Anyway, the game has a lot bigger and more robust multiplayer section, which is where I believe SNK is steering players. For series enthusiasts that know their KOF history, there’s probably a lot more fan-service here than I was able to recognize. I’m not up on the history of KOF stories, but KOF XV, I believe, puts a bow on some of the previous story arcs that include the Orochi, NESTS, and Ash sagas. If I recall correctly, KOF XIV ended with a strange character named Verse destroying the old KOF arena. Be that as it may, the Story Mode was serviceable, with a few cutscenes in between some of the matches, but in general I found it fleeting and totally uninteresting. You have a reporter character, a big crowd cheering in an arena I didn’t care for this type of atmosphere and personally prefer a more serious and less zealous atmosphere. Much of it is centered around a over the top on-air broadcast format, which is just plain cheesy. That said, The Story Mode was surprisingly brief, in my opinion, and it wasn’t great. I didn’t really care about the story or the characters, so cheating a bit there didn’t both me. After about the twelfth try on the final boss, Otama=Raga, I caved and used one of the Continue services that was offered, which reduced the final boss’ health to 50%. I spent almost twice as much time on the final boss as I did on the half dozen or so matches leading up to the final boss (not losing any of them, but almost), which to be honest, was frustrating. I took my favorite trio of the bunch - Kyo, Joe, and Terry, though I wish Kim were available - and ran through the Story Mode in about an hour. The inability to tag is interesting, I’m not sure why SNK does not prefer that kind of design. Instead, players must select your first, second, and third fighters before the match launches. As you may know, KOF is played 3v3, but you cannot tag your characters in-and-out during the course of a match. Regardless, thirty-nine characters to start is pretty good, and it’s enough to make thirteen three-character teams. Hopefully, SNK doesn’t go that route, but time will tell. ![]() This is a potential slippery slope, though, as we saw with the multi-year, very expensive Tekken 7 rollout that culminated in the $120 Definitive Edition. I have the same issues in most other Japanese-developed fighting games, like Street Fighter and BlazBlue, for example.Īnyway, KOF XV brings with it thirty-nine characters out of the proverbial box, with more likely to come with paid DLC. I knew that my skill set for KOF XV would be just as limited as it always has been because of what they expect you to be able to do with the left joystick. ![]() Hell, I couldn’t even fully complete the tutorial in KOF XV because I simply could not execute a hyper hop, haha. ![]() ![]() Each game was always deeper and more technical than I ever cared to try to master - the half circle and diagonal movements required to pull off the special moves and so forth still give me fits to this day. I have played, at least for a few minutes if not many hours, every entry in the series since the late 90s. KOF is one of those franchises that’s so deep, and so wide, you could really write a book on it. Nearly thirty years since the series began in ’94, the developers intended to make KOF XV the crowning achievement in the franchise. The King of Fighters is back with SNK’s The King of Fighters XV ( KOF XV).
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