Game #1062: The King of Fighters XIV

 The King of Fighters goes JoJo. 

 The King of Fighters XIV is here and alongside it a new Hero and a new saga... even if Kyo steals the limelight in the game's cover. The King of Fighters XIII was something special, and for a company that doesn't have the budget other companies have it was gonna be a tough act to follow, so they sacrificed quality for quantity, kinda.

 Remember how GORGEOUS XIII looked? Well, it came at a cost. XII was disastrous, it came very late in Ash's saga, and while the game was beautiful the character roster was pathetic and the lack of content was shameful, my favorite character K' was missing too. XIII  and XII were beautiful... and expensive, so with XIV we get 3-D graphics. Ultra simple, and a bit ugly, 3-D graphics. Some of these characters have certainly seen better days, and I'm super peeved that Terry isn't using his Garou look. And while I understand that Ash is gone, I'm disappointed that him and his partners(Shen Woo, Duo Lon) are gone entirely. On the other hand, thanks to keeping graphics simple and low budget, we get a TON of characters. FIFTY characters. It's a roster that dwarfs the competition, featuring a ton of returning characters and a healthy amount of cool new characters. Personally, I would've preferred if they had built on the previous game's roster while keeping the fantastic new 2-D assets, but at the end of the day I understand why they had to keep things simple.

 Once you get over how bad it looks(I mean, it's perfectly acceptable, but coming right out of XIII does make it look ugly in comparison) you'll discover that it plays just as well as any other game in the franchise. Ex special moves are gone, but now you can power up your super moves by using two gauges by pressing two buttons when inputting the command. You get a quick MAX mode activation that halves how long it lasts but gets you on the move, so it can be pretty useful. Oh, and of course, the game still has evasive rolls and three types of jumps, wouldn't be KoF without them! Yeah, I'm happy to report that it's pretty fun, plus, I think the skill floor was lowered, as I was able to make my combos much more easily that in XIII, which had some pretty strict timing! The one thing I didn't like... like pretty much every other modern fighting game, mashing the weak attack button produces an autocombo. Lame. Auto-combos should be OPTIONAL, like they used to be, I just want to mash the weak punch button and branch into combos of my own creation, is that too much to ask?

 Alongside the Arcade Ladder, there's a pretty decent tutorial, a training mode, character trials, Survival and Time attack, making it a pretty complete package. There's an extensive gallery that houses official art and music, which you'll regularly unlock as you play through the game.

 I can't really say that SNK knocked it out of the park, since the previous game still did some things better than this one, more than just the graphics, the overall art direction was much superior, the setting and story was more interesting and while I think this game has some fantastic new designs(A Brazilian ninja! A boxer with a bionic arm! The new hero fights with something akin to a JoJo stand!) I do miss characters from the Ash saga, such as Adelheid, Ash, Shen Woo and Duo Lon. I do feel like some of the mechanics and higher skill floor also made the previous game a bit more hype, which was also aided by a more robust visual presentation. Still, it's a much better 'new engine installment' than XII ever was, and I can tell that SNK did the best they could with the budget and time that they had.

 8.0