The King of Fighters '95

"Takara makes your dreams come true"

Somewhere in Japan, two companies met and decided to strike a conversation. The story however does not say how two companies could ever talk but let us just close our eyes for a second and imagine that such a thing is indeed possible.

SNK : Hmmm…It'll be a few years before we get the idea of creating our own portable system. It would be great if someone else could port our KOF games to that small Nintendo system.
Takara : Fear no more, the great Takara is here !
SNK : Who ?
Takara : Huh, we may be unknown now but just leave everything to us…You won't regret it.

And thus The King of Fighters '95, SNK's mighty effort and continuation of its trademark fighting series got ported to the GameBoy. Skepticism may arise once one hears of this. What ? A fighter on this portable ? It would be wise to drop the idea since there has never been a good fighter on the GameBoy and, let us not be afraid to say it, the portable isn't powerful enough to host such a game. Think no more, Takara has done the impossible !

-- Story --

[Pinch me ! A plot in a fighter ?]

In the far away year of 1995, a supposedly dead guy by the name of Rugal rose from his abode and decided to become god. He couldn't do it alone though and being relatively weak himself, he was doomed to seek help from other ruthless warriors. Well, not all of them were actually ruthless but I like that word. Anyway, he thus organized this tournament although he lost to a certain Kyo Kusanagi a year back and was hence presumed to be dead. But as Rugal didn't realize he was dead, he went ahead and sent invitations to this new fighting party.

Either Kyo Kusanagi was very stupid or maybe he just sensed that something fishy was going on, but he nevertheless accepted the invitation along with his new comrades, Goro and Ryo, in this GameBoy version. Other participants include new character Iori Yagami who forms a wicked team with Geese's bodyguard, William Kane, and Eiji Kisaragi, the controversial ninja. The remaining cast consists of Terry Bogard, Yuri Sakazaki, Joe Higashi, Heidern, Ralf, Athena, Kim, Kensou and Mai. These don't really form teams since the roster has changed compared to the original version but it certainly looks like it at the character select screen.

While each character had his own motive for being in the original version of this game -on Arcade and Neo*Geo-, the story here has been altered and now revolves mainly around Kyo, Iori, Saisyu and Rugal with Billy and Eiji trying to put it in your thick mind that Mr. Yagami should be a forced to reckon with. Therefore, while Team Mode still exists, it has lost that special feel it has in the original version. Don't let this fool you though, the plot is as solid as ever and is still a good reason to get this game. And Saisyu himself does make everything worthwhile.

-- Graphics --

[Ebony & Ivory !]

This is the GameBoy and things may have been really bad. Everybody thought Takara was trying to do the impossible but yet, they managed to pull out something extraordinary. While characters are obviously now pint-sized and boast only two colors, they still have those characteristics that made them so popular back when KOF 95 was getting all the attention in arcades. Frames had to be taken out to have the game run at a good rate and this similarly came off beautifully although some moves may look weird at first glance.

You can still make out Kyo's bandana as he hops around. Athena, Terry, Ryo and everybody else are faithfully rendered and every single move has made its way onto this GameBoy version. That may sound far-fetched but it's actually here. The animation lives up to its arcade version and while some minor slow-downs may occur -such as when both players pull their desperation moves at the same time-, these are quickly forgotten.

Backgrounds too look like great. While there are only a few of those -since you face less opponents-, they have been designed such that you actually get the feeling that this is a mere background. The main flaw that may happen in a portable game is that the backgrounds may interfere with the actual gameplay. Takara however eluded this problem by giving them an eerie ghost-like appearance. Did their idea work ? Yessir !

-- Sound --

[Esaka ?]

The sound is probably the aspect that came off worse in this port but I suppose that was to be expected since the graphics are so good. There are no sound effects. Voices and the usual effects that normally accompany any move have all been left out and that's not really surprising. New themes have been composed for this port and while these do not fare well against the ones that haunted arcades for months, they are still pretty nice. Of course, you may not even hear them mainly because nobody puts the sound on while playing on a GameBoy.

The music is not memorable and you'll hear none of those awesome tracks that made this series so popular here, but they suit the game's atmosphere well. My other gripe however concerns the weird effects that occasionally pop up and make the themes seem to trail on. I found a problem to avoid this though, I put the sound off. Or I cut my ears off but I heard this may hurt, so I just tend to stick to the first method.

-- Control --

[Tap B, hold A, tap A, hold B,…Button-mashing not recommended.]

Since the GameBoy shamelessly has only 2 buttons, Takara had to come up with something as KOF titles rely on a 4-button set-up which consists of weak and strong punches and kicks. The way they eluded this additional problem may take some time to get used to but is actually the best. This would be later shown as SNK used the same system with their own ports on their own portable systems. Tapping a button results in the weak version of said move, holding down the button lets you unleash stronger blows.

Sure, it takes some time get used to but the system grows upon you such that even combos come easy to perform with enough practice. Of course, you still need to pray that there is no slow-down just as you are going to pull out one of Iori's most powerful combos. Certain special moves may however be hard to pull as the GameBoy is not suited for circular motions with its lousy directional buttons but experts should get used to it in less time that it takes to beat down Rugal.

-- Gameplay --

[Kick, special move, punch, take that, it's all in the mind.]

This GameBoy versions boasts a Single Play mode in addition to the usual Team Play but should you know someone else who owns the game, it is possible to make full use of the link cable for the Single Vs and Team Vs Modes. While Team Mode bizarrely tends to get uninteresting after a while -easily explainable by the fact that there are few team possibilities-, Single Play is hugely entertaining and lasts for a very long time.

The difficulty level however remains to be questioned as the CPU always falls for the same cheap patterns and a single move alone can take you to the end of the game, the first example that springs to mine being Iori's projectile closely followed by any of Eiji's moves. Rugal too is never as tough as he was in either original version as Takara seems to have forgotten to sprinkle him with the infamous SNK Boss Syndrome. This is not really a fault though because, this being the GameBoy, a too high difficulty may have been too much. Just consider this as my masochist side trying to make itself heard.

-- Bottom Paragraph --

[Bottom Line has deceased.]

The King of Fighters '95 remains one of the finest fighters on this system I could never even smell. Of course, some may argue that competition isn't exactly lively as most fighting games on the GameBoy are crap but Takara pulled a real stunt with this title. The atmosphere of the game is preserved while each aspect has been devilishly included to make it as complete as possible. I however don't think that a lot of GameBoy owners enjoy fighting games but should you be the rare exception, this is one of the few very games to get.

~ Score : 8 ~

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 06/12/02, Updated 11/09/02