King of the Monsters

"Please make it stop!"

You would figure that with a game that features oversized monsters and characters fighting in a city, or rather, demolishing a city while they fight, would be something worth taking a look at. However, in this lackluster fighting title by the king of fighting games {SNK}, you find that there is little here that will impress or keep your interest for more than a couple of minutes. With sub-par visuals, lacking audio and a non-aggressive fighting combination system, there is hardly a game worth playing, let alone reviewing. King of Monsters is no King in this world, but rather a court jester that needs to be put out of its misery!

-The Game Play-

You start by selecting one of several different fighters that include a huge Godzilla style creature, a gorilla, a super hero and even a giant bug. From there, you fight using various maneuvers that revolve around punching, kicking and drop kicking your opponents into submission. Now, when you start playing through the game, you’ll find that you only take on five other creatures before the game ends and you get a small ending. This makes the game exceptionally short for starters, and you’ll find that the fighting styles vary only in the way they are presented.

Fighting through the game is pretty simple, with limited combinations and grabbing maneuvers to use, there is little imagination that goes on here. Something of interest is that when you do happen to knock down your opponent, you gain a power capsule that will help you to beef-up your monster for some more interesting attacks. However, you’ll find that even the powered attacks are limited and they only last for a small time before you end up as the same old character you started out with. This is something of a disappointment considering that SNK put so much damned effort into the King of Fighters series and did little here.

Control really isn’t much of an issue either, with most of the moves being easy to pull off and complete. Moving around the stage takes a little practice and you’ll find that once you get through the game and learn what there is, it really is that simple. Jumping is essentially useless in its application, and the punching/kicking portion just doesn’t seem to have anything going for it. Anyone of any skill level who has played a fighting game can pick up on the controls, which is a blessing for beginners and a curse for veterans who have to put up with button mashers!

-The Visuals-

Grainy to say the least, you’ll find that the visuals really don’t have a lot going for them. The characters are interesting in their designs, but they lack any sort of depth and intricate detailing like what you would expect to find in fighting game characters. The moves themselves lack any real depth and detail and even the locations that you fight in really don’t offer or add anything to the fight. The only thing that the visuals have going for it is that the cities are demolished beneath you as you fight, but that really is the most interesting thing about the presentation.

-The Audio-

Yet another feature that the game seems to be seriously lacking in, is that the stages all have pretty much the same theme, but with a slightly different beat. There isn’t much here that you can listen to and you might find that the game just doesn’t have the pace setting themes you would want to fight to. The sound effects are also another feature that just doesn’t cut it. With the standard grunts, groans, partial explosions and the occasional thudding of a creature on the ground, you really don’t have much that keeps you company in the audio department.

-The Verdict-

King of Monsters is a poor attempt to cash in on some of the older monster movies that you would catch on television late at night in the way of Godzilla vs. Mothra. What the game has to offer is more of a comical view of a fighting game that honestly couldn’t be taken seriously when most fighting game fans know that SNK has done better than this. The visuals are below standard, the audio is lacking in most respects and even the control is lackluster of anything interesting to fight with. If you can stomach playing through this, then you’re a better gamer than me, because this one is just a waste of money.

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 10/02/02, Updated 10/02/02