DISCLAIMER: I love to play fighting games all the time, and I have reviewed fighting games before. However, that does not mean that I am a competitive player or have any knowledge about the complexities that they are looking for in games like these. I am, without a doubt, a casual fighting game player. If you are coming here looking for an in-depth analysis on the invincibility frames or a rant on how King of Fighters ’98 will always be better than anything else, you’re in the wrong place.
Short Version: It’s the same King of Fighters as always, and even more accessible than before, which is always a good thing. However I don’t understand why they felt the need to make the game 3D, since it doesn’t really add anything other than to make the game slower and look less interesting. On the other hand, if it weren’t 3D, it probably wouldn’t get even half of the attention it has gotten. If you want a KoF game for PS4, then here it is, and it’s solid, but I’d still rather play any of the previous titles over this one.
Long Version: For some reason, I never really got into The King of Fighters as a kid. In my eyes, it always looked like Street Fighter for cool people, and I definitely wasn’t one of them. Whenever I saw kids older than me play it at an arcade, I always thought that that series only belonged to people that knew what a quarter circle attack was, or folks who understood the significance of mix-ups and reversals. Obviously, that wasn’t the case, and it’s even further enforced now thanks to The King of Fighter XIV, the newest SNK fighting game that now boasts some brand new 3D graphics, some new characters and added accessibility for newcomers.
Team Up!
If any of you are aware of how KoF (King of Fighters) works, then you’ve pretty much played this game already. After going back and playing some previous games in the franchise, like 13 and ’98, I noticed that there really wasn’t that much of a difference in the fighting, other than the fact that it was slightly slower than the sprite-based predecessors, mostly due to the animations of the 3D models. I quickly got used to it however, as the learning curve wasn’t that tough to begin with, and all of the moves that you would expect are still intact in this game. But, if you do feel like you need some guidance, then there is a very simple tutorial that shows you the basics, along with one very useful button. This button in question is none other than the square button.
There have been other fighting games like Persona 4 Arena Ultimax, the Blazblue series and Guilty Gear Xrd, who have their own “Stylish Mode,” in which casual players can simply mash on this one button to automatically activate combos and cool-looking attacks. Stylish Mode was created for the purpose of making people feel good when playing games like these, even if they don’t know any advance techniques; and King of Fighters XIV is no exception. However, the big difference here is that this isn’t a mode that you can turn on or off to make this happen. Instead, it is fully integrated into the fighting system.
So Stylish
Initially, I thought this would be a problem, since I visualized myself accidentally activating the Stylish Mode if I pressed square one too many times, without being able to turn that feature off if I wanted to. Fortunately, I never had that problem. The game is really good that telling when you want to create your own original combos and when you simply want to mash the button and get your enemy out of your face quickly. Switching from one style to the other is very smooth, especially when your opponent has very little health left and you just want to get rid of them quickly and enjoy some flashy attacks. Speaking of flashy visuals, I would like to address the elephant in the room and start talking about the graphical changes from 2D to 3D made to the game, which I’m not a big fan of.
My main issue with the graphical changes is that I don’t feel that they do anything to further improve the King of Fighters experience. If anything, it seems like it deters from it by desperately try to draw attention to itself by doing this change, on top of the fact that the gameplay feel way slower than its predecessors because of it. The cynical side of me likes to think that SNK saw popular titles in the genre like Street Fighter IV, Guilty Gear Xrd, and even smaller ones like Koihime Enbu and Blade Arcus From Shining Battle Arena, and thought that they needed to follow on their footsteps in order to be relevant. Whenever I think about SNK, I think awesome sprite art and memorable art direction, and they completely ruined that winning streak by following the trends and employing this bland, forgettable change that will not withstand the test of time, unlike all the previous game they’ve done, whose art still holds up to this day.
[I originally posted this review on The Buttonsmashers. You can read the rest of the review
by clicking here or just listening to the video version above.]
Game Review – The King of Fighters XIV
0DISCLAIMER: I love to play fighting games all the time, and I have reviewed fighting games before. However, that does not mean that I am a competitive player or have any knowledge about the complexities that they are looking for in games like these. I am, without a doubt, a casual fighting game player. If you are coming here looking for an in-depth analysis on the invincibility frames or a rant on how King of Fighters ’98 will always be better than anything else, you’re in the wrong place.
Short Version: It’s the same King of Fighters as always, and even more accessible than before, which is always a good thing. However I don’t understand why they felt the need to make the game 3D, since it doesn’t really add anything other than to make the game slower and look less interesting. On the other hand, if it weren’t 3D, it probably wouldn’t get even half of the attention it has gotten. If you want a KoF game for PS4, then here it is, and it’s solid, but I’d still rather play any of the previous titles over this one.
Long Version: For some reason, I never really got into The King of Fighters as a kid. In my eyes, it always looked like Street Fighter for cool people, and I definitely wasn’t one of them. Whenever I saw kids older than me play it at an arcade, I always thought that that series only belonged to people that knew what a quarter circle attack was, or folks who understood the significance of mix-ups and reversals. Obviously, that wasn’t the case, and it’s even further enforced now thanks to The King of Fighter XIV, the newest SNK fighting game that now boasts some brand new 3D graphics, some new characters and added accessibility for newcomers.
Team Up!
If any of you are aware of how KoF (King of Fighters) works, then you’ve pretty much played this game already. After going back and playing some previous games in the franchise, like 13 and ’98, I noticed that there really wasn’t that much of a difference in the fighting, other than the fact that it was slightly slower than the sprite-based predecessors, mostly due to the animations of the 3D models. I quickly got used to it however, as the learning curve wasn’t that tough to begin with, and all of the moves that you would expect are still intact in this game. But, if you do feel like you need some guidance, then there is a very simple tutorial that shows you the basics, along with one very useful button. This button in question is none other than the square button.
There have been other fighting games like Persona 4 Arena Ultimax, the Blazblue series and Guilty Gear Xrd, who have their own “Stylish Mode,” in which casual players can simply mash on this one button to automatically activate combos and cool-looking attacks. Stylish Mode was created for the purpose of making people feel good when playing games like these, even if they don’t know any advance techniques; and King of Fighters XIV is no exception. However, the big difference here is that this isn’t a mode that you can turn on or off to make this happen. Instead, it is fully integrated into the fighting system.
So Stylish
Initially, I thought this would be a problem, since I visualized myself accidentally activating the Stylish Mode if I pressed square one too many times, without being able to turn that feature off if I wanted to. Fortunately, I never had that problem. The game is really good that telling when you want to create your own original combos and when you simply want to mash the button and get your enemy out of your face quickly. Switching from one style to the other is very smooth, especially when your opponent has very little health left and you just want to get rid of them quickly and enjoy some flashy attacks. Speaking of flashy visuals, I would like to address the elephant in the room and start talking about the graphical changes from 2D to 3D made to the game, which I’m not a big fan of.
My main issue with the graphical changes is that I don’t feel that they do anything to further improve the King of Fighters experience. If anything, it seems like it deters from it by desperately try to draw attention to itself by doing this change, on top of the fact that the gameplay feel way slower than its predecessors because of it. The cynical side of me likes to think that SNK saw popular titles in the genre like Street Fighter IV, Guilty Gear Xrd, and even smaller ones like Koihime Enbu and Blade Arcus From Shining Battle Arena, and thought that they needed to follow on their footsteps in order to be relevant. Whenever I think about SNK, I think awesome sprite art and memorable art direction, and they completely ruined that winning streak by following the trends and employing this bland, forgettable change that will not withstand the test of time, unlike all the previous game they’ve done, whose art still holds up to this day.
[I originally posted this review on The Buttonsmashers. You can read the rest of the review by clicking here or just listening to the video version above.]Game Review – One Piece: Burning Blood
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