The King of Fighters EX: Neo Blood

"Good for the first hour..."

When someone mentions a fighting game these days, the two main games that come to mind are Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat. The third most known series, at least it was five years ago, is King of Fighters. Initially available on the SNK Neo*Geo and occasionally on another system, King of Fighters followed SNK's variant of the ''Street Fighter'' motions (half circle back, punch, etc.) in a way that was it's own. By 2000, the series, like virtually every two dimensional fighting game at the time, faced extinction from the three dimensions of Virtua Fighter and Tekken. In late 2001, SNK passed the torch to Sammy, who oversaw the promotion of KoF EX, the first KoF for the Advance Game Boy. But is it as good as the series other outings on the GB? Let's see...

Graphics - 4.5/10

If not for fourth-world trash like SW: Episode II, this would have been a one. Animations range from smooth to atrocious, and that's just the projectiles. Robert's hair has maybe three frames of movement, while Athena's chest has five. And yes, ladies, the ''bounces'' that this series is notorious for is back again, only that the animations found in the Dreamcast port of the Neo*Geo CD KoF '98 is missing. And most of the legs barely seem to touch the ground! One of the biggest faults is the overlap that happens when your fighter is standing /behind/ your opponent. Behind, you ask? The characters may be facing each other, but the attacks go through them. This also is a game play feature, but the sprites are supposed to match the action on screen, and fails miserably.

Sound - 4.0/10

I'm giving this a fair rating simply because of the quality of the voices. The music is average at best, but the voices range from barely understandable English to excellant Japanese. Most of the moves share the same sounds, if they have sounds at all. I found myself often playing with the volume off due to scratchy high-pithched girls throwing swooshing fans at each other.

Controls - See Game Play (a fighting game and it's controls are one, after all...)

Game Play - 6.0/10

This the core of any fighting game, as any game can have the best graphics and still be a 2600 ET at the controls. And this game takes that statement and reverses it - so-so graphics and good control. I say good, as jumping towards or away from your opponent is near impossible to do without jamming your thumb into the D-pad. But while this setback drops the score four points, most of the rest is easy. Press down, down forward, forward and punch to throw a fan or fireball, and reverse to launch a kick. And they even threw memorization out and put the moves in a menu during game time. And they also added a four or three button control scheme if you can't reach the L button. The only other complaint control-wise was the difficulty in pulling off the Super Super moves, which required syncrinized pressing of two buttons after a motion. This is very hard to do, and even in the practice mode is near impossible.

As far as extras, don't look here for any. After you unlock the hidden ''strikers,'' who are added to the list of useless (more later), and get the two hidden characters, you're done. End of story.

The strikers system was a complete waste, as half the time, I was well out of range for the ''partner'' to hit my opponent. And when they actually worked, they were blocked. The only good side is that Yuri is actually in the game somewhere...

Finally, the difficulty seems to be the same on any mode. I won Expert with Athena using just jump kicks and running sweeps. Sad...

Replay - 0.5/10

If you find a friend that has this game as well, then you can call that replay value. Otherwise, after you beat it, it'll just collect dust. There is nothing after beating it; sorry.

Overall - 5.0/10

I expected too much of this game, but the minuses are inexcusable. Most of the complaints are areas that, with a little time and patience, would be corrected. Sadly, this is not so. And they took Yuri out!!! Oh, that doesn't matter...

Hopefully, EX2 will have these problems fixed in time prior to it's impending release.

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 04/14/03, Updated 04/14/03