King of Fighters: Maximum Impact

"Fun but . . . dang, it should've been better."

I'm relatively new to King of Fighters, as I've been playing CAPCOM games for a long time. I bought Fatal Fury when it first came out, and didn't buy another SNK game until King of Fighters: Maximum Impact. Since then, I've played King of Fighters '99 through 2001. Frankly, this game doesn't live up to them.

Don't get me wrong, this game can be fun. It's just not so much, if you're a fan of King of Fighters. If you enjoyed Fatal Fury, then this may be the game for you.

The King of fighters Tournament was started in the Fatal Fury storyline. As part of the Fatal fury storyline, it was made as a way for Geese Howard, original boss of the Fatal Fury world, to dispose of possible threats to his empire (though cleverly disguised as a fighting tournament with a big cash prize). In 1994, when the King of Fighters tournament received it's own series of games (somewhat separate from Fatal Fury), the story became much more global than it's Fatal Fury Counterpart, taking place in all parts of the world, with catastrophic, earth shattering consequences, if the fighters were all to be defeated. In this way, Maximum Impact is a step backwards.

The story of this game takes place in Southtown, the city where the Fatal Fury series started, and was centered. The main characters, Alba and Soiree, are brothers, whose mentor was killed by a man named Duke (the boss of the game). Now, only by entering the King of Fighters tournament, can either brother hope to gain access to duke in order to defeat him. Sound familiar? That's probably because this is almost the same storyline as was used in the first Fatal Fury game.

Also, the way in which the story is presented is greatly lacking. Personally, I have rather enjoyed the KOF storyline since it's development. However, I have always felt as thought it could be presented better, but I made due with what I was given. With the relatively awesome 3d graphics of this game, I was sure that my gripes about the story would be fixed here. I expected great 3d cinematic sequences to push the story along, in a way that the 2d world could never do. What I actually received, was a strange man telling my fighter who (s)he would fight in the next battle, with no story really given to anyone outside of the three main characters (the few main character get a few cut scenes to progress the story, and all characters get a few words in after the final battle, but in terms of a real story for them, there is none).

The similarities don't stop there. King of Fighters has always been a team based fighting game. You pick a team of three (or four in some games), and fight another team. If you pick a character that is in effective against a character that throws fireballs, then you've got another character on your team, who is (hopefully) not so ineffective. Can you only beat a character with a certain character, but not with another? It doesn't matter, you've got they can both be on your team. Not so, with maximum impact. The “story” mode only allows one fighter for two rounds against a single other fighter. This type of one on one battle has been available in other King of Fighters games, though never mandatory in the story mode. The option to play a three-on-three match exist in this game, but only for single, fights, and not for the story mode at all.

Another thing, it that King of Fighters Games are famous for it's their large character roster. The original King of Fighters Game had 26 characters, in 2000 there were 36, and in 2002 there were 46. Maximum Impact takes this number back down to twenty. This leads to many disgruntled fans, because many favorite characters were left out, including characters that have been with the tournament since before King of Fighters was even it's own game.

Then comes the actual meat and potatoes of any fighting game . . . the game play. Well, the game is okay in this respect. The physics are okay. The fighting engine is okay. The moves are animated and executed pretty well. The worst part about the fighting in this game is that the characters are VERY unbalanced. Essentially, if you are used to playing King of Fighters, you will probably have a more difficult time getting used to this game. Also, when fighting he computer, the AI has a habit of doing single moves repeatedly. If, as I did, you expect them not to continue to do this move and move stay in range of it, you can be hurt bad, as they will continue to do the move until you are dead. If you bypass that move (that is, dodge it, stay out of range, or sidestep it), it doesn't mean they'll stop. The AI may very well keep doing the same move, which leads to very boring fights.

Visually, this game is pleasing enough. The character models seem pretty well done. The backgrounds are pretty as well. Neither is the best, but they are done well enough to not be perceived as ugly. The character animations are quick, and attractive. The characters move much more fluidly than in the 2d versions, which were often times very sluggish. Many people have a problem with the voice acting. All the voices are in English, but many people feel as though the voices don't match many of the characters very well. I found no real problem with the voices, and was pleased that for once I could actually understand what the characters were saying to each other before the fights.

Overall, this really isn't a bad fighting game. It looks good, the voices are okay, the fighting is . . . well . . . mediocre. When it comes to a King of Fighters Game, however, one expects more than mediocre. One expects a great, unique fighting game experience. Frankly, this isn't that. More time should have been spent giving this game a better fighting engine, balancing the characters, and developing better AI. Though, many of this games problems don't stem from it being a 3d fighter, I'd like to see SNK Playmore build a better game. They may just have to stick to two dimensions to accomplish that.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 02/08/05