The King of Fighters 2001

"One step forward, two steps back."

Well, well, well...what do we have here? SNK sinks into the ground, and a new company, the Korean Playmore, gets the rights to one of the most popular 2D fighting series. Rival only to Street Fighter in terms of popularity, how does the latest King of Fighters game measure up? Playmore apparently tried to please the fans, but just what happened?

CHARACTERS - 6

Uh, what can I say? There's a lot. Off the top of my head, I want to say there's forty normal characters and two secrets, but that figure may be off by eight or so. Regardless, there's a lot of people to choose from. Not only that, but this is the only KoF game where Foxy, one of SNK's best character designs, is fully playable. Also, we get the introduction of May Lee - Kim Kapwhan's new hottie apprentice -, K9999 - another clone of Kyo who looks nothing like him and is sent out to kill K' -, and Angel - fanservice babe extrodinaire with a complete different style of play. Anyways, you'll find somebody that appeals to you. I promise.

GRAPHICS - 5

Blah, blah, blah. We've all been here before, haven't we? The short version is dated but solid. A good deal of characters have retained the same sprite since 1996. Basically, what I'm saying is, ''Don't get your hopes up.'' With the aged hardware of the Neo Geo, the graphics and animation aren't going to be living up to Street Fighter 3: Third Strike or Guilty Gear X. Does that mean the pixels are going to be the size of The Rock's biceps? No. In fact, some of the newer sprites look very slick (Benimaru, Angel), and the fact that Ralf has had the same sprite since 1994 without looking like CvS2 Morrigan is a good thing. It's just that SNK's laziness seems to live on in Playmore. Ho-hum, what can you do?

At this point, I should also probably note that Playmore picked up a new artist. Although it doesn't affect the game at all, I really don't like the new art style found in the game. Granted, it's unique, but I don't find it appealing. That's just me, though.

On a related note, one very frequent complaint for this game is the backgrounds. This time, I have to agree with the popular opinion. In the past, KoF games have had nice backgrounds, with slick animations and all-around nice settings. In this game, the backgrounds are worse than those found in 1994. I'm not kidding; they are a pixelated mess. Period.

MUSIC & SOUND - 0

Oh god. Oh god. Oh god. Where do I start?

In the past six games, The King of Fighters has been known for its excellent themes over the years. KoF has graced us with video game music classics such as Cool Jam, Still Green, KD-0079, Tears, Desert Requiem, Psycho Soldiers, Slum No. 5, Fairy...the list goes on. So SNK dies, and one would think that a new music team has to take over. The job they do? Absolutely. Completely. Utterly. TERRIBLE.

For starters, the synths you're forced to listen to suck. I don't like to use that word in a review, but that's all I can use to describe it. The synths suck. In past years, the sounds in KoF games have had a smooth quality to them; now, we get some sort of half-assed synthesized distortion. The melodies are often disproportionately louder than the rest of the piece, and the basslines are droning at best.

However, a crappy medium can be saved by good conceptualization, right? Well, maybe. The music to this game certainly can't test that hypothesis. If you gathered the world's most talented orchestra, band, or whatever to play the music to this game, it'd still sound horrible. The melodies are as simplistic as a third grader's composition for music class. The loops for the music lasts roughly thirty seconds, tops. There's some music that's bad in that it's bland and you ignore. But KoF01's music is so bad, it's distracting. You think I'm joking. I wish I were.

I'm serious when I say that the music alone can completely drain your will to play the game.

GAMEPLAY - 4.5

A mixed bag if ever there was one. A lot of standrad KoF form is still around: AB rolls (a roll forwards or backwards in which you are invincible for a short period of time), CD blowbacks (a slow attack that knocks back your attacker), and the Advanced super bar (a bar that charges as you hit or get hit, and can build up to be used to call in strikers or spent on super moves).

Apparently, Playmore was doing a bit of experimentation with the striker system, and I can respect that. After KoF00 (often named ''Strikerfest 2000'' by anti-striker fanboys), something needed work. So, Playmore chose a ratio system. For those of you unfamiliar with what a ratio system might mean, it's basically this: Each character can be assigned a certain amount of power depending on how many characters you send into combat. Hmmm, that doesn't really help, does it? Maybe I ought to back up a few steps.

Original, KoF was a 3-on-3 system. You chose a team of three characters, and pit them against each other. When a character was KO'ed, the next guy in line on his team would jump in, the winner would get a little health back, and they'd go at it again, until one side exhausted all three characters. In 1999, SNK implemented the striker system, where the teams expanded to four. It would still be three characters in combat, and the fourth would be the ''striker,'' where s/he could be called in a certain number of times per round to jump in, perform an attack, and jump out. Now, in 2001, Playmore has allowed us to tinker with how many strikers and fighters we want. You can send in all four team members to fight, or only send in one and give him/her three strikers. The advantage to more fighters is more sheer manpower, at the cost of only being able to hold one stock in your super-bar, with an incredibly long super-bar at that. With one character and three strikers, not only does your one character get the ability to hold four stocks in a short super-bar, but s/he also gets massive bonuses to his/her health bar.

Sounds good in theory; it looks like it adds another dimension to the gameplay.

In reality, the result is a mostly 1-on-1 game. Not that I dislike traditional 1-on-1 fighting, but the ratio system is mostly all for naught. The simple truth is that having all four characters fight puts you at a massive disadvantage. Your characters are somewhat weaker than any other team, the super bar takes an eternity to build up, and none of your characters can use SDMs. A character with three strikers can quite literally rip through a team without strikers. And Heidern with three strikers? Geez, why bother unlocking the bosses?

Speaking of bosses, I'll throw in a short thought on them: They're cheaper than ever. KoF00's Zero makes a return, but this time his cheap moves have been augmented with unlimited strikers. Of course, he's nothing compared to Igniz, who has an infinite combo that consists entirely of one move performed over and over again. You can unlock them, but they're only playable in VS, Practice, and Survival modes. However, they make for good stress relief.

BELLS & WHISTLES - 6

Oh man, I really want to rate this section higher, but that god damn music has foiled me once again. The Neo Geo version of this game has standard single player mode, both team and single, VS mode, and survival. Nothing out of the ordinary. The Dreamcast version contains two extras not found in the Neo Geo version, one of which isn't worth your time, the other of which is almost. The former is the art gallery, which is unlocked by beating the game with the character you wish to unlock. However, I've already commented on the artwork in the game.

The other extra is Puzzle Mode. To steal a line from the Capcom vs SNK 2 announcer: Oh man, are you ready for this? As an avid fan of the Puzzle Bobble series, Magical Drop 3, and Twinkle Star Sprites, I flipped my wig when I saw this option. Granted, the puzzle game itself is actually really, really simplistic, but it's a fun break from the game itself. In fact, one could argue the puzzle game is more fun than the actual game, but that's something else entirely. In Puzzle Mode, you choose a character and they're given a field filled with colored blocks. You drop 2x2 blocks of various colors onto the field, and any time you connect four or more blocks of the same color, they disappear and your special bar fills up a little. As your special bar fills up, you can perform your special moves, which have various effects depending on which character you're using. Of course, the fun part is watching your character beat the crap out of the other character when they do the move. As you drop blocks, the field will shrink. If you clear your field, you win; if your blocks cross a certain line, you lose.

Like I've said, Puzzle Mode is pretty simple fun, especially against other people. However, it does have a single downfall that I've already mentioned: THE MUSIC. The music from the game plays in the background here. Not only that, but the sound effects as you move, drop, and eliminate blocks will drive you insane. Simply moving your block around, trying to position where you want it to drop will make your ears bleed. You'll want to play the game, but your ears will beg to differ. And alas, that is why I can't give Puzzle Mode a 12 or higher.

Pros
+New character designs are nice
+Puzzle Mode
+Foxy exclusive!

Cons
-Gameplay is a little one-dimensional
-Music that drains your will to live

OVERALL - 4 (NOT AN AVERAGE)

What can I say in closing? To be frank, I think this game is the pits of the series. Between an experiment gone wrong and terrible music, the game really doesn't have much holding power. Trust me, do not go out of your way to locate this one. If you manage to find the Dreamcast version for free, you might want to give Puzzle Mode a try, but the game has little to no holding power beyond that. I say, skip over this one.

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 09/17/03