Review

“The King of Fighters ‘98 Ultimate Match”

Summary

Overall: 8/10.
Enjoyment: 8/10.
Controls: 8/10.
Story: not applicable.
Audio: 10/10.
Visuals: 8/10.

Good points: many of the touch ups added on here make the remake of an already terrific game fun and of course, you have the original version.

Bad points: the game is horribly inconsistent overall, especially the fact that you can’t play against people online.

Production Information

Creator: SNK Playmore.
Publisher: SNK Playmore.

Discussion

Synopsis: in honor of its tenth anniversary, SNK Playmore has decided to bring out a remade version of one of the company’s most talked about games in “The King of Fighters 1998”.  Besides seeing the staple characters like Kyo Kusanagi, Terry Bogard, Ryo Sakazaki and Athena Asamiya, you also have characters that were in the games prior to “1998” such as Eiji Kisaragi and Orochi himself, the latter only being applied on the Play Station 2 version.  With this remade version in “The King of Fighters 1998 Ultimate Match” set, has SNK Playmore have people going out with joy for this series of dream matches or scratching their heads thinking that the original source shouldn’t have been redone?

Points: I already love “The King of Fighters 1998”. Yes, there are flaws, but for the most part, they are minor.  There’s no way they could have made the game better.  All of a sudden, SNK Playmore decided to redo “1998”, which already is a terrific game.  As a result, you have “The King of Fighters 1998 Ultimate Match”.

SNK Playmore did the right task in including characters in the games prior to “1998” and alternate versions of various characters.  With this set, I was able to play as the heroine team from every “King of Fighters” game; of course, many people rejoiced that they are able to play as the infamous boss team from “1996”, as in the infamous trio of Geese Howard, Wolfgang Krauser and Mr. Big.  Also, it’s nice that there’s the original version of “1998” and a bunch of extras. (On a side note, if you pre-ordered, you received a tiny fan ornament.) What irritated me is the Challenge part of the game.  You have to complete 30 challenges and while a good amount of them are fairly easy, there are a few irritating ones like the Orochi challenge.

What’s new here is the addition of a custom mode, Ultimate Mode as it is called here.  By that, you get to decide your movement system, your tactic of making attacks miss and your method of building up your power bar.  The friendship system is gone, but at least you are able to keep your power stocks from your power bar.  There are other changes to keep in mind, but it still is “1998”.  While I am glad that you can customize your mode of fighting, it is a big shame that the game is a tad shorter than before.  Also, what makes the game inconsistent at times is that if I want to encounter a certain character, I have to perform a certain way throughout the game and just when I know I have fought through that certain way, I encounter a character I am less enthusiastic to fight.  Don’t get me started on the lack of online battles for myself, but personally, I am not really affected by this because I generally don’t play against people online.

The audio is absolute perfection for the most part.  The voices are still great after all these years.  You have some new music like “Music of Praise”, the new ending theme and of course, you can’t forget songs like “Dustman”, Mr. Big’s theme.  Appreciation should go to Hideki Asanaka because he is the one who brought you the music and the sound.  I also have to mention that you are able to hear both the original version and the arranged version of the music.  The audio flow has that “Street Fighter II” feel in some cases if you do like that feel.  The only flaw I can mention here is that there is a case here and there that you don’t get the song you want.  There’s that and for some reason, the music is only from the second player’s side if you are in the Versus Mode.  Other than those flaws, those should be it.

Seeing that this is a game from SNK Playmore, you already know that you will have visuals with that retro look and for the most part, you are right.  The backgrounds, which look great overall by the way (like the Great Wall one), are in 3D, but you can also make the dimensional quantity switch for that match.  If you happen to be wondering what is the reason why China has the most amount of backgrounds, it is because the series is really popular over there.  Although some bugs are still present, most of them, including that issue from Kyo’s judo partner in Goro Daimon (a clutch issue if you will), are gone.  The one error I caught aside from spelling errors is the King reaction pair.  For those that are not familiar with “King of Fighters” or for fans of the series not familiar with the old games, you have your teammates waiting in line to fight or if they fought and lost, being still and hoping that the current member stays alive.  In King’s case, she is supposed to shrug off when you give damage to your opponent only and she is supposed to squint her eyes in a not so good way when you take damage regardless if you gave damage to your opponent or not, but in this remake, it’s the other way around.  SNK Playmore caught moments of being lazy because there is a lack of animation in some cases like Geese’s laugh pose and seeing that I am mentioning poses here, there are no additional poses for characters like Eiji.  While there are moments of greatness in the gallery such as the image of the “Ultimate Boss” team: Orochi, Goenitz and the original creator of the tournament in Rugal Bernstein, there are some disturbing images like the image of the Skin Head team.  Regardless, the visuals look solid.

Yoshihito Koyama, one of the international business coordinators, and the rest of SNK Playmore have to be proud of “The King of Fighters 1998 Ultimate Match”.  I generally don’t play “King of Fighters” games anymore, but I am glad I have played this one.  It has given us what was missing in the original version of “1998”.  We have the characters we thought we would never see again.  We have the same action we are used to seeing from the series.  We have the old school feel all over again.  Granted, it has added some more severe flaws that the original version never had and it’s a step down from the original as a result, but it still is a fun game overall.  This isn’t really an ultimate game, but it really tries hard to be one and like I said just now, it is a fun game overall.