"While it's good, there's still time for this new franchise to develop"

Although the only 3D SNK Neo-Geo Fighting games I've played in my life are Samurai Shodown 64 and Buriki One, SNK had some potential to create really good 3D Fighting Games, although SNK enveloped the majority of their power to 2D Fighting games. While some of SNK's 3D Efforts has never been satisfactory up until this game, SNK has thus decided it was time to put 3D onto a 10-Year Franchise that has been the foundation of SNK's Fighting Game Universe.

That effort is called King of Fighters: Maximum Impact, the very first Console-Only KOF game. While there are some flaws in the game (as I will explain), I will explain why it's worth renting at least a few times:

Graphics

Even though the PlayStation 2 Hardware is now less powerful and takes longer to load as opposed to the Gamecube and even the X-Box, I have to say that SNK has done well at least in the graphics. The textures and backgrounds were lusturous and impressive. The only thing I don't like about the graphics was that as opposed to the 2-D version of KOF, details were not as impressive as with some of the hot-blooded titles such as Tekken or Virtua Fighter, which creators took some time to refine some of the flaws back then. While the textures need a lot of improvement at this point of my life, I'm just gonna give SNK Playmore a breather because since this is just their first 3D KOF, I'm pretty sure they'll have some time to work around the texture problems of certain characters, as some of the characters, such as Mai Shiranui, lost some of her personality traits from her transition from 2D to 3D. With technology advancements on the way, I'm pretty sure that those personality traits will come back through time. Although the game animates smoothly, it can sometimes get choppy when the action gets overly hot.

Sound

While the music blends well with the new 3D Environment, the voice acting does not meet up to my standards, as apparently, the producers decided to "localize" KOF: MI for the American Market by using English Voices that sometimes bleed my ear and/or sound overly cheesey. During the early versions of the game, serious voices were used to portray each of the characters. On this final version of the game that I'm reviewing, the seriousness has been lost by the deployment of cheesey voice-overs. If you can compare Iori's English voice in this game to Kunihiko Yasui on the 2D ones (and if you are lucky enough, the Japanese version of KOF: MI), then you'll see why I have to detract some points away from this game--SNK needs to put the seriousness back to the voices by using the voices WE KNOW (i.e. Masahiro Nonaka as Kyo, Kunihiko Yasui as Iori, Yuuki Matsuda as K' just to name a few) instead of using the English Voices that sound overly cheesey.

Gameplay

While the 2D KOF games were hard to control at certain times, the controls have thus loosened up a bit since then and I liked the way the game controlled. While the gameplay of KOF has not changed, SNK Playmore thus decided that personal combos (called Stylish Moves) would reflect a character's personality, but the only thing that matters is that you still have a good amount of combos to use, probably more combos as opposed to the 2D ones where the timing of certain combos were too strange to consider at times. Certain combos require "Just Frame" input meaning that only a few combos I know require correct frame input, and since the frames flow smoothly, you might have to relearn the whole KOF System by scratch to get used to the new system. Some of the Stylish Moves have long pauses to prevent agressors from cheesing through the game. That's good cheese control. My main complaint here is that certain characters have unfair advantages over the others, though, as Alba Meira is somewhat overpowered at times, while Clark Steel is underpowered.

Choice of Characters

My big complaint is that you no longer have a team of 3 or 4 in your roster. Instead, it's everybody on their own, but you can do a 3 on 3 match with whoever you want. Otherwise, it's everybody on their own. My major complaint is that there are only 5 new characters in the game (Alba and Soiree Meira, Lien Neville, Chae Lim, and Mignon Beart, storyline of this game focuses mainly on the Meira brothers) with a total of 19 characters to select from right off the bat. I wished that there could be at least 32 characters to choose from, but was not done so due to memory limitations. There's one boss character that you can play later on as you continue to be better in the game--SNK Boss Syndrome takes full effect here (High-Gauge Specials, Unfair Priority and Damage, Unlimited Supers), but I'm glad that it's down to a lesser degree here (as there were some pretty cheap SNK Bosses in the past, Rugal Bernstein from KOF 94 being the worst). There are some characters that are on my wish list (Kim Jae Hoon, Kain R. Heinlein, Wolfgang Krauser, Joe Higashi just to name a few) on future installments, though. Otherwise, enjoy the rather mundane roster of 19 characters.

Overall

As the very first 3D Fighting Console-Only game for the PlayStation 2, I'm gonna have to say that King of Fighters Maximum Impact is SNK's more original effort since some of the classic games such as Vanguard and Samurai Shodown. While there are some flaws and weaknesses of the game that I have noticed overtime, the gameplay is the main attraction for why I'd give it at least some rental attention. Judging that there are gonna be sequels and/or even installments to the 3D SNK Fighting Game universe since SNK's recovery from bankruptcy, King of Fighters in a 3D Environment has a lot of potential and there's gonna be even more technology advancements in the future so SNK Playmore has a lot of time to fully develop the game and to correct their mistakes from this effort. Otherwise, KOF MI is an OK game, though there are a lot of flaws that can be corrected in the future.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 01/03/05