The King of Fighters 2001

"Funny coincidence the fun of KOF dies when SNK does."

Well, I expected a lot and I mean A LOT from this game, and I was let down at every turn. The problem doesn't lie in the game itself the problem lies the the games lack of originality. Read on.

GRAPHICS: 6

Here I'll separate it into two categories, In-game graphics and Pre-game graphics.

In-Game graphics: 8

Not too bad. Overall the stages look good, are well drawn fairly colorful and are done like KOF 97 in terms of fighting in a tournament setting in some type of arena with an audience watching and cameras taping the fight. I liked that type of setup and I missed it in KOF 98, 99 and 2000. However in my mind the backgrounds in 99 are the very best in the series (nothing beats the courtyard in the rain stage...truly the best KOF stage ever), and the graphics here don't really live up. They have improved over 2000, but I really would have liked the characters to have been significantly updated/upgraded since it was being developed by another company. At least new costumes would have been in order.

Pre-game graphics: 2

I can't tell you how bad, (strike that) awful (strike that) GOD-AWFUL the character portraits look! No they do not reveal something about the characters personality, for that why don't you look at the KOF 99 win portraits, or any 2000 portraits, those rock, 2001 are schlock! The portraits are drawn in a bad comic-booky type of style that looks like the art in any of the worst comics you've seen. They really are bad!

Sound: 7

What can you say? It's just KOF sound. The voices are a double edged sword. While they are well acted, and SNK/Eolith has employed some skilled voice-actors to lend their talents to this game, and the voices are very clear and you can understand what each character is saying (unlike some previous KOF's)BUT...for some reason the voices grate on me. I don't know why. Maybe it's because they seem to have been slowed down, like a record being played at partial speed. This gives them a grumbly, scratchy type of quality that is obviously not from the recording. Kyo sounds like he's 35, Iori 50 and so on. But as for the sound effects they are still top notch and up to KOF expectations.

Music: 7

Not great, not bad, just there. I've had mixed feelings about KOF music for a long time. Early KOF games music are okay, but the music got better over time (except for 98 which is bland and repetitive guitar/bass tracks). My favorites in the music department are 2000 and especially 99. 2001, is about par with say a 96 or 97.

Gameplay: 3

Once again I'm going to have to split this into three sub-categories, A combos, B cheapness, C General Gameplay

A: Combos (10)

All the combos are there and then some. Of course some characters have different combos every year, or slightly tweaked playablility, or different moves and this year is not an exception. However with the addition of super-cancelling, what we have is a great game for combos. The game plays more like 97 or 98 than 99 or 2000 did thanks to the toned down striker system which I'll get into later.

B: cheapness (10) which is a bad thing, not good.

That's right...all you who thought 2000 was the cheapest KOF, not by a long shot pall! 2K1 will knock your socks off with cheapness!

Why?

Imbalance.

Right from the get go you have characters that are overpoweringly strong, and some who are too easy to play with and too strong and others who just sink to the bottom of the vast sea of 40 characters like a proverbial rock. Heidern comes to mind as a super cheap character. Pick a Ratio 4 (ratio 4...in KOF??!!!) Heidern and play just like those most well known of cheapy characters, Ryu and Ken from SF2!!! That's right the return of the old fireball/dragon punch (type) trap! Yep...we've been thrown back 11 years to the days of the first (well known) fighting game! The sick thing here it that it works like a charm! Other cheap characters are May Lee, Iori and Kim, who all have overpowering priority and combos. This game just excels at cheapness. At least in 2000 everyone could pick Seth as their striker and do okay if they just time when to call him out, not here. It's very difficult to get out of cheap traps in this game if you're using a weaker character. So out of a roster of 40 characters, you have maybe 5 or 6 good ones.....chew on that for awhile.

General Gameplay: 5

Wire Damage System: 3
Lacking in originality, we have no Counter mode, Armor mode, Extra Mode or Advanced mode...no just the Wire Damage system. Which is basically just that each character has a move that will knock the opponent back against the wall, setting up for a juggle combo...and yes it can be deadly if used right. But cheaply deadly in terms of being too damaging, with 100% combos or 80% combos when done effectively.

Ratio System: 1

Let's get this straight right from the start...KOF players are used to teams of THREE (3) players. That's been the way of KOF from the dawn of KOF. We don't want it to be changed!!! However with the new ratio (oh that's original) system you are STRONGLY incentivised to play with a 2 man team or 1 man. Why??? Because the more players you have, the fewer supers you can stock at one time. With a 4 person team, you get 1...ONE!!! And with a three man team you only get 2, which means to take advantage of strikers or Super Cancels, you need to have a 2 or 1 man team. To make matters worse, the more players you have to more damage you take, and I mean YOU REALLY TAKE DAMAGE! Plus you only get one or two supers which take FOREVER to charge! At least in CVS2 if you have a three character team, your super meter charges exactly the same way as if you had picked 2 or 1 character! Man the KOF 2K1 ratio system REALLY SUCKS!!!

Replay Value: 2

Not much there. For a cheapy game, 2000 was sure a heck of a lot of fun! 99 is still probably my favorite, with a nice balanced striker system, and Couter and Armor modes. Of course up until 2K1 every KOF was just loads of fun, but I find myself getting really bored of this one really fast. It's a shame that a game bearing the name of an incredible legacy like KOF, that 2K1 would tarnish the name so much. I guess we'll just have to see what tricks the new SNK NeoGeo/Eolith has in store for us in 2002.

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 02/14/02, Updated 02/14/02