What makes a game to be remembered by all? You have to bring something that the gamers never imagined. SNK did the same thing when they released King of Fighters ‘94 for the Neo Geo home and arcade console. It was an innovative concept of bringing characters from Fatal Fury, Art of Fighting, Ikari Warriors and Psycho Soldier along with original KOF characters. The strategy paid off as fans from the games mentioned above could not wait to play with their favorite character.

Now being part of the first set of Neo Geo Station released for the PS3 and PSP through the Playstation Network (PSN), the question remains whether the $8.99 price tag ($7.99 for PSN Plus users) is justified or not. KOF 94 is a fighting game with characters from the games mentioned above, forming teams and representing different nations. It uses a 4 button combination for Light Kick, Light Punch, Strong Kick and Strong Punch, which is similar to previous SNK titles like Fatal Fury. SNK also adds the function of combining all three buttons assigned to one of the trigger buttons in the PS3 controller. This is helpful to power up the character during the battle and to fill up the battle meter located at the bottom of the screen. Unlike the arcades where the player has to trigger all three buttons, the addition of the three button trigger system is indeed a blessing. The reason is that, unlike the arcades, performing moves in this game can be very hard. During the gameplay experience, I mostly had to rely on the d-pad rather than the analog stick of the PS3 controller to perform character moves. It is a disadvantage to those players who rely mostly on analog sticks to play fighting games like this. The three button trigger system balances this issue to make life easier.

Methinks the countries in KoF are messed up..

The game offers a team based gameplay or a single player gameplay. The team based gameplay allows you select one of the eight teams and also lets you choose the character orders (I.e. which character from the team you want to use in the battle). In a team based game, the player has to defeat all the three characters from the opponent team to win the battle. The battle is longer, considering the fact there are six characters involved. When the players defeats a character from the opponent team the player is rewarded with slight hit points boost. The battle can end either by K.O. or when the time runs out, where the player with the most health wins. There might be instance where double K.O. can happen.

Additionally, the player can also fill up the energy bar and this energy can make the attacks stronger for a limited period of time. When the energy bar is at maximum, it is at that point the move is strongest. There might be an instance when the player has only 25% of health left and the health bars starts to flash red. It is at that time the player can inflict a desperation move which can be seriously devastating to the opponents. This could be a problem to the opponents, in terms of gameplay, since the other player may not be able to notice when the desperation move is applied. There is no indication of special moves being applied, like flashes in later KOF games.

One disappointing aspect of this game is that SNK could have added creation of random teams, since gamers always like to put their favorite characters in their own team. Well I can’t blame the developers since they tried to keep the game as original as possible and the game is basically run through emulators. The single player mode can be considered a minor option, provided there is already a team based option. In single player mode, a player can select one of the characters and there will be only two round fights just like in many fighting games.

The graphics in the game are basically the same as what was found in the arcades. SNK could have taken some time either to improve the graphics (or even could consider an HD remake). Even the sound is basically the same. I can understand they are bringing a great game to the PSN and keeping its roots, but it’s the customers who will be paying $8.99 for this game. Like other Neo Geo Station games, the game also offers network play, where players can create matches and invite friends or set up a quick match against opponents in the PSN.

Here is the bottom line, KOF 94 is still a good competitive game, but the developers could have added more functions to justify the price. The controls could have been more fluid (especially when giving moves). For fighting game lovers, this is a good addition to the library.

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Syed Rubayyat Akbar, NoobFeed.