The King of Fighters 2000/2001

"Game Chemistry: When you combine 2 old games, you make 1 outdated combo pack."

The King of Fighter franchise has recently been only accessible in the arcades and it's very hard to find past years of the series still in Neo Geo cabinets, often replaced by newer versions. Ever since SNK has returned out of bankruptcy, they made it their mission to more on the more successful market of console gaming. For their first hit, they decided to bundle King of Fighters 2000 and 2001 in a nifty combo pack (containing one disc for KOF 2000 and the other for KOF 2001). The initial $30 price tag made it a really good deal to get one of the best and one of the worst KOF games out.

At first I was excited to play the games that had the fighters fight in order to stop the evil NEST cartel from completely destroying the entire world. The game play is it's normal fast-paced fighter like it's always been; however, one thing really bothered when I first held the controller to configure my buttons. First thing: I can only assign a total of six buttons to control the punch, kick, taunt, and striker call functions. I believe with two extra buttons, we can use it for more than those (a roll button would be great). After taking care of that, I went to throw a simple quarter circle forward fireball with the left analog stick and nothing happened. It appears that the games do not respond to the analog sticks at all, making this type of fighter less fluent. Since those two disadvantages are in both discs my expectations are quickly being crushed by how lousy the controls are.

For those who are unfamiliar to these two games, I'll quickly explain the differences in gameplay between the two.

King of Fighters 2000
You pick a team of 4 fighters and choose 3 out of the 4 to actually play in the fight while the last one can be called as a striker to help out and attack when you call him/her. The power bar holds up to 3 power stalks that can be used to use a Desperation Move. As the health of the fighter gets dangerously close, the remaining bar will be flashing red and doing a DM will cause it to be more powerful.

King of Fighters 2001
You pick a team of 4 fighters and choose the amount of people to fight with and the rest will be strikers. With 4 fighters, there will be no strikers, and the amount of power stalks will be 1. With 1 fighter, the other 3 will be strikers (and can be called upon at the same time depending how many power stalks are available), and the amount of power stalks will be a max of 4. DM's and one striker will use up one power stalk each and a Super DM will cost two power stalks no matter on your health.

King of Fighters 2000 is relatively unchanged from its arcade counterpart, except for the addition of Party Mode, which I'll talk about later. The end result: boring.

As for King of Fighters 2001, the whole game got completely revamped from it's lame looking arcade version. Since the game was originally made by Eolith (because SNK was bankrupt at the time), the backgrounds look really crappy to be blunt. SNK had to do something drastic to make this one nice. They added 2 versions of each background done with wonderful details and with a few things moving. In the stage of Brazil, the racetrack originally had poorly pixilated cars just parked there on a turn. In the revamped version, the fighters battle on top of a scaffolding above the racetrack as the cars occasionally drive by (and a car would crash into the railing). This was a great move.

The King of Fighters series has always been fast-paced with a verity of combo possibilities being the catch phrase of these two versions in particular. With strikers (teammates that would come in, do a quick attack, and exit) with the ability to be called in the middle of a combo, the damage is extended and the overall coolness and achievement feels like you've won a medal.

Now these King of Fighters games have one new mode that wasn't available for play in the arcades. Welcome to Party Mode where you fight against a never-ending amount of contenders, one-on-one, until you are defeated. As you play the more opponents are defeated, the more prizes you have won. In KOF 2000, it's just more strikers and the boss being playable. In KOF 2001, the unlockables are the original backgrounds of the game, strikers, and both bosses! There isn't nothing more rewarding than KO'ing 200 fighters to earn to play the cheapest boss in all of fighting game history.

King of Fighters 2000 has hidden unlockables that can be achieved by accomplishing hidden tasks. By completing these fun tasks, the state up movie of the past KOF games are viewable adding more nostalgia to an already ancient game.

Overall, I feel that if these two were sold separately for more than $20 a pop or both for $50, then this combo pack wouldn't be worthy of purchase. The games aren't really that flashy on a huge TV and don't appeal to people outside the fighting game fanbase. With a lack of analog function and the home having little to no actual human competition, it's safe to say that only hardcore King of Fighters fans will only buy this. After a few days of play, either returning it or completely retiring this to the shelf are the only end results of this game combo.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 07/21/04