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PlayStation (Games) Entertainment Games

History Of The King Of Fighters Explored 30

Posted by simoniker from the kof-right-off dept.
Thanks to 1UP for its feature charting the history of SNK's cult King Of Fighters series. The piece starts: "From 1994 until now and counting, SNK's King of Fighters... has almost as consistent a track record as EA's Madden football, and Madden didn't have to survive the protracted buyout and collapse of its owners." The yearly versions of these Neo Geo-originated 2D fighters are then analyzed, from KOF '94 ("Two dozen characters in a fighting game doesn't sound like much nowadays, but it was a hell of a cast in 1994") through the controversial KOF '99 ("a pretty daring move on SNK's part, delivering a complete overhaul of the series' tested gameplay"), to the present day, where a separate article delivers new details on the forthcoming KOF '03, revealing new rosters and "a tag battle system" for this latest arcade-bound iteration.
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History Of The King Of Fighters Explored More

History Of The King Of Fighters Explored

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  • I do not know of one person that would prefer KOF over capcom's street fighter series.

    Have people actually played this game. It's the most overhyped 2D fighter. Not much to offer.

    • Re:Over hyped (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I don't know about being overhyped. It's the #1 alternative to Capcom fighters. If you are tired of playing Ryu and Ken games, then you should definitely check this series out. It's a drastically different style of game, more precise controls (think SF Alpha compared to Capcom vs. Marvel), and in many ways much more polished gameplay. The characters are much more balanced, and it's an all around good game.
      It's always going to be known as the "other" fighter series, but it's a good one with a smaller fol

      • It's a drastically different style of game, more precise controls (think SF Alpha compared to Capcom vs. Marvel), and in many ways much more polished gameplay.

        You mean more precise controls are required to play the game. (Control precision itself is largely a function of the joystick hardware.) Capcom's 2-D fighting games pretty much all allow players to use what's sometimes called a "negative edge." This is a special move input method that involves pressing a button, performing the move's joystick m

      • Re:Over hyped (Score:3, Interesting)

        by NonSequor ( 230139 )
        I'll take Soulcalibur any day. Of course, maybe that's just because I could never stomach learning endless combo lists.
        • This must be a joke! perhaps you should have been moderated as Funny. While every snk character has more moves than the average capcom character, ANY soulcalibur character has a stupidly [gamefaqs.com] long array of moves. [gamefaqs.com]

          I have never understanded why almost every 3D fighting game (VF, Tekken, SC) relies on the player learning an endless amount of movements, and each one has a different way of blocking/countering, while 2D prefer simpler set of movements, combining them in diferent ways to get complexity.
          • I have never understanded why almost every 3D fighting game (VF, Tekken, SC) relies on the player learning an endless amount of movements, and each one has a different way of blocking/countering, while 2D prefer simpler set of movements, combining them in diferent ways to get complexity.

            Technical limitations.

            It is much, MUCH easier to animate the fighters in 3D games. Each fighting technique merely requires a bit of extra skeletal animation, so 3D fighting games can afford to have hundreds of different f
            • It is much, MUCH easier to animate the fighters in 3D games. Each fighting technique merely requires a bit of extra skeletal animation, so 3D fighting games can afford to have hundreds of different fighting animations per character. Whereas in 2D games, each new technique requires drawing a whole new sequence of unique bitmap images, so there is more of an emphasis of chaining together what is already there.

              Mmm. probably. That means that mocap is cheaper than hand drawing.

              I would have thinked it was the
              • Mmm. probably. That means that mocap is cheaper than hand drawing.

                I said "easier", not "cheaper". Motion capture has higher initial costs, but it is far less work-intensive than hand-drawn animation.
          • There are lots of moves, but anyone can walk up and start mashing buttons and figure things out. Most of the moves are relatively simple and can be learned through experimentation (Maxi is an exception to this and the difficulty of learning him is yet another reason not to play him). The internet guides are only there to help refine your understanding once you've gotten the hang of a character.

            In Soulcalibur the focus is on predicting and preparing for your opponent's next move while at the same time tryin

    • Overhyped by who then?

      I've got KoF 98, 99, 2000, and 2001 for my Dreamcast and I find myself playing them more often than my copies of Street Fighter Alpha 3 or Street Fighter 3: Third Strike.

      Honestly, SNK's Fatal Fury: Mark of the Wolves is my favorite 2-D fighter, but KoF 98 and (surprisingly) 2001 rank high up there for me.

      I definitely love the Street Fighter series, but King of Fighters is just as loved, and most importantly, more frequently played, at least by me.

      I think you'd find the KoF fanbase

      • I've got KoF 98, 99, 2000, and 2001 for my Dreamcast and I find myself playing them more often than my copies of Street Fighter Alpha 3 or Street Fighter 3: Third Strike.

        Well, assuming that you're talking about the Dreamcast port, you might have liked SFA3 better if the DC port were anywhere near as good as the Saturn port. The DC port was a translation of the Playstation port for expediency's sake, and was therefore not translated directly from the arcade version as the Saturn port was. I guess it he

    • Street Fighter hit such a wall though. Yeah, SF2 was a great game but 10 years later there hasn't been much change to the Street Fighter formula.

      Course my favority fighter was Killer Instinct...helped further the combo theory of fighting but never got enough support to last :(.

      • Street Fighter hit such a wall though. Yeah, SF2 was a great game but 10 years later there hasn't been much change to the Street Fighter formula.

        No offense, but someone who'd played the SF games to the degree that would qualify themselves to make that statement probably wouldn't have made that statement. On top of all the games carrying the Street Fighter banner -- each of which is different, especially across the different numbered series -- don't forget that the SF franchise has branched off into the

        • I actually was trying to seperate vs. SNK and vs. Marvel. Those games, due to the team system, felt very different to me. I didn't really feel all the difference in the SF series like you did. Granted, there we games with even less innovation (like MK).

          KI was a love/hate game for everyone. Those who loved it mastered the combo system. Those who hated it either lost or found the easy way to win with a cheap victory (projectiles). :|
    • Nice troll :) I don't know if it's neccessary to make it into a big rivalry, Capcom and SNK both make EXCELLENT fighting games. King of Fighters is a series that brings a new game every year with:

      * TONS of fighters, the cast changes every year with some old faithfuls and some new

      * new moves and old moves and removed moves, not the same moves on every character every game

      * very good new artwork and music

      * extremely deep gameplay and combos

      * a well thought out storyline (except 98 and '02, which are

  • Strangely (Score:1, Flamebait)

    by dtfinch ( 661405 ) *
    I've never heard of this legendary series of fighting games until now.

  • Haven't played KoF? (Score:5, Informative)

    by neostorm ( 462848 ) on Wednesday November 19, 2003 @12:42AM (#7508721)
    If you haven't played any of the King of Fighters games then you don't go to the arcade very much, or at least a very good one.
    King of Fighters doesn't get many home console ports, but it's a solid series with greatly polished gameplay and much tighter control than it's Capcom competition. It has a huge following in the arcades, but I don't see many people that know of it outside of that environment.

    Sweet stuff, check it out.

    • King of Fighters doesn't get many home console ports,

      Every KoF game has been released on a Sony or Sega home console, except 94 AFAIK. In fact, one of the more common bargain bin games you will find nowadays at game shops in the U.S. is King of Fighters 99 for Playstation.

      I have almost every Sega release so far, from 95-00. Not being the biggest of KoF fans, I haven't picked up 01 or 02 for the DC yet.

      but it's a solid series with greatly polished gameplay and much tighter control than it's Capcom

    • If you can't find them in the arcade, all of the KOF games are perfectly emulated under MAME. My favourites are KOF 96, '99 and 2K1.

      The PSX ports just don't have the timing of the original, the DC ports are somewhat better.

  • Oversea popularity... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Arkhain ( 630247 ) on Wednesday November 19, 2003 @01:24AM (#7508894)
    Unfortunately, the game series is much less popular in the US than it is in Japan - the same goes for many, many of SNK's games.

  • KOF always seen as SNK's big game... (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    ...but SNK's *other* 2D fighting franchise; Fatal Fury has always been the better in my opinion.

    The line change cabability of Fatal Fury Special and the earlier games was a unusual feature, but one which, imo, works well.

    The later games, Real Bout, RB2 and RB Special took the series and gave it a really slick and cartoony fluid style, more towards the Capcom style of things (thinking Darkstalkers/MVC/X-Men).. something which reached its pinnacle in the guise of Mark of the Wolves; the latest in the Fatal

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