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SNK makes a new King of Fighters game and this time it is in 3D! SNK has been doing pretty good re-releasing its past King of Fighter games on the PlayStation 2, but the company decided that it couldn’t hurt to make a brand-new game and make it 3D to boot. While King of Fighters: Maximum Impact isn’t a flawless 3D fighter, especially this late in the game, fighting game fans should have a decent time with the game but KOF fans in particular will get the most out of it.
KOF: Maximum includes the typical versus and practice modes, but the major gameplay modes are the Story and Mission modes. In Story, you’ll control a character in a series of fights until you defeat Maximum Impact’s boss of sorts, Duke. In Mission Mode, you’ll be placed in a number of rather difficult situations and will need to rely on superb fighting skills to get through. Playing through these modes allows you to gain new character costumes and profiles.
Fans of the series will be enamored to see series veterans like Terry Bogard, Athena Asamiya, and Ralf Jones, among the cast of 21 characters. New characters include brothers Alba Meira, and Soiree Meira as well as, and Lien Neville. All in all, the new characters fit in rather well with the King of Fighters universe, and while there are a few balance issues present, they never become overwhelmingly annoying.
The fighting in the game is quite speedy, and Maximum Impact brings the action down to one-on-one battles as opposed to the three-on-three battles found in previous games in the series. In terms of moves, you’ll find the typical attacks, sidestep and tumbles here, nothing too different from other fighters. The game’s combo system does differ a bit mostly due to its overwhelming strength – it is quite easy to dominate someone with a string of cheap but effective moves.
As a bonus to fans, SNK is shipping the game in a Collector’s Edition format for the suggested price of $49.99. The game includes a mini-guide of sorts with the move lists for all of the characters, and profiles for said characters but the most interesting part is the second DVD which includes interviews and other behind the scenes featurettes with the developers.
The game’s visuals are pretty average. The 3D models aren’t bad but they aren’t as detailed as other recent fighters and diehard KOF fans will notice that much of the personality that bounced from the characters in the 2D iterations is largely missing in Maximum Impact. The animation in the game is pretty good thanks to SNK basically making 3D versions of the classic 2D style, and the game runs pretty fast all throughout. Sometimes the classic animation hurts the game’s visuals though since the characters look freakishly strange while standing still.
The game’s audio component doesn’t fare quite as well. Besides the guitar-heavy rock music and typical sound effects, Maximum Impact doesn’t do much to differentiate itself to your eyes. The voice acting in the game actually hurts it since the dialogue isn’t very cohesive and the voice cast doesn’t seem a bit interested in their lines. This will be particularly annoying to diehard fans of the game that are used to the Japanese voice acting.
King of Fighters: Maximum Impact’s best quality is the ever-popular cast of fighters and the special edition second DVD which will surely please SNK fans. But when it comes out to it, King of Fighters: Maximum Impact isn’t a particularly memorable fighting game on its own merits. -- Adam Nunez, PGNx Media
---- Oct 26, 2004
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