King of Fighters 2002 & 2003

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The Xbox gets some more of SNK’s tasty ports.

Tags: Categories: Reviews, Xbox Reviews

Posted by David Hinkle on Sep 8th, 2005

Title Players
King of Fighters 2002 & 2003 (title page) 1 - 2
Developer Publisher Genre Online
Fighting (2D) No
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Odds are if you’ve never heard of SNK or King of Fighters you’re just a casual gamer or not much of a 2D-fighting fan. All presumptions aside, for years SNK has delivered excellent titles that have seen many sequels. Metal Slug, Samurai Showdown, Fatal Fury, and the crossover hit Capcom Vs. SNK 2 (my personal favorite 2D fighter) are just some of the hit projects to come from the Japanese house. Now American gamers who might’ve missed these great games on the Dreamcast can finally get a taste on the Xbox, and play online to boot!


Obviously the most important aspect of a game of this nature is control and thankfully there wasn’t anything lost in the move to Microsoft country. Each character’s special moves are easily performed when needed thanful to the Xbox S Pad’s fighter-friendly d-pad. Other basic moves such as running and rolling handle just as they should. Gameplay between 02 and 03 is just a bit different, with both games being team-based. In 02, you create a team of three and choose which order they will fight in, only being able to use your next fighter after the preceeding one has been eliminated (see: Capcom Vs. SNK2). In 03, you select your team of fighters and which order they will battle in, but during anytime in the match you may switch your current fighter our for one on the sidelines (see: Marvel Vs. Capcom 2) through the press of a button.


As for how many fighters each game has, 02 has a staggering 42 with 03 having a respectable 35 (and includes characters from Fatal Fury: Mark of the Wolves). With so many characters, it’s good to see that there aren’t a lot of cloned characters (some are, but tweaked a bit to add distinction). Suffice to say there is definately a lot of playability and depth here before any gamer gets bored. Each game has Team Play, Single Play, Practice, Gallery, Color Edit, and Xbox LIVE game modes. Different for 02 is a Challenge mode where you may select 1 fighter or a team and take on various opponents. The catch though is that some of your moves will be stripped at random, and should you choose team you’ll be stripped of a teammate as well.


Signing into Xbox LIVE! allows you to find competitors in the global arena in many ways. Quick Match will naturally set you up with an opponent as quickly as possible, and Create Match allows you to host one and change some general settings for the match. Optimatch allows you to find someone to fight based on your personal prefferences such as character, match length, and so on and so forth. In 03, there is also a Competition mode. Once selected, the game will find competitions for you to compete in should you wish. So it’s evident for both the casual and hardcore gamer that there is plenty of fun to be had here online, whether it be through 02 or 03.


While there are plenty of excellent aspects to each of these titles, the age of the hardware is detriment to the gameplay. Dips in frame rate during some of the bigger, flashier special moves and a lackluster sound department are just a few examples of the things warranting SNK to look for a more updated engine for their flagship brawler. While the control and core gameplay is excellent, graphically and aurally the game just doesn’t deliver. While there is much left in the life of sprite-based 2D fighting in the gaming world, the engine that runs King of Fighters 02 and 03 needs to be scrapped for one that will allow much more frames per second allowing for more fluid and eye-pleasing sprites (Street Fighter 3 is a prime example of how a game can be retooled graphically).


As for sound, the cruddy thumps of fists hitting bone and characters falling to the ground along with the severely low-definition screams all combine to create an audio sensation akin to playing Street Fighter 2: Championship Edition on the Sega Genesis. While maybe that’s a bit too harsh of a statement, the reality is that the sound is fairly close. While the tunes that play during each different stage are zestful and carry a nostalgic life to them, they alone cannot compensate for the severely sub-par performance of the game’s sound effects.


Both games are fantastic in that they deliver an action-packed 2D fighting experience and hold true to the days of when fighting games first emerged in the gaming world. While most hardcore gamers would prefer a finely-crafted 2D fighter over a graphically-intense, yet somewhat broken 3D fighter, the truth is that hardcore gamers arguably don’t comprise the majority of people who are out there buying video games. To be competitive and take 2D fighting to the next level, SNK really should look at inventing a new play engine and do again what it did the first time around: craft an excellent and beautiful 2D fighter.

What Works Score
+ Same time-tested control scheme
+ Consistently lag-free online play
+ Plenty of game modes to dump lots of time into 		8.0
What Doesn't
- Graphics
- Sound
Under the Shrink-wrap
Fans of both the KOF series and 2D fighters should shell out the money to pick this up, and if you have LIVE! you NEED to pick this up.
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