Changing things again, this years King of
Fighters revamps the gameplay, giving choices, new characters, and unique
love-it-or-hate-it audio. The gameplay is as powerful as ever, and this is one of the
entries that creates fans. It takes everything that made '96 such a success, and
one-ups it yet again.
Granted,
most of the tweaks to the actual fighting are minor. The major one comes in the form of
super bars. Players have the choice to keep the rather hated charge meters from the
previous year, or switch to a Street Fighter styled one where they charge up
automatically as the fight continues. You can also store up to three specials at once, and
unleash them as desired.
That should make everyone happy, including those reluctant to change. The roster changes
are plentiful again, keeping things fresh without losing what the fans want. SNK is
amazing at this, finding the right balance whenever adding in new characters (including
Blue Mary's first appearance, along with the Orochi crew).
Bringing the biggest change is the atmosphere. This is one of the earliest
fighting games to make these tournaments the spectacle the stories make them out to be.
Cameramen film in the background, satellite dishes beam signals, and people cheer
(sometimes from bleacher seats) as the fight occurs in front of them. In-between fights,
TV broadcast like graphics introduce the locale and the story, which changes depending on
what characters are chosen (amongst other factors), leads to brief "special
report" segments.
This goes a long way to making the game seem new, not just from the King of Fighters
series, but any other entry into the crowded genre. Also gone, almost entirely, is the
music. Certain big name characters have their own tracks. Everyone else battles it out to
ambient noise. It's a shame, especially since certain themes (like Kyo's) are brilliant.
You'll never realize how much you miss video game music until this.
The punishing difficulty is all but gone here in single player. Even the final boss fight
is accessible to new players, a rarity in any SNK fighter. This is the perfect entry to do
this with, especially with the extensive replay value given because of the alternate
endings.
This series would continue on an upswing, changing, manipulating, and swapping out pieces
of the formula. King of Fighters '97 is true the start of all that. It would
occasionally seem desperate, and that makes '97 the best of the initial four.
