A classic series has for the first time joined the 3D fighting game era, and its first outing is well made. Interesting characters, an in-depth training mode, and a plentiful amount of modes gives The King of Fighters XIV a lot of value for its asking price if you’re into the fighting genre.
Despite a large set of 50 characters, SNK Playmore have been able to make every single one unique. They all have their own fighting style that they can bring to the table. For example, Mettunkun uses a pillow as his main weapon and is extremely sleepy while fighting, the King of Dinosaurs is a Mexican wrestler/grappler character with a dinosaur head, and Zarina is a capoeira fighter who samba dances as she moves. From my time with the game, I found that most of the characters are balanced except for Kian and Kula Diamond. Kian’s divekicks are too quick to efficiently counter with anti-air attacks, especially in a lagging online setting. Kula Diamond has too many abilities such as a quick parry and a fast anti-air. As this is a review that’s being published before the game releases, I cannot determine if there are more imbalances until it fully releases.
Unlike another major fighting game release this year, this game has the staple modes you would expect: A story mode (arcade) which takes you through 10 stages against the CPU, a survival mode, and a time attack mode. There is also an in-depth tutorial mode, which teaches you everything you need to know about King of Fighters’ mechanics and the trial mode that teaches players the essential combos of each character from the large 50-character roster. The training mode is as detailed as you’d like it to be. Depending on where you press the touch pad, you can restart left, center, or right of the stage. The key data and the attack data can be displayed, and the opposing character can be programmed to be set in specific stances. You can also record moves for the opponent to carry out and you can learn how to fight back against them. Plus, you can take your training online and spar with a friend. However, there are two problems if you’re a beginner to KoF and, even worse, if you’re relatively new to fighting games: The input of each move and combo string. You see, unlike Street Fighter V, you have to hold down an arrow button for a second rather than making a simple Z action for some essential attacks. This system feels so stiff in comparison to other titles of this ilk. Plus, the strings that the game asks you to do during the trials and the tutorials are farfetched for the beginner as the combos are comically long.
Even though there is a complex training mode in place, the game has trouble ramping up the difficulty from a button bashing beginner to a competent intermediate. Beginners, if they simply want to play with friends, will have fun as there is a simple string of square attacks you can use to create a flashy combo. However, after that, it’s difficult to really understand useful combos that can aid you against online players as the game throws so many buttons and arrows in each player’s face. Street Fighter V has a mixture of easy and difficult combos that can be beneficial in the battle, but King of Fighters XIV struggles with offering easy-to-use but useful strings. What doesn’t help is that the game doesn’t have the option of switching the high kick, high punch, low punch, and low kick symbols for button prompts. You can view it if you dive deep into the options menu, but it’s clunky for the learning process.
Arcade mode, for what seems like a long time in fighting games, is finally back in the form of a story mode for King of Fighters XIV. While the definition of a “story” is stretched thin, this mode offers multiple endings and hundreds of collectables (concept art from series history and XIV) to obtain throughout it. When playing this mode, I would strongly suggest playing in the teams that the characters are allocated in as you get a particular ending for each one, and some teams get a specific climatic cutscene. Another nice touch is that throughout the story mode, there are rare occurrences of characters speaking to each other in a skit-like scene. These give you some more back story on the characters and their relationships.
But, there are a few gripes with this mode. For most teams, the cutscenes follow the same route and the characters do not have a role in them until a special video plays after defeating the final boss; it would have been great to know why each team was grouped together. The story mode, at 10 rounds, feels too long as it clocks around 25-30 minutes. If you are trying to get through the story mode with each team, you may find some tedium through repetition, especially if you don’t like a team’s fighting style composition. The computer on the default difficulty can also be dumb against projectile-based moves, as they either won’t block or move; they learn after a little while but you can easily defeat bosses by using this tactic over and over again. If you want a good challenge, turn up the difficulty through the options menu. Finally, the story itself is underwhelming. In comparison to other successful fighting game narratives such as Injustice: Gods Among Us and Street Fighter V, this game is incredibly shallow and (without spoiling the game) doesn’t explain its final boss or why they’re fighting in any way. Antanov is funny throughout the slim shell of a story, but his occasional banter in the 25-30 minute length doesn’t make up a narrative. Personally, I would just call this inclusion an arcade mode.
The gameplay mechanics within King of Fighters XIV are top notch. As previously stated, each character feels fleshed out with their own abilities and quirks to master. With 50 characters at each player’s disposal, there is a lot of value and it will take a long time to learn the game at an efficient level. On the other hand, if you’re someone who likes to button bash and dive in, this game is great for that. Abilities are easy to input at random, the square button string of attacks are fun to dish out, and it’s not difficult to pick up and play with the character you like. I can’t wait to play this game with friends on the couch as there is a lot of variety from the character selection.
Throughout the game’s development, a lot of people criticized the game for its new 3D look, and while the game does not stand up to other titles like Street Fighter V or the upcoming Tekken 7, this game has the art to back it up. Just like each character’s fighting moves, their look has just as much diversity and the stages are vibrant. Fights can take place on the Great Wall of China, a Route 66-esque gas station, a shrine on top of a tower, a circus, and a vibrant Brazilian city. All of the stages are interesting landmarks to fight in. The characters on the stages, behind and in battle, lack detail but with its exaggerated anime aesthetic, the game gets away with it. The animations for special attacks can look impressive and each style that SNK Playmore are trying to bring to their characters are fleshed out through their stance and actions on screen. They all feel like they fit in the universe, despite some being from other games.
In King of Fighters XIII, the net code was lackluster for the fans, and unfortunately XIV still does not reach the mark. It hitches often, especially during low connection speeds, and input delay is frequent to the point of not being able to use projectiles. It’s a disappointing matter because the systems around the terrible connection are superb. First, is the ranked match screen, which before the time of the game’s release connected to a player quickly. Second, there are servers you can create that have multiple rooms. You can either queue behind the two people battling or create another match. These rooms also have multiple ways of fighting. You can have a match that can kick out the loser and have the next person in queue join or you can set it up like a tourney. If you want to try something new in King of Fighters with your friends, however, there is Party Mode, which can have 3 players go against 3 others in a team battle. Also, the process and the layout of each screen is smooth, fast, and easy to find.
To add a nitpick, the lack of an English voice cast is disappointing. Atlus is known for its great localization with the Persona series, which has a superb voice cast, but they did not lend their recording and voice directing expertise in this game. One potentially interesting feature that was squandered due to this is the use of the controller speaker. When a character is failing to fight back against his or her combatant, he or she sometimes says something to you, but the voices are in Japanese. Most in North America will have no idea what they’re saying, so it’s a shame this wasn’t used to its full potential. Despite the lack of English voices, the Japanese voice actors overall inhabit their roles nicely with a few annoyingly high pitched characters sprinkled in. SNK Playmore have added the ability to use either a male or female announcer (who are speaking English), so if you don’t like the male default, you can switch. The music of King of Fighters XIV is run-of-the-mill, but it keeps players amped during each battle and the main theme with its rock influences does match the hype of what a fighting game should have when booting up.
The King of Fighters XIV is a game that people should check out, especially if they like the demo. It has a wide variety of characters to choose from – unlike many other fighting games of this generation- there are many modes to fight your way through, and the training mode is in-depth. It’s a shame that poor online connectivity still persists to be an issue for the King of Fighters series and the transition from button basher to a competent player is rough.
A PS4 review code for The King of Fighters XIV was provided by Atlus for the purpose of this review