resemblance with shotos, all of them play differently and have original moves. For example, Ryo’s fireball is short-range. Iori’s have a fireball and a “shoryuken”, but all the other moves of him are pretty original. And so on with Terry and K’. Grapplers are great, yeah. Clark ahs always been cool, Ramon is a pretty decent grappler with interesting design and original Vale Tudo moves, Shermie and Orochi Yashiro are back to kick some asses, etc. Whip has unique style. May Lee and Angel are similar combo- characters, but their moves are quite different . There’s no Heavy D!, but boxer fans, don’t worry, you get Vanessa to compensate that. Anyone into charge characters? Leona, Chang and Choi are all original characters with similar commands but different moves. Kim is almost the only kickman here, and he’s old, but still great.

Concluding, KOF give you an insane amount of variety and quality.

Sound/Music 7/10
KOF 2002 OST is not one of my favourites, tell you the truth. Of course we get the beloved Esaka theme, and is good to hear the old Orochi Team stuff again, but the music is not great at all. It is not bad either, but it’s juts average.

SFX, old stuff, old stuff. Voices are great as ever, and hit sound effects are much better than they are on KOF ’03, but the sound effects when surfing the menu could have been improved IMO.

Replay Value 6/10
We get the usual stuff: Practice, Single Play, Team Play, Versus and Team Versus. These ones need no explanation. Then we got Gallery, which includes art and special endings (the short sequences that appear when you beat the game). This stuff needs to be unlcoked in the Challenge Mode.

Challenge Mode includes three different types of missions: Team Attack, Single Attack and Time Attack. And I’m gonna complain a lot about these modes.

Basically, they have NO VARIETY. Time attack contains 40 missions, and they are all the same: beating a ceratin amount of characters in a certain period of time. You can still stand the first levels, when you have to beat only to or three characters, but the late missions consist on killing 7, 8, 9 people… and so on. This mode is shitty and boring. Why SNK, why couldn’t you give us more kinda KOFMI missions, like, handicapped fights or stuff like that?

Team Attack and specially single attack are also quite stupid. In team attack, beat all the 13 teams and Rugal. The problem is, your life won’t recover and, when one of your members is defeated, he will come back in the next match with lower life. Single Attack is the same: pick a character, beat the 39 characters (thank god they don’t make you fight the hidden characters) and Rugal. This is, boring, really boring, specially if you have to wait for the loading time. Well, at least you get some characters, but I personally think they are not worth the effort (I’m not saying I don’t like them, but the way to get them is kinda boring).

The time you spend on the game depends on you, I have played it thousands of times and I still love it. I try out new characters or I just use the roulette, ‘cuz playing this game is os damn fun. And if you have someone to play versus then it’s even funnier. Still, I suggest SNKP to add more variety of missions to make the game even funnier, or some extras.

Overall 8/10
Thank god the gameplay was so perfect and the roster that good in the original version, ‘cuz the port should have been better. Redraw backgrounds and please add different types of missions, and this game will get a godly mark. Fans must buy it, but casual gamers may feel a bit uneasy playing these at first. Still great game with solid battle system, which is what a fighting game needs. But I still hate loading time.

- by Joan Miquel Domínguez