"“Hey! Lighten up dude, this is KOF! Enjoy it!” – Terry Bogard"

Welcome to another year in King of Fighters goodness. This year, Eolith has been kind enough to continue the tradition to hold another dream match after the end of a saga. Just like in 1998, practically everyone that you know and love from past games are back in this brand new edition of KOF. Teams from KOF '96 are ready to spar with teams of '01. Alas, it's time to see if the NEST troops can hang with the Orochi New Face team along with every team in between. As the Black Eyed Peas put it best, “Let's get it started!” Welcome to the dream match part two: King of Fighters 2002!

I like this year's KOF game better than most of the other games in the series. To begin with, the controls are basically the same with some minor alterations to the power bar. This year, it's like the “Advance Power Bar” from KOF 98'. Attacking relentlessly will gradually fill up the gauge until it reaches the limit of three power stalks. With these power stalks, the option of using either a DM (desperation move) or activating the stalk (going into Max Mode) is open. By pressing the B and C buttons, that will use up one stalk to begin a timer for Max Mode where the fighter can use a SDM (super desperation move) or cancel special moves into other special moves in order to make combos.

Who doesn't love finishing something with a bang? When the life of the fighter is in the red zone (literally), the desperation in “desperation move” is taken to a whole new level. Every character has a Hidden Super Desperation Move that he/she can use during this critical time of battle. The requirements are heavy; however, so is the damage that these moves can do. Not only the character must be on the brink of death, he/she must go into max mode and do a string of complex commands to unleash its devastating might. Who know? Maybe it can turn the entire match around?

I wasn't really thrilled when I saw the cast. Eolith disappointed many fans by not including King and Shingo in any team despite being veterans themselves. Second, they dropped the idea of including the USA team (one of my favorite teams, BTW) who only had the pleasure to grace two games. Lastly, they brought back the most prolific boss in the KOF as an over aggressive maniac with a lot of cheating combo possibilities.

How can I phrase this without going over board? Ah, screw it. The music sucks like, WOAH! I mean, all it is, is some low-pitched synthesized bass sound with a catchy beginning. In fact, the first five seconds of each sound byte in each stage is the only great part of the entire audio portion of the game. After that, the next twenty-five seconds is just some slow ending waiting to be recycled. This is the crappiest soundtrack to a King of Fighters game I've ever heard!

I got to admit, Eolith did a better job on the background animations than they did the last time. I also got to admit that Eolith's second chance at making the background animations still suck. It was a pleasure to see the differences in the time of day in every round, but it's kind of disturbing seeing past bosses (Wolfgang and Geese) cheering on in the weak pixilated background when they know they can easily whoop some butt. In addition, I've notice that the whole animation recycles itself every three seconds making it even less spectacular.

I have to admit that the only thing I enjoy enough to play this over and over again are the endings and doing everyone's HSDM. The endings really don't tell a story but offer comical relief using the animations of everyone's moves to symbolize something else. I loved the baseball spoofs with Angel pitching, Billy hitting with his cane, then Joe sliding in. That is really creative.

As for the HSDMs, some of them are just plain cool to watch. For example, Angel has a counter HSDM where she slams the opponent on the floor and does her version of the Rock's People's Elbow. That alone is hilarious. Then there's Orochi Shermie's where she invokes a thunderstorm and (with chance) strikes upon thee like the Zeus. There's even a short cinematic to add more drama. Then there's Orochi Chris who can turn into Orochi himself, which is really cool too.

It seems like King of Fighters '02 is all about the game play. Nice job seeing that this is the last year that we'll see Eolith (along with K9999, Angel and May Lee) again. They did a commendable job this year to bring the mayhem of combo possibilities, which are really fun to watch. Well, out with the old and in with the new. SNK/P (SNK Playmore to be accurate) is back with vengeance. What creative saga are they going to scheme up this time? Until then, let's wave good bye to the Eolith's fun (but crappy looking) venture into the KOF world.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 07/24/04