King of Fighters: Maximum Impact

"A good start for SNK's new series, but not much more"

As a long time SNK and KOF fan I was worried when SNK announced a 3d KOF. I've been playing their fighting games since Samurai Spirits 1, and the idea of changing their formula seemed ludicris to me.

When I saw the first footage I felt relieved, it looked like the game was coming along really well, and when I got to play it I was impressed, at first...

Graphics: 7/10
Nothing great really, but as an SNK fan I was surprised to see that alot of the characters retained their image in three dimensions. They not only look like their old selves, but the feel of their character is very well translated. Backgrounds look nice and have the requisite cameo's which make them alot of fun to look through (Geese's and King's cameos were my favorite finds).

The animations are the only real problem with the graphics. The way they strung together the motion capture was awesome, and the over the top, impossible moves look great... except when they connect. This is probably my biggest complaint in the graphics department. Your fist hitting somebody's face just isn't as satisfying as it should be.

Sound: 4/10
You can't expect too much in great music from most fighting games (Guilty Gear aside), so I'm giving this very little sway in my score here. What really bugged me was the english voice acting. It's bad, real bad. It's not like we haven't come to expect this from fighting games, but that doesn't excuse it. To make matters worse, there is no option to return the characters to the voices we've known for about 10 years now. The DVD this game is stored on is only about half full, and the original VA was there for the japanese version, so is it really that hard to give us as an option?

Control: 8/10
Controls are near classic KOF, with the additions of a sidestep. The sidestep though, is the biggest problem with the controls. Sidestepping is done by pressing the roll command without a direction, or while pressing up or down. This means that you can not approach and sidestep at the same time. This is unacceptable when games like Soul Calibur have fluid movement systems that allow you to approach an enemy from any angle.

Otherwise though, pulling off moves it done just like it was in 2d KOF games. Putting players like myself right at home. The only thing that threw me was how inaccurate you could be and still have the move executed. It made the experience really fluid for people I knew who didn't play fighting games. I was even able to score a few converts, who now play 2d fighters with me regularly because of this.

Gameplay, Balance, and Roster: 2/10
Ok, who's idea was it to make a KOF and not have Joe? I want my damn Joe! The Roster in this game is small, and understandably so, they had to make every character over again from the ground up. But it seems like they didn't get all the essentials. Many characters who have been in every KOF games are missing, and we have 4 new characters (5 if you count Kim's replacement and 6 if you count Duke). Not only this, but the new characters are just plain broken.

Anyways... the rest mechanics in this game need some serious work. Balanace is really screwy, and isn't on par with other SNK titles (boss characters aside, I realize the boss characters are always broken as hell in SNK games). You can really abuse the walls for cheap wins, and since you can no longer roll through your opponent, there isn't so much you can do to get out of it. Getting up takes too long, emphasizing the safe fall mechanism, but it really throws off people just getting into the game.

In the end, it is this category that drags down the entire game.

Conclusion:
This is really an unfinished game, but it shows promise. If SNK boosts the roster for the next go around, and fixes the gameplay issues, they just might have a winner, but as is... it's simply not worth your money. Only buy it if, like me, you just wanted to give SNK the support.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 02/22/05