Title The King Of Fighters Maximum Impact Manufacturer SNK Playmore System/Year Playstation 2/2003 Genre 3-D Fighting Players 2 Players Ports XBOX Overview This legendary saga started out in 1994, when SNK made a 3on3 fighting game with characters of their popular series, like Fatal Fury, Art of Fighting, or Ikari Warriors. To commemorate the 10th Anniversary of these series, SNK designed a 3-D fighting game, codenamed Maximum Impact; trying to improve from his old 3D productions, like Fatal Fury Wild Ambition, and Samurai Spirits 64, that let down a lot of fans. Did they improve? Keep reading to check it out. This chapter of a new brand of the saga takes place in the famous South Town, the same place as Fatal Fury. Geese and his gang has disappeared, and now a new gang, Mephistopheles, led by Duke, controls the city. But there is still a little group of rebels, let by the Meira brothers (Alba and Soiree). Suddenly, Mephistopheles holds a new KOF Tournament where Alba and Soiree will sign up to seek for the assassin of his mentor: Fate. And old school fighters will join as well: the KOF all-time stars, Kyo, Iori, Terry, K’, Athena, Mai, Leona, and some non-popular characters like Maxima or Seth. Think you can take the challenge? Graphics 7/10 KOF:MI actually looks good. Good, but not great. Character designs are mostly well done, even though some characters with weird hair (*cough*Iori*cough*) look a bit strange. Some of us the fans feared that the moves could look weird in 3D, fortunately SNK only did motion capture on very few characters, so they look just like in 2D KOFs. But attack effects can still improve, especially flames. Compared to the amazingly real flames in 2D KOFs, with black smoke and all, we just get some kind of red or purple clouds which don’t look very good. Other effects like flashes don’t look that bad, but they still don’t reach the level of the reference of 3D fighting games: Soul Calibur 2. Finally, some considerations about costumes: each character has two basic costumes with three different colors, some of them feature not only new colors but also minor changes in the outfit: for example, Kyo’s third color of first outfit is his KOF 2k3 costume. Also, minor changes in the outfits can be unlocked, some of them quite funny (ie Terry with a wolf mask, gloves and tail). Now, let’s talk about stages. I like them. I actually like them a lot. Still, they don’t reach the graphic level of Soul Calibur 2, but somewhat they look better. A waterfall in a forest, a parking, an airport, a dancing stage… even Geese’s dojo! The backgrounds are beautiful and varied, and they also feature some cameos: Yashiro, Gato, Geese… SNK did a great job there. Gameplay/Controls 7/10 Finally we get ‘til the core of the fighting games: gameplay. KOF has been a 2D game since 1994, and SNK now wants to make it 3D. Let’s talk about every type of move separately: - First, the movement commands: forward, back, down to crouch, and up to jump, double forward to run, double back for backstep. Now jumps are shorter and quicker, like other 3D games (Soul Calibur 2, Tekken 5). Movements are now quicker, so the pace of the game has highly increased. We still got the typical KOF dash, pressing either R1 and forward or back, but some 3D moves has been added: sidestep pressing R1 and air recovery pressing R1 while falling. - Then, the normal moves: strong and weak punch and kick, done when pressing circle, triangle, square and cross. Even though the pace of the game has increased, normal moves are now slower, in order to prevent an abusive use of crouching + D. - Now, let’s talk about special moves: they are the same from previous KOFs, but now, due the new pace of the game, they are not as decisive as before. It was still difficult to make projectile wars in KOF now, with faster moves and sidestep, is almost impossible. Even though you can still play games with special moves, there is a new type of commands that revolution the game. - These moves, called stylish moves, are easy and simple combos performed with a sequence of buttons and one direction, like most of Tekken and Soul Calibur moves. These moves are quick and have more preference than special moves. Depending on the character you sue, you will use these moves, specials or a mix of both. Summing all up, stylish moves add more variety of playing styles in KOF. But they still need to be improved someway, a KOF with these moves feels strange, it doesn’t feel like a 3D KOF: it feels more like a 3D fighting game with some KOF elements on it. This is good for KOF 2D fans that like the idea of a 3D game, but they still will enjoy more playing old 2D games, and this game is not as deep as other fighting games (Soul Calibur 2, Virtua Fighter 4, Tekken 5). - And finally, we got the desperation moves, the definitive combos, performed with the most large and difficult commands. In this game with such a fast pace, DMs are now less useful, since they are slower to perform. In order to correct this, they now have more preference than before. A difficult thing to get used to, I still prefer the DMs to be more like counters: faster and with less preference. About other features in this game, SNK added wall combos and ground combos (the boss Duke is a combo whore) to make the game resemble more a 3D one. And, finally, let’s talk about new characters: Alba Meira is something so so. He has a couple of “approach and hit” moves (quite like Burning Knuckles) and a couple of good stylish moves. He is not specially good in any field, but not bad in any either. Then we got Soiree, a capoeira fighter who has no good special moves but has a bunch of good stylish commands. Then we got the silent assassin, the breasty Lien Neville, which is IMO the best new character. Even though she sacrifices a bit of speed, both his specials and stylish moves are above average. The fourth character is the “I’m trying to be kawaii” girl, Mignon Beart, who has flashy moves but is quite weak. And finally we got the cheap-ass boss, Duke. This guy is a fucking combo whore with super preference, infinite groove and extreme damaging DMs. Even though he is still playable with no infinite groove, is one of the most (or maybe the most) difficult boss in KOF story to be beaten. Remember, here projectiles are not as efficient as in 2D, DMs are slower in comparison to other KOFs, and if Duke corners you, you are gone for good. Summing all up, this game is different from all other fighters, not better or worse, is a question of tastes. But, in my opinion, the gameplay still needs to improve a lot to get the throne of the 3D fighters. Sound/Music 8/10 First let’s talk about voices, English voices: they are so fucking lame and horrible. Voices don’t fit characters, specially after ten years with listening to the Japanese seiyuus. Even Terry Bogard has horrible voice! Both English attacks and quotes are way below Japanese ones. Fortunately, there is an option to change the voices to original Japanese. Regrettably, in the cut-scenes and the before-combat introductions characters will speak English regardless the language chosen in the options screen. Now, let’s talk about music. It is great. Actually, I like all the tracks. All of them fit the stage design, the action and the character in it. A cool techno theme for the dancing stage, a more calmed for the waterfall, a scary one for the cemetery stage, and the good old all-time theme for the Geese stage. One of the top 3 KOF OSTS ever, I say. Replay Value 7/10 Fighting games have never had a lot of replay value, you just beat the arcade with every fighter, play with your friends, and you’re done with the game. Soon Namco found the solution and added a quest mode to collect weapons and unlock features, and it was a great success. What about KOF? There is no quest mode, but we still got challenges: time attack and 40 missions, 10 of each level, and some of them pretty challenging. Some of isisons include fighting with overpowered characters, with some types of moves limited, with different handicaps, or just to learn the basics in the first missions. These missions won’t unlock much: extra palettes of costumes and a few stages. Other modes include arcade, where you will fight 6 opponents and then Duke, who ahs to be unlocked as well. And we got the VS mode, both against the machine or another player, 1on1 or 3on3. KOF really doesn’t have as much replay value as other fighters, but if ya got a gang to play fighters it is an interesting option. Overall 7/10 SNK tried out to develop a 3D game that played like a 2D game. KOF MI is a good game for their first try, but this game still requires some work on the gameplay to get really high marks and also a bigger quantity of characters. And please, get rid of english voices. Please - by Joan Miquel Domínguez