The King of Fighters 2001:
Spend some time with it and you'll eventually realize that it's one of
the deepest, most technical 2D fighting games ever made.
Arcade-game
developer SNK officially went out of business in 2001, but that hasn't
seemed to slow down what is apparently a new generation of games for the
company's NeoGeo arcade hardware. One of the last projects the company
was working on was The King of Fighters 2001, the latest edition in
SNK's annual fighting game series, along with a new developer, Eolith.
And while certain aspects of KOF 2001 may seem very different from
previous games, spend some time with it and you'll eventually realize
that it's one of the deepest, most technical 2D fighting games ever
made.
It's
no secret that SNK's NeoGeo hardware is old. Over 10 years old. That's
why its games still use low-resolution, hand-drawn sprites for its
characters, rather than switching to a 3D engine or at least using
high-frame-rate, high-resolution graphics. The age of the NeoGeo
hardware seems painfully obvious when you look at KOF 2001's shoddy
background stages, which look generic at best and ugly and pixelated at
worst. But over the years, SNK's artists have perfected a bunch of
visual tricks to help add detail to their characters and give them lots
of personality. And KOF 2001's characters have lots of personality--as
much as you'd expect from SNK, a company with a history of making some
of the most distinctive and memorable 2D fighting game characters ever.
You'll see it in your character's win poses and taunts and in other
extra animations. It's true (and unfortunate) that KOF 2001 reuses a lot
of old character animation from previous games, so that some
characters--especially the newest ones--look better than others. But
most characters have at least some new animations, win poses, and
special attacks--more than enough to make each one more interesting than
they were in the previous game, KOF 2000.
Another
KOF tradition is good voice acting; KOF 2001's voice work is about as
good as it was in 2000. Sullen, moody characters like Iori and Kyo snarl
and sneer appropriately, while upbeat, smart-mouthed characters like
Ramon and Joe hurl insults at their opponents and laugh in their faces.
KOF 2001's sound effects are pretty much adequate; they resemble those
from previous years, which is just fine. Quick jabs sound like quick
jabs, strong punches sound like strong punches, and KOF's infamous suite
of flashy explosions and fiery bursts of flame sound just like you'd
expect them to. Unfortunately, KOF 2001's music isn't as good. From the
series' beginning in 1994, its soundtracks were eclectic mixes of funk,
jazz, '80s-style guitar rock, and heavy metal, though in later years,
the soundtracks have degenerated into generic techno music. KOF's music
is at an all-time low in 2001. Though it tries to hold to a theme of
mostly bass and percussion, it all ends up being the same kind of bland,
forgettable techno music you've heard about a zillion times in every
other video game with a techno soundtrack.
Fortunately,
if you play KOF 2001, you'll probably ignore the game's awful
background stages and mediocre music, because you'll be too busy
fighting it out to notice anything else. KOF 2001 has a roster of 40
different playable characters, but they're all remarkably well balanced;
you can pit just about any of them against any other and have a fair
fight. And every character has enough special attacks and strategies to
be interesting--unlike in KOF 2000 and KOF '99, which simply dumbed down
a lot of characters to favor the new striker system. Strikers--extra
characters that you call in from offscreen to do a single attack or
two--are still in KOF 2001, but they're much more balanced than in
previous games and are actually completely optional in 2001. Basically,
the game gives you four character slots, and you can choose as many
playable characters as you want--four playable characters with no
strikers, two playable characters and two strikers, and so on. If you
don't pick any strikers, you characters will do less damage and won't be
able to perform their most powerful super attacks; if you pick one or
more strikers, you'll be able to do more damage and access super
attacks, but you'll have fewer playable characters on your team. It's a
system that resembles Capcom vs. SNK 2's ratio system, but it's much
more balanced.
But
that isn't all. KOF 2001 also has super cancel attacks, which let you
quickly cancel a special attack and turn it into a super attack, as in
Street Fighter EX and Street Fighter III. 2001 also has "wire attacks,"
which bounce your opponent off the corner of the screen and let you
quickly hit your opponent with a follow-up attack, like the wall juggles
in Guilty Gear X. You'll find plenty of skills to master in KOF 2001
without getting into the specifics of each of your favorite characters,
though you'll definitely want to do that too, especially with some of
the new characters in the game. For instance, the newcomer Mei Lee is a
martial artist with two completely distinct fighting stances that you
can switch between in an instant, while another newcomer, Angel, is a
completely original and completely bizarre character with a huge set of
special attacks that are keyed off of a single kick. And if you're
playing the game at your arcade, you should actually be able to play
some decent practice rounds in a single-player game, since the computer
opponents generally aren't too tough, at least until you get to the end.
The final battle with KOF 2001's boss character is probably the most
insanely difficult and frustrating fight in the entire series. But if
you're lucky enough to play KOF 2001 at an arcade with some actual
competition, you'll find that the game holds up extremely well in
head-to-head play.
Most
King of Fighters diehards will tell you that '98 was the best game in
the series because of its excellent character balance and its huge
character roster (38 characters, plus 12 "alternate" versions of some
characters) of very deep, interesting characters. KOF 2001 doesn't have
the sort of flat-out character-against-character matchups that '98 did,
because of its strikers and its varying team sizes, but it's still a
great game in its own right. Its different options, striker and wire
attacks, and sizeable character roster will let you play KOF 2001 for a
good long time before you tire of it--and they also help make KOF 2001
one of the deepest 2D fighting games ever.
Serial Number:
Number: HappyASR
Key: A220-CC87-5884-0F96
