The King of Fighters 2001

"A word from the best Ryo user in Hong Kong..."

Well just to make a benchmark between my score of 7, i believe that Kof2000 should be scored 10 out of 10.

Firstly I was very hyped about the game when it first came out, but after looking at the movies and the movelists I became a bit disappointed. When I finally got my hands on it today (15 November) I was even more disappointed, I'll tell ya why throughout this review.

Story
I don't really wanna talk much about this section here, because it's has been always the same, and i don't really wanna spoil it for anyone (doubt I'll do). However I'll say here that the bosses in the game all look like Zero from kof2k. The fact they all use that annoying black cape and the same type of moves. Also I'll say that the last boss is pretty cheap considering he has enarly everything of Zero and Krizalid.

Graphics
The whole new feel of this game has actually changed, even though i like the 2k one better, the current game looks more coulourful, which i don't think is a good thing. The character selection screen looks butt ugly this year and the power bar looks really damn plain. However the backgrounds of each stage is pretty impressive. I actually have'nt seen the startup introduction yet, because everyone wants to play it, but i heard from my friends ''its not much special''. Artwork after the match looks again butt ugly, as Takuma seems 'younger' and Yuri is skinny as hell. Characters drawn on the selecting screen look fake and cartoonish, but new characters like K9999 look pretty sexy :) (*you'll know what i mean when you play the game!).

Audio
The problem about my arcade is that everything is so loud I can't even hear myslef, but however the sounds of the characters have been the same by using the same voice actors.

GAMEPLAY!!

Speed of the game
Ok this is the problem about the game which i don't really like. The game is generally faster which is really bad for the Kof System. Now because the game is faster, the game just becomes a poking match, for example for me as Yuri, all i do is jump and keep on poking the opponent with light kicks, works all the time! The other problem is that characters such as Chang and Maxima just plainly suck now because they just get poked all day... and die...

Strikers
Although i still do not know what happends when you have two strikers, i think they alternate after every striker call. Anyways a great point about the Kof 2k was the active striker system, because of all teh strikers of the game it increases replayabilty and also because being able to call a striker during jumping or hitting, this just allows players to give them a chance to turn the whole game around.

The strikers in the game are all diffrent this year such as Ryo jumping and doing his fireball but rushing and doing his hcf hcf p. Or Joe not able to hit people off the ground now

Characters
I think characters are not as balaced as before like 2k, ryo and Yuri are Ok now, but characters like Kim and Iori are jusr Cheap. Kim can now easily do a 7 hit combo and is a bit too fast. Iori can do two hcb p and do maiden masher... And then all the other charcters such as chang just Suck now. Takua again is cheap as he has that Lin combo where he can hit them up and do the fwd bck fwd thing like Lin in 2K which is excessively cheap

I also have friends who were complaining that all the vannessa and Seth combos were gone...

Wire-attack

Is that ALL Eolioth can think of?! This new system is cool but actually only happens rarely.. like once in one or two games. Also the fact that it is pretty hard to hit afterwards could be an advantage.

Supers
Because of the new system you don't really rely on these anymore because you may be considering either to use Striker or super. Because of the speed of the game supers i think now are more likely to hit which is an advantage of now using 4 characters.

Although this review makes this games seem like a load of turd, but in fact if you liked Kof 99 than 2000 i think you might like this game. However if you loved 2000 and hated 1999, you amy have the same feeling as me. But because it is a Kof game it should deserve some credit.

The overall score I gave should be 6.5 but because I'm not allowed it is 7. I recommend you to try this game a few times if you hate it play again in a few months when its cheaper, if you love it keep on playing because you don't want challengers who are better than you!

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 11/15/01, Updated 11/15/01