I like King of Fighters, but what would it take to make it more successful in the west?

[BadWolf]

I can't believe there's only 14 characters. How do you go from 50 characters in KOFXIV to 14? SNKH is mostly re-using character assets from XIV and XIV still has more female characters than SNKH.

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Because they gave people 50 characters day one with XIV and most didn't give a fuck.

A month after release people were asking for DLC characters, even though they were given 50 fucking characters at launch.

Heroines isn't a full priced game and it is aimed at a new/casual audience. You do not throw a gigantic roster at this crowd. 14 characters at launch with a steady stream of post launch DLC makes a lot of sense to try.

SNKH isn't a celebration of women. It doesn't honor these characters. It's a dumb joke game aimed at I don't know who.

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When did SNK say it was supposed to be that?

From day 1 it was pretty damn obvious it was a joke game. The damn thing was preceded by a joke comic over a year before reveal, and the comic itself started on April fools.

 

[Jimnymebob]

KoF is in the weird spot of:
Not being SF, Tekken, or MK.
Being 3v3 but not being Marvel levels of crazy.
Being 2D, then not translating to 3D well.
Having a lot of boring, almost filler characters.
Just generally being hard to get into.

I feel like going the FF/Garou route, with a smaller than KoF roster full of fan favourites (so put Rock in before goddamn Choi for example), and being a 1v1 game would be best. So release Fatal Fury: King of Fighters to get new players into the series, then do a KoF XV sequel with 3v3 again.

 

[HotHamBoy]

Because they gave people 50 characters day one with XIV and most didn't give a fuck.

A month after release people were asking for DLC characters, even though they were given 50 fucking characters at launch.

Heroines isn't a full priced game and it is aimed at a new/casual audience. You do not throw a gigantic roster at this crowd. 14 characters at launch with a steady stream of post launch DLC makes a lot of sense to try.



When did SNK say it was supposed to be that?

From day 1 it was pretty damn obvious it was a joke game. The damn thing was preceded by a joke comic over a year before reveal, and the comic itself started on April fools.

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14 character is still crazy low consodering how few actual new (old) characters there are.

I guess in my mind I was hoping they'd honor the tradition of SNK Gals

You know, with like taste and dignity.

There's also a big missed opportunity to include characters like Fio from Metal Slug, who was playable in KOF Maximum Impact. Marco was in NeoGeo Battle Colosseum, Mars People in SvC, it would have been fitting.

"Terry With Tits" is an insult to all the people hoping one of their favorite ladies would get in.

 

[Starlatine]

KoF is in the weird spot of:
Not being SF, Tekken, or MK.
Being 3v3 but not being Marvel levels of crazy.
Being 2D, then not translating to 3D well.
Having a lot of boring, almost filler characters.
Just generally being hard to get into.

I feel like going the FF/Garou route, with a smaller than KoF roster full of fan favourites (so put Rock in before goddamn Choi for example), and being a 1v1 game would be best. So release Fatal Fury: King of Fighters to get new players into the series, then do a KoF XV sequel with 3v3 again.

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Its funny of you to say KoF have a lot of boring filler characters and then mention SF, Tekken and MK. Yeah KoF characters are boring, not turkish oil guy, yet another character who can turn into a flying laser devil or pretty much 75% of the MKX roster

Also screw you Choi is wonderful. Choi, Chang and Kim should be in every KoF. And every fighter.

 

[BadWolf]

14 character is still crazy low consodering how few actual new (old) characters there are.

I guess in my mind I was hoping they'd honor the tradition of SNK Gals

You know, with like taste and dignity.

There's also a big missed opportunity to include characters like Fio from Metal Slug, who was playable in KOF Maximum Impact. Marco was in NeoGeo Battle Colosseum, Mars People in SvC, it would have been fitting.

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Wishing for a Gal Fighters 2 or a direct successor is fine.

Heroines isn't and never claimed to be that.

 

[HotHamBoy]

Wishing for a Gal Fighters 2 or a direct successor is fine.

Heroines isn't and never claimed to be that.

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That doesn't change the fact that what it is is a massive disappointment from what I can see.

 

[BadWolf]

That doesn't change the fact that what it is is a massive disappointment from what I can see.

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Ignore it and don't buy it if it doesn't interest you.

SNK is working on other core/console games so there is more to look forward to if this isn't your cup of tea. Heroines isn't being developed by their main team.

 

[Jimnymebob]

Its funny of you to say KoF have a lot of boring filler characters and then mention SF, Tekken and MK. Yeah KoF characters are boring, not turkish oil guy, yet another character who can turn into a flying laser devil or pretty much 75% of the MKX roster

Also screw you Choi is wonderful. Choi, Chang and Kim should be in every KoF. And every fighter.

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Woah woah, don't.bring Hakan into this. He's like the best, most classic Street Fighter character since Alpha/SF3.

I don't disagree that a lot of MK characters are filler, but their main characters are 100 times more popular than KoF characters, especially the colour swap characters.

What I'm saying is you could cut the roster down to say 30 characters, and just keep the big names, rather than only having those ones in every 3 games for the Dream Match.

 

[Simone]

Is XIV a good starting point, for a casual player? I loved the XIII demo on ps3 and I was tempted by the sale on the EU store.

 

[TheEchosOfTheCyborg]

Big marketing and promotion, because of it's games being stuck on the Neo Geo and being way more low key, KOF doesn't have the Nostalgia value and known name brand Street Fighter and Tekken has.

Maybe they need to do what Smash Melee did for Fire Emblem? Or just find away to make people interested?

 

[Vault]

SNK is dead the good days are never coming back

Heroines shows there's still new ways to tarnish the brands legacy

 

[BadWolf]

Is XIV a good starting point, for a casual player? I loved the XIII demo on ps3 and I was tempted by the sale on the EU store.

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Sure, both the gameplay and roster are rock solid. The roster is huge with an excellent mix of returning and brand new characters (it has more new characters than other fighters have launch rosters lol).

KOF is a series which is heavy on universal mechanics rather than learning how to play a character or two, so if you learn KOF then you learn KOF. It becomes very easy to play many characters since your skills carry over, which is why you see people have a lot of pocket characters at tournaments.

 

[DustyVonErich]

I'd prefer they go back to XIII's 2D art style and make the inputs much easier.

I don't know if that will make it more popular though.

I like the free to play model idea though. Maybe time it with the launch of next gen systems, so it's the first and only fighting game available to play for a while.

If possible, add a tag-team mode later for dlc. And don't go too crazy with the alternate costumes like DOA. Seeing the mountain of dlc for sale felt too overwhelming for me, and I just noped out.

 

[Loona]

The new gal fighters is not a step in the right direction, but it's just a spinoff, right?

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Yep, a spin-off.
I like that they're using that to experiment with tweaks to convention, like doing away with crouching states, for example - one of the big points of their NeoGeo era was how many series they kept active, each with its own distinct mechanics, which gave them some freedom to experiment without necessarily being too bound by any one game's conventions.
Nowadays KoF is a bigger focus, since there are probably fewer devs at the company than back in the days, but it's nice that they're allowing themselves to try something different.

Oh and a better single player suite. You have all these characters, write a narrative, something interesting enough to favor giving all of them a try. We are social creatures, stories define us, they engage us, they help express our interest and imagination. When the fuck are fighting games going to figure this out?

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The KoF games are pretty story-heavy - that being said, some of those stories are told and better understood over multiple games, and occasionally require some additional material, like the (team) backstories for each game one can find in the series' anniversary site for each of the games: http://kofaniv.snk-corp.co.jp/english/index.html (that being said, they need to update that site)

After there'd have to be some more push on the casual aspects. Id almost recommend a soft-reboot of sorts. Just call the next one king of fighters and make the story mode a recap of the prior games or something easy to start from.

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To retall the core KoF stories of the previous they'd have to fit in several saga-specific characters (pre-XIV KoFs are generally split into 3 story sagas: Orochi, NESTS and Ash) which often skipped later games when the focus moved elsewhere... to get that to work that might mean dropping some characters who while important in SNK history (most from the Fatal Fury series), aren't that important in KoF-specific stories... I mean, I'm all for dropping Mai (who never really mattered story-wise), but last time that happened didn't go well...

I feel like going the FF/Garou route, with a smaller than KoF roster full of fan favourites (so put Rock in before goddamn Choi for example), and being a 1v1 game would be best. So release Fatal Fury: King of Fighters to get new players into the series, then do a KoF XV sequel with 3v3 again.

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That's the game that got the ball rolling almost 30 years ago:

Maybe they need to do what Smash Melee did for Fire Emblem? Or just find away to make people interested?

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Stuff like Geese in Tekken and Mai in DoA might be helping in that department... and who knows, maybe an SNK character could make it to Smash too...

 

[butman]

Make a KOF with this artstyle. Enough of 3D souless dolls.

 

[Mistouze]

Make a KOF with this artstyle. Enough of 3D souless dolls.

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Heh.

Just hire Shinkiro again to do the character designs.

 

[mute]

Make a KOF with this artstyle. Enough of 3D souless dolls.

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Yeah some of the art work in recent not-KOFXIV projects have been really nice.

 

[Finaika]

Make a KOF with this artstyle. Enough of 3D souless dolls.

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Wow that really looks like Overwatch.

 

[BadWolf]

Make a KOF with this artstyle. Enough of 3D souless dolls.

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These guys are seriously on point:

 

[butman]

These guys are seriously on point:

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Damn!!! Is like Shinkiro's art just came alive!

 

[OmegaDL50]

The fact those art assets exist mean they can be used in a future game. If there is one thing SNK is definitely good at is reusing art assets to their benefit. Not that it is a bad thing. The progression of Real Bout's artstyle lead to the awesome that is RBFF2 for example.

Another good example is the fact that SNK Heroines is running on the KOF XIV engine despite it's changes. A significant majority of the KOF games have reused sprites on a yearly basis with moderate tweaks (Athena having an entirely new costume for each game for example)

A future KOF game that uses the KOF All Star models as basis would be a very good starting point. I certainly wouldn't mind another Dream Match game with the Orochi Team showcased in that video.

 

[DR2K]

Make it easier to play. Inputs really hurt my thumbs over time.

 

[TuggSpeedman]

Here's a start.

Drop the numbering from the game, or at least start over. When somebody sees "XIVXVII" in the title of a fighting game it's like "why even bother?"

 

[BadWolf]

Damn!!! Is like Shinkiro's art just came alive!

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Agreed, Shinkiro may be locked away in some Capcom basement but these Korean devs know what's up.

SNK should consider a collaboration for KOFXV (or another core project).

 

[WyLD iNk]

Man, I've bought so many KoF games, and I like the core gameplay, but fuck me, they just thoroughly lack charm. With a handful of exceptions, there's too many samey characters and generic designs. Nothing that leaps out at me.

 

[OmegaDL50]

Too many samey characters? Nah.

Hell there is more variance in movesets between Ryo and Robert compared to Ryu and Ken, and those are the two most similar characters in KoF to use in this example.

 

[Loona]

The fact those art assets exist mean they can be used in a future game. If there is one thing SNK is definitely good at is reusing art assets to their benefit. Not that it is a bad thing. The progression of Real Bout's artstyle lead to the awesome that is RBFF2 for example.

Another good example is the fact that SNK Heroines is running on the KOF XIV engine despite it's changes. A significant majority of the KOF games have reused sprites on a yearly basis with moderate tweaks (Athena having an entirely new costume for each game for example)

A future KOF game that uses the KOF All Star models as basis would be a very good starting point. I certainly wouldn't mind another Dream Match game with the Orochi Team showcased in that video.

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Something like KoF AllStars is handled by an external company (in this case Netmarble, I think) - I'm not sure if the licensing agreement involves SNK getting access to the assets used in those mobile games...

 

[Zarathos No Daimaoh]

The game is great , aside from the graphics/artstyle department .... however it also got a big hurdle to overcomes to attract people ... The core gameplay is solid , BUT the game , in a traditional fashion quickly turns into a "if your opponent lands a complex HD combo you're toast"' affair . Sure the same can be said for many fighting games , however most have simpler inputs and combo , and most don't require you to properly learn at least a team of 3 characters . Games like Guilty Gears can be pretty much as hard to pick up , but it's still pure 1v1 , and got a lot of flash and style that can dazzle people , on top of a truly unique set of characters .

I've seen some unmotivated beginners or even onlookers feel that they are watching a team of 3 just going to the combo slaughterhouse , at a slow boring pace (their words and take) .

Personally , i feel that KoF XIV while a great entry , with finally a good online ... is off somewhat .. i don't feel it's as interesting to watch than KoF XIII as an example . Also just go back to the numbering with the year in the title imo