The King of Fighters '97

"A decent fighting game that is the compilation of classic SNK titles."

Fatal Fury. Art of Fighting. Great SNK fighting games come together for the third installment of King of Fighters, the '97 version. Classic fighters such as Terry Bogart from FF and Ryo from AoF duke it out along with 27 playable characters and 2 modes of play. When I first bought the game, I was unfamiliar with KoF as well as AoF. Everyone knows FF, but since the game offers a comprehensive Advanced mode where characters' performance are impacted by rivalries between the various fighters. There is also an Expert mode, which I am still not sure what it does. To me, there really does not seem that much of a difference anyway. My biggest gripe about this game is its loading time. This game came out at a time when RAM carts were available, and by golly they should have used them. Instead you spend more time waiting for the game to load then you actually do fighting. Anyway, on to the review.

Gameplay - The controls are decent. Nothing to brag about here, and most of the moves have such a large recovery time if you actually hit the other person (I found it quite difficult to time a jump kick so I can hit and not get thrown around like a piece of garbage when I hit the ground). Special moves are very difficult to pull off, but if you do, they either do an unfair amount of damage or you just sit there and ask "Why did I waste my time with that?" In any event, most characters are slow and the computer is too darn cheap. The game tried to make countering a big thing, but it gets carried away when I pull off a variety of different moves and get it reversed or countered right in the middle.

Story - Another tournament story, as we've all seen before. What's interesting are the rivalries and relationships between the different fighters. With 27 to choose from, I am still trying to find out what's going on.

Sounds - Sounds are cool, but overshadowed by mediocre gameplay and loading time which just ruins the game.

Graphics - The graphics are not bad! If the loading time was cut in half, the graphics would be more noticable. It seems like you see the loading screen more often than a fighting screen though. I must admit that the versus screen (right before a bout) is really impressive. That has to be the best screen in the game!

Replayability - If you have patience to wait 10 seconds in between every darn screen and can handle mediocre gameplay, this is the game for you. I have a hard time putting the game in my Saturn because I know I will end up playing 2 or 3 bouts and spend minutes loading. Needless to say, the game doesn't find its way there very often. In fact, I never beat the game. Never had the urge to.

Overall - This game I guess was worth the $5 I paid for it. It is an import, and I am glad it never was domesticated. The fighting isn't that bad, but the bottom line is it just takes so darn long to load, which drives me insane! I wish I could say it was worth waiting the seemingly hours for it to load, but it wasn't. Cut the loading time, and you have a pretty sweet game.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 01/04/00, Updated 01/04/00