"Apparently the Dream Match never does end..."

Well it seems that after last year's visual fiasco, Eolith has taken the sure-fire path to appeasing disgruntled KoF fan's by attempting to remake what is arguably the best game in the series, the legendary KoF'98. The problem with remaking a classic is that although you have the assurance that the material you're working with is almost guaranteed to succeed, if it's not handled right then you only end up looking like a hack on a cash run that has no respect for all that is ''classic''. Fortunately Eolith hasn't marred the franchise with their modern rendition of the original ''KoF Special'', but it is obvious that returning to the old formula, the ''real'' KoF formula, was an act of desperation after nearly sinking the ship in 2001.

Ever since the controversial introduction of strikers to KoF's engine in '99, the general consensus has been that the original formula (stronger characters w/no strikers) was less cheeze oriented, and therefore better than the striker crazy, infinite combo ridden ''Vs.'' style gameplay that KoF had more recently adopted. In terms of KoF gameplay, the situation of abusive striker combos heavily outweighing the usage of the actual characters hit it's peak in '00, then was somewhat subdued in '01 with a ''me too'' Capcom vs SNK style ratio system. Now it's good to see that in '02 the craziness has been completely abandoned and cast back into the putrid hell-pit from which it came. The fans rejoice... or do they?

See, this action raises a curious question. Is going back to the old-school a wise choice for KoF at this point in time, or has the gameplay evolved too much past '98 to bother bringing the series back to it's roots? Although I do like KoF 2002, I have mixed feelings about it because regardless of the fact that they've finally tuned in to the fans, this game really brings little new to the series and in essence feels like a de-evolution. KoF'95 was a high-powered '94, KoF'98 was a streamlined '97, and now KoF'02 seems like a re-hashed '98. The series has remade an existing game before and is quite guilty of sticking with what works (see: animation dating back to '96), but this is the first time that the series actually attempts to remake a remake.

Unlike with KoF'98 where it was a scripted stalling point for SNK to think about where KoF was gonna go next, I feel that KoF 2002 is an act of desperation as Eolith tries to keep this franchise above water. It's obvious that another half-ass game like 2001 would've killed off KoF for sure, so the next logical step is either to totally rebuild from the ground up, or to resurrect a classic and exploit it's former prowess. Eolith chose the latter, and now after years of complaining from old-school fans, another ''special'' has arrived and the series has returned to original formula.

With that said, on with the review...

What we have here with The King of Fighters 2002 is the ninth game in the series, and it's second ''special''; a ''dream match'' game that casts the story and timeline to the wind for the sheer enjoyment of bringing back forgotten and/or dead characters in order to have them all fight, new & old, in the same arena. Traditionally SNK's specials are the best playing games in the series because all effort is focused on tweaking an existing engine to perfection and balancing a roster of elite characters, regardless if they should be there or not, resulting in a game tuned very much towards tournament play.

KoF'02 meets the special grade in terms of being without a story, but it's engine is a hybrid of new and old. Gone are strikers and 4-man teams, back are MAX mode and 3-man teams, and added are a new Super Cancel system and other various experimental gameplay features. All-in-all it makes for a great mix, and you can't help but enjoy the return to character based fighting over striker combo based fighting.

The gameplay is there, but again, it all feels a bit samey seeing as they didn't really go to far past what '98 had already done. For instance, if you're gonna do another KoF Special then why not add all the characters that we were crying for back in '98? Sure the Orochi team was a no-brainer, but where's Geese? Mr.Big? Eiji? Why do I have an old version of Kyo that I've been over for years instead of someone like Duck King who's been taunting me with his background cameos since '94!? Sure KoF'02 delivers conceptually, but it kinda fails in the character department seeing as it's really not expanding on what '98 already did.

Anyway...

GRAPHICS
KoF'02 is a VAST improvement over the laughable look of '01. It seems Eolith realized the error of their ways, fired all the amateur hack artists that embarrassed themselves and the franchise in '01, and hired some decent help to illustrate their game this time around.

The backgrounds, although still not up to SNK's standards in my opinion, are now much more KoF-like and no longer look like some of your little sister's work that your mother had taped to the fridge. No, the backgrounds aren't great, but they no longer hurt your eyes to look at either. As a comparison, I'd say the only background in '01 that I could even stomach was Italy (water, bridge, fans...), and the stuff in '02 is all at least at par with that.

The characters themselves haven't gained or lost anything substantial and for the most part look the same, but I did notice that certain characters have had moves/attacks reverted back to their older forms. Thing is, rather than re-animating them, they've just swapped the newer animations for the older ones. Strange...

Inversely, in terms of animation there has been some very substantial changes added. For instance, Takuma retains his basic look but a lot of his moves have been changed, bringing a lot of new animation with them... well kinda. Some are entirely new moves, others are new moves that use old animations minus the special effect (namely the one that uses his Haoshokoken animation, only without the fireball).

But one thing I do have to note is that all the characters, although sporting multiple colors to choose from once again, haven't been re-colored at all and still appear slightly drab. '99 to '00 was a step down in sprite coloring volume, as was '00 to '01, and it was understandable due to the sheer memory weight of the strikers & all, but in '02 there's just no excuse for it. There's no striker animations or elaborately colorful backgrounds to suck up the memory, so there's absolutely no reason that the characters themselves can't return to '99 standards. I mean what, are you guys just gonna stick with these same exact sprites forever? And just to get back to the alternate character colors again for a second, the dude who thought most of these gems up must've straight smoked himself retarded... if you thought Ralf's 2P color from '01 was stanky, the ''black'' Vanessa and ''undead'' Ryo are gonna have you rolling on the floor in hysterics.

As far as special effects are concerned, some moves have new special effects & such (flames, etc), but it's all the same stock stuff you're used to seeing. Nothing noteworthy here.

On a more particular note, some things have been done that have been a long time coming while others have messed around with a good thing. For instance, it's refreshing to see that Ryo finally has his old hand & foot guards back. You may or may not appreciate the old-school Art of Fighting tribute, but Ryo has looked exactly the same since '96 and was due for a much needed change... as small as it may be. But then you also have grievances like the ever changing Athena. Okay guys, although I understand that it's a ''KoF thing'', I'm sick of seeing her outfit of choice get closer and closer to the bottom of the barrel every single year. She was fine in 2000, I could have lived with that, what exactly is she wearing this year? She's a psychic/fighter/idol, not some refugee from the Jetsons. Oh, and then there's Vice. *rolling my eyes* She looked cool in '98 and had a menacing, very befitting stance. It's obvious that they tried to emulate her pimp-limp thing from Capcom vs SNK this year, only it looks about half as good... shoulda just left her alone, fellas.

So overall the graphics are a mixed bag; some good, some bad, but definitely better than '01. That's for sure. Yeah graphics aren't everything, but for this portion or the review they are.

MUSIC/SOUND
The music is actually there this time. Like, I can actually remember one of the songs besides the versus character select tune. True, there's a few old remixes and it's still generally below KoF standard, but it is an improvement.

Now the voice acting is definitely a mixed bag. You have Terry sporting his Garou: Mark of the Wolves speech (but sadly still dressed in his rocker gear) and Vice with a whole bunch of new stuff, but then other characters, like Dash, lose signature voices that you're used to hearing. Also, the quality of the samples is inconsistent as well. Some sound clear, others muffled, and key guys like Kyo have had some of their speech redone. Just like the way they keep changing Iori's maniacal laugh even though he nailed it the first time out in '95, they've now fooled around too much with Kyo and completely lost the spirit of his ''Ore no... kachi da'', even though it was perfect in back '99.

As for sound effects, flames still burn, punches still *smack*, and the sound effects guy still has a job.

GAMEPLAY/CONTROL
Okay, as KoF'02's general 3-man KoF'98-like gameplay feature couldn't possible have escaped you, I won't go too much into detail about it. But what I will say is that the strikers are gone, bringing back the character strategy that escaped once Seth and Higashi started getting themselves banned as strikers at arcades worldwide. Yes the gameplay is still based on lengthy combos, but it's not a one-touch-kill thing anymore now that the cheeze has been put back in the fridge.

What they've introduced to replace the strikers is an all new Super Cancel system that allows you to cancel special moves into other special moves, which can get pretty abusive at times. However, unlike with strikers, the gameplay feels more balanced because yes, the system does allow for some some s-i-i-i-c-k combos, but there's no more ''defensive striker play'' wherein you purposefully leave yourself open, just so you can counter the retaliation with a striker and then lay in with your character's easiest infinite combo... nope, the war of attrition is over and the fighting is back.

They've got '98's round progressive stock storage feature in there, the MAX mode allows for all the crazy cancels at the cost of meter time, and they've brought back the ''red zone'' thing to allow for new/hidden SDM's. Overall it's a fairly dynamic system that's loads of fun and infinitely more interesting than the multiple striker system from '01.

One thing that's weird though is the fact that in order to allow for this new canceling system, they've slightly weakened the field, taking away moves/abilities here, adding them there... you can bust people up in MAX mode, but otherwise your favorite character is probably missing something that you used to like. But by no means is it all like that, in some instances, like with Maxima, you get some of his missing auto-guards back which makes a huge difference and makes him feel right again.

That's one thing for sure, there's been more than enough character & engine tweaks made to justify this game's existence and make it feel new. It's in other categories which KoF'02 falls a bit short...

The control seems to be accurate and all the regular KoF command shortcuts & such have been retained, but I've been having a problem with command delay. It's kinda hard to explain, but unlike any other KoF to date, for some reason this game seems to intermittently pop out weird moves. For instance, say I'm playing Kyo and crouch guarding an attack. I guard the attack, it pushes me back, and I attempt to regular jump forward immediately after push-out, only my jump command is a split second too early (while still guarding). Now you'd expect the result to be nothing but you standing there after the push-out, but instead Kyo does a delayed super jump after his guard animation ends. Okay... I was last holding down-back before the attack contacted, and I whiffed the jump, so why am I super jumping? This particular situation has only happened like once, but I'm finding that strange delays like this happen every now & then. It's probably just a joystick problem with the machine I'm playing on, but otherwise that's a pretty serious control glitch.

The only sort of gimmicky thing added to the gameplay doesn't come in the form of ratios or anything, but instead in the ability to choose your next opponent. It's been done before and really adds nothing to the gameplay, but I guess it doesn't hurt it either. As interesting as that was for you to read is exactly how much it adds to the game ^_^

Oh, and to be completely honest, the whole concept of bringing back Rugal as the boss for the 4th time just sickens me. ''Hey, he's stronger and has some new moves!''. So? I've been beating that fool down since 1994, kid. How about you gather all the KoF bosses and slap them in there one after another? Something, anything but another Rugal... the Kyo clones, anything.

GENERAL PRESENTATION
Well Eolith deserves a standing ovation for this one because this game's shell is far better than their last attempt. They've got a retro '97 thing going on with the actual character sprites being visual between matches, only they've also added a more high tech theme with stylish futuro fonts to it all. The result is kinda a mix between KoF'97 and KoF'99 Evolution.

However the character select screen is a bit jumbled with all the character icons jammed to one side of the screen, leaving a character portraits to be displayed on the other. Oh, and for some reason the time you get to choose your character has been shortened again (?).

The actual battle screen is okay but the series has seen better. The thin energy bars ala KoF'97 and thin profile stock bar with high profile numbers takes a little getting used to, but it works. And they brought back the character name text again... apparently is was necessary despite all the '01 activists out there that claimed they preferred the way '01 dropped them and went with a very utilitarian look.

A big improvement comes in the form of the character portrait art. No, they're not better than the likes of '00 and '95, but man, am I ever happy that the fool who cranked out those heinously ugly portraits last year is '01 now collecting food stamps. Later man, don't forget to close the door behind you! Malicious I may be, but that guy should be ashamed of himself... as should the guy who hired him.

FINAL THOUGHTS
So I've probably only skimmed over some important things that should've been grinded out in great detail, but the truth is that I don't actually own this game, I just play it in the arcade from time to time, and what I'm trying to do is express to you is my view of this game as a long time KoF fan.

No it's not the best game in the series, but yes it is better than KoF'01. Yes it's good enough to ensure that Eolith will get another crack at KoF again next year, but no it's not polished enough to be regarded as one of the best in the series. It's got a shiny a new engine, but in essence it's too similar to KoF'98 to elevate above it. Had they expanded the roster beyond that of '98, thrown in a different boss or two, and tried to make a truly new KoF Special rather than a rehash of the old one, then perhaps I would be giving it a higher score and rushing out to buy the ROM cartridge, but for the time being I'm not. I'm perfectly content with dropping by the arcade on my way home from work to play this one, and for this fan it means KoF'02 falls short in some way.

As you can see, I was a little let down by this game because on paper it looked to be the best KoF to date, especially considering that it had done us all a favor by returning to original formula. But don't get me wrong here. Despite my somewhat negative thoughts on this game, it is a great game that's fun to play and worthy of the KoF title, it's just less than what I had anticipated. From what I've experienced, and on a scale particular to KoF games, I can only give The King of Fighters 2002 a 7/10... maybe it's an 8, but I'm punishing it one point for being a sub-par ''special''.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 02/13/03, Updated 02/13/03