The King of Fighters: Dream Match 1999

"What I thought would be a dream turned out to be a nightmare."

I may not be the biggest fan of fighting games, but I do enjoy indulging myself in digital fisticuffs every now and then. I may have grown up with Street Fighter, but I'm anything but loyal to that franchise, and SNK fighters have always intrigued me, so when I heard that Electronics Boutique had a copy of the now discontinued King Of Fighters Dream Match for DC, I was in a rush to go snatch it up before somebody else did. I kind of wish I hadn't in retrospect, because it pretty much ruined that 'SNK mystique' that surrounded their games for me before, and now is replaced by apprehension and cynicism whenever I see a King of Fighters game.

I'm not quite sure to start, so I figure I better go with the mainstream and pelt you with my thoughts on the graphics. Well, to be quite frank, they're pretty bad. Don't give me that ''It's only a Neo-Geo'' because that console can pump out some blazing 2-D visuals, so there's simply no excuse for the graphics to to come out like this, especially on the DC. Character models are very ragged, the animation stiff and lacking (though Mai still has her beautiful 'bounce'), and the effects for the special moves are decidedly mediocre. The character portraits themselves look fairly cheap, and the polygonal backrounds are just an eye sore. A couple look ok, but the majority of them look really bad, and it makes me wonder why SNK had to 'upgrade' this part of the game for the DC rev. Why not keep them hand drawn? Was it to show off the 'power' of the Dreamcast? Was it so SNK could claim they made vast improvements to a stagnant product? Well, whatever the reason, it's too bad, because the backrounds really stink.

I could have easily overlooked SNK's penchant for recycling graphics if the gameplay could stack up, but it doesn't. The main reason for this is the stiff control. The control feels sluggish, and it's quite hard to pull off simple maneuvers like a pair of half-circle joypad motions, and the like. What this means is that some moves will will be unnecessarily hard to pull off, which in turn means that you'll be losing a lot to thanks to the lethargic control, which in turn means that those of you with a short temper will be going into controller throwing fits. It's too bad, because otherwise KoF 99 DM has solid, fun gameplay. There's a large cast of characters, and it's probably the deepest 2-D fighter in existence. My only complaint with the gameplay (besides the controls) of this title is that there's no one on one mode. You can only play using three on three teams. Well, that complaint is moot, because in light of the slothful control, it wouldn't have mattered anyways.

All in all, King of Fighters Dream Match 99 is a complete, and utter disappointment. That said, it's still one of the better 2-D fighters available (though it was discontinued, it's anything but hard to find a copy of DM 99) today. If you're an ultra-hardcore SNK freak, go ahead and buy it. If not, well, be content in the knowledge you're not missing out on much.

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Pat is angrily pondering why Agetec picked up the rights for the domestic release of King of Fighters Evolution, but ignored Last Blade 2 Final Edition...

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 03/15/01, Updated 03/15/01