| Professor 4243th Post
  
MMCafe Owner
     
|  "Re(1):SNK Stuff Thread 13 - Spring 2015 Editi" , posted Sat 14 Mar 15:42:  
Last posts from previous thread--
Doshin
"Re(3):Tencent and SNK!" , posted Wed 11 Mar 18:50
Consumer Psychology-
The company is looking for psychology graduates to work in their development team to make their games more appealing. I guess they still haven't figured out why MSD had so many downloads.
Maybe they should try using common sense. Then again, SNK was never known for that. I guess that's what happens when you have confused businessmen out of touch with their own business.
quote:Statistics and Analysis-
The company is looking for statistics graduates to analyze data useful for game development.
Overseas sales and business management-
For taking care of business sales, contracts, etc.
These might be useful, at least.
sibarraz
"Re(4):Tencent and SNK!" , posted Thu 12 Mar 00:33
Consumer Psychology-
The company is looking for psychology graduates to work in their development team to make their games more appealing. I guess they still haven't figured out why MSD had so many downloads.Maybe they should try using common sense. Then again, SNK was never known for that. I guess that's what happens when you have confused businessmen out of touch with their own business.
Statistics and Analysis-
The company is looking for statistics graduates to analyze data useful for game development.
Overseas sales and business management-
For taking care of business sales, contracts, etc.
These might be useful, at least.
SNK mobile games are kinda curious for me.
For example, metal slug defense doesn't had all the tropes that all the popular f2p games had, or if they had them, they follow them in a very loosely way (for example, the energy system that all those games had is ultra permisive in MSD, to the point that if you grind well enough, you can play whenever you want the single player mode)
In the other hand, they don't include very basic thing like facebook integration so you can save your data there and post it with your friends, yet somehow they integrated nico nico to save your matches and post them online.
Metal slug defense is a game where if you want you can't expend a dime and beat everyting, but at the same time, you need to expend money to get the better tropes, is kinda different of other games where at some point you are screwed if you don't pay something to keep advancing.
That being said, I like mobile games from SNK, they are still fun and doesn't feel like a drag like other games, metal slug defense is a brilliant game, I wonder who came with that idea inside snk
Loona
"Re(5):Tencent and SNK!" , posted Thu 12 Mar 23:25
quote:SNK mobile games are kinda curious for me.
For example, metal slug defense doesn't had all the tropes that all the popular f2p games had, or if they had them, they follow them in a very loosely way (for example, the energy system that all those games had is ultra permisive in MSD, to the point that if you grind well enough, you can play whenever you want the single player mode)
In the other hand, they don't include very basic thing like facebook integration so you can save your data there and post it with your friends, yet somehow they integrated nico nico to save your matches and post them online.
Metal slug defense is a game where if you want you can't expend a dime and beat everyting, but at the same time, you need to expend money to get the better tropes, is kinda different of other games where at some point you are screwed if you don't pay something to keep advancing.
That being said, I like mobile games from SNK, they are still fun and doesn't feel like a drag like other games, metal slug defense is a brilliant game, I wonder who came with that idea inside snk
I figure the pre-existing assets from the multiple MS games help, but at least to me, one of the charming appeals of the game is that for once just about every unit is shown an official name and description, and while it seems possible to complete levels just by using the unlockables, there's some appeal in collecting the whole set (so, money for SNKP).
But what I think really helps is the mini missions they release with every update - those let you use the units you can buy and expose you to their specific mechanics. While on a regular level level you can swarm everything with a full deck of your favorite or more powerful units, the missions often make you use 2 or 3 very specific units, making you learn about their ins and outs - and that, like the KoFXIII combo trials, really helps to reveal interesting gameplay design points about the game and its playable units.
Unrelated, but I just saw this promotional image on Pixiv through Twitter - a fan-made KoF calendar for sale at Comiket, if Google Translate isn't failing me much?
nobinobita
"Re(4):Tencent and SNK!" , posted Sat 14 Mar 05:45
Consumer Psychology-
The company is looking for psychology graduates to work in their development team to make their games more appealing. I guess they still haven't figured out why MSD had so many downloads.Maybe they should try using common sense. Then again, SNK was never known for that. I guess that's what happens when you have confused businessmen out of touch with their own business.
Statistics and Analysis-
The company is looking for statistics graduates to analyze data useful for game development.
Overseas sales and business management-
For taking care of business sales, contracts, etc.
These might be useful, at least.
I think SNK needs to realize that although they don't have a chart topping world conquering property like Clash of Clans or Puzzle and Dragons, they have something else that's in many ways even more difficult to achieve: IP that people care about.
The majority of mobile games companies will rise to the top then burn out within a few years. I honestly don't think anyone will have genuine enthusiams for Angry Birds 5 years from now. But people will probably still care about SNKs cast of characters. It's a niche audience, but it's worth something.
I mean, yeah, most people would probably rather work really hard for a few years, have an amazing IPO then fizzle out and live off of that money for the rest of their lives... but for better or worse SNK has something much longer lasting on their hands. I just hope they figure out a smart way to keep those IPs alive cos I love em dearly (Metal Slug Defense was a surprisingly great start!)
the real kap
"Re(5):Tencent and SNK!" , posted Sat 14 Mar 06:13
They have about 11 years worth of KOF sprites, they could turn it into a sidescrolling F2P MOBA. How about calling it League of Fi--never mind, already exists.
*It could have plane switching like the old Fatal Fury games and 100 ft. jumping like in Savage Reign. I AM BRILLIANT.
Then again, they also have a lot of music and ROF doesn't get that much lately. It didn't even get any characters, probably because they had to create unique voice clips during the stage result screen.
Spoon
"Re(5):Tencent and SNK!" , posted Sat 14 Mar 08:01
I honestly don't think anyone will have genuine enthusiams for Angry Birds 5 years from now.
Consider that Angry Birds is already 6 years old. That's young compared to anything from the 90's, for sure, but Angry Birds is still in the public eye.
Just wait for when Angry Birds is described as a "seminal mobile game" 10 years from now! I fully expect you to be on your lawn shaking your cane.
Professor
"Re(6):Tencent and SNK!" , posted Sat 14 Mar 15:25
Unrelated, but I just saw this promotional image on Pixiv through Twitter - a fan-made KoF calendar for sale at Comiket, if Google Translate isn't failing me much?
More or less so. Japan has a lot of doujin events (Comiket being the largest one), and that artist on Pixiv is releasing a calendar at one called "Haru comiccity" coming up on Sunday.
Looks like it's a compilation of 6 artists.
[this message was edited by Professor on Sat 14 Mar 16:01] |
| Spoon 2824th Post
Platinum Carpet V.I.P- Board Master
    
    
    
    
     
| "Re(6):SNK Stuff Thread 13 - Spring 2015 Editi" , posted Tue 17 Mar 15:58
quote:
the only thing I understand less than Jojo is SNK
By sheer force of osmosis, I figured by now you would have an understanding of both that may not be at the PhD level that some here have, but at least at the Bachelors level.
It's kind of like having an enduring attraction to a culture you have no direct experience of living in whatsoever. SNK and Jojo are like my Iran and India or something.
One mental approach to Jojo early on is to think of it like pro wrestling.
Jojo is the heroic face from a well-to-do family, raised by decent people to be a decent person. Dio is the unwanted child born into poverty, who covets all and is full of cunning. Dio and Jojo grow strong and tough and beautiful, and the feud Dio begins with Jojo goes from their introduction as children all the way to their deaths. Dio recruits followers through his ambition and charisma, while Jojo gains help through fate and his essential humanity. Along the way, all kinds of people show up and job to Dio and Jojo, pushing the two of them higher and higher over the top.
As the series progresses, it becomes increasingly preposterous and fabulous, just like wrestling through the 80s and early 90s.
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| Loona 833th Post
PSN: IkariLoona
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Red Carpet Regular Member+
| "Re(10):SNK Stuff Thread 13 - Spring 2015 Edit" , posted Tue 17 Mar 18:47
quote:
I still refuse to watch the movie. It is equivalent of me saying I wont consume yoghurt anymore. So it's a... success?
The entire movie is available on Youtube, so you can watch it with the satisfaction that nobody involved is getting a penny from you.
When I discovered that, I got the biggest can of beer I could find and figured I'd get it out of my system, preparing for the worst.
It's, of course, as bad as has been said - casting, misused story and characters, the works.
Surprisingly, they almost got Chizuru right - remembering to include her, considering they had Kyo, Iori and a reference to Orochi, was almost an achievement in research, considering everything else.
Then they killed her.
At a couple of point they try to treat the "alternate battle dimension" thing as an analogy for video games, as there's a brief mention of Saishyu being too driven to get involved in it almost to the point of addiction. Like just about everything else in the movie, it goes nowhere interesting.
I've been dabbling with the idea of putting together one or more videos about KoF SNK lore, since nothing of the sort appears to exist in English outside of playthroughs of specific games' cutscenes.
The script I'm putting together is basically presenting a case for Elisabeth as the KoFXIII protagonist, with a detour to Mai's importance in promoting the game, and that is detouring briefly into mentioning the movie as a case of an adaptation that misguidedly tried to present her as a protagonist to a story to which she has no actual relevance, so it's kinda funny to see the movie getting addressed here now.
...!!
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| Just a Person 1627th Post
Tailored Carpet V.I.P- Platinum Member
| "Re(2):Re(10):SNK Stuff Thread 13 - Spring 201" , posted Wed 18 Mar 07:24
quote:
I still refuse to watch the movie. It is equivalent of me saying I wont consume yoghurt anymore. So it's a... success?
The entire movie is available on Youtube, so you can watch it with the satisfaction that nobody involved is getting a penny from you.
When I discovered that, I got the biggest can of beer I could find and figured I'd get it out of my system, preparing for the worst.
It's, of course, as bad as has been said - casting, misused story and characters, the works.
In other words, it's like any other film adaptation of any fighting game. Except perhaps the first MK film, which was okay, and the DOA film, which was actually kinda faithful to the game's story (even if it was still a bad movie anyway).
I can be any person in the world... maybe I'm this person right in front of you... maybe I'm not.
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| Baines 420th Post
Gold Customer
| "Re(3):Re(10):SNK Stuff Thread 13 - Spring 201" , posted Thu 19 Mar 06:15
quote:
In other words, it's like any other film adaptation of any fighting game. Except perhaps the first MK film, which was okay, and the DOA film, which was actually kinda faithful to the game's story (even if it was still a bad movie anyway).
No, the KOF live action movie is bad even by live action video game movie standards.
The casting was abysmal, as they didn't even try to match actors to the character designs. They didn't bother to use the right signature moves, one of the few highlights of bad videogame movies. The story was abysmal and fairly stupid, again even by fighting game movie standards. Half the characters were assigned Madlibs-style to the story roles.
To this day, I wonder if they cast Ray Parks as Rugal in an attempt to replicate the cheesy goodness of Raul Julia's Bison. As with everything else in the film, it didn't work. Park's Rugal is inept and incapable, the martial arts god reduced to (badly) using guns and sports-equipment related attacks.
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| the real kap
60th Post
Occasional Customer
| "Re(4):Re(10):SNK Stuff Thread 13 - Spring 201" , posted Thu 19 Mar 06:33
quote:
In other words, it's like any other film adaptation of any fighting game. Except perhaps the first MK film, which was okay, and the DOA film, which was actually kinda faithful to the game's story (even if it was still a bad movie anyway).
No, the KOF live action movie is bad even by live action video game movie standards.
The casting was abysmal, as they didn't even try to match actors to the character designs. They didn't bother to use the right signature moves, one of the few highlights of bad videogame movies. The story was abysmal and fairly stupid, again even by fighting game movie standards. Half the characters were assigned Madlibs-style to the story roles.
To this day, I wonder if they cast Ray Parks as Rugal in an attempt to replicate the cheesy goodness of Raul Julia's Bison. As with everything else in the film, it didn't work. Park's Rugal is inept and incapable, the martial arts god reduced to (badly) using guns and sports-equipment related attacks.
What are you talking about? There was nothing wrong with the casting and characters.
Rugal:
- Dubai City Tower-Tall
- German
- Has some sorta sauerkraut martial art style, I dunno
Billy:
- Average height
- Raised in London
- Expert stick fighter
Ray Park:
- Average height
- Raised in London
- Darth Maul
Makes perfect sense for Ray to play Rugal.
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| karasu 1477th Post
PSN: robotchris
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Red Carpet Executive Member
| "Re(1):Operation: make me like SNK fighters" , posted Fri 20 Mar 08:32
quote:
Ah, PSN, I hadn't considered such an easy way to get me into SNK through the old games, which have a lot more appeal to me than KOF XIII somehow. What are "the best" or everyone's favorites? I'm talking SFZero 3, 3rd Strike, SC 1/2 class.
I remember people talking about the wonderful attention to detail in old games like Art of Fighting with shredded clothes and different reactions to different characters, etc.
Ready to be converted.
I'm not really sure there are any SNK games that are completely without merit to the connoisseur... even the original Fatal Fury, while extremely flat as a fighting game from a modern perspective, has a nice light feel to it musically and visibly. For me, it feels like California in the 80's, which I'd like to think the creators were going for. Art of Fighting 1 has quite a bit of attention to detail, but AOF2 is a seriously fantastic game in almost every way. The interesting thing about the early SNK fighters overall is how the genre was still brand new, no one knew what it would ultimately be like, and SNK was completely unafraid to try out all kinds of crazy stuff, like 2 vs 1 matches, super moves tied to ki a ki meter, panning and zooming, battle damage, and so on. You literally can't go wrong.
But if you insist that I make a recommendation, I'll strongly suggest ADK Tamashii. Ninja Warrior's (love that apostrophe) is well worth the asking price alone!
Also, hey Maou!
You have to carefully reproduce the world of "Castlevania" in the solemn atmosphere.
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| phoenix 949th Post
Red Carpet Regular Member++
| "Re(1):Operation: make me like SNK fighters" , posted Fri 20 Mar 10:52:
quote:
Ah, PSN, I hadn't considered such an easy way to get me into SNK through the old games, which have a lot more appeal to me than KOF XIII somehow. What are "the best" or everyone's favorites? I'm talking SFZero 3, 3rd Strike, SC 1/2 class.
I remember people talking about the wonderful attention to detail in old games like Art of Fighting with shredded clothes and different reactions to different characters, etc.
Ready to be converted.
Best/Favorites: 98, 98 umfe, 2002, 2002 um, xi, xiii, last blade 2, real bout special, real bout 2, aof 2, mark of the wolves, samsho 2, samsho 5 special
edit: 96, 97...I can go on and on XD
[this message was edited by phoenix on Fri 20 Mar 10:55] |
| Mosquiton 2029th Post
Platinum Carpet V.I.P- Board Master
| "Re(1):Operation: make me like SNK fighters" , posted Fri 20 Mar 11:56
quote:
Ah, PSN, I hadn't considered such an easy way to get me into SNK through the old games, which have a lot more appeal to me than KOF XIII somehow. What are "the best" or everyone's favorites? I'm talking SFZero 3, 3rd Strike, SC 1/2 class.
I remember people talking about the wonderful attention to detail in old games like Art of Fighting with shredded clothes and different reactions to different characters, etc.
Ready to be converted.
Play Mark of the Wolves. To me, you can kind of feel SNK's history in it and it's not as tough to get into as KoF. This is the game I always recommended to Capcom fans.
If you want to step outside fighters play Metal Slug 3. Resist the urge to plow through with infinite credits and just start over when it's really beating your ass.
Back to fighters if you like cutting people, Samurai Shodown II if fucking classic. It's more like a Super Turbo than a Zero 3, maybe, but highly recommended.
/ / /
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| Loona 835th Post
PSN: IkariLoona
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Red Carpet Regular Member+
| "Re(3):Operation: make me like SNK fighters" , posted Fri 20 Mar 20:26
quote:
Oh, thanks, kids! Keep 'em coming! I especially want to hear what you love most about your choices.
I should probably clarify that SNK isn't quite as alien to me as I let on: I've played Metal Slug for years and love it, and Samurai Spirits has always been a lot of fun even if I never focused on it...sounds like 2's the answer.
Basically, if you can sell me on some wonderous attention to detail or something that only SNK does, I am so there.
...assuming it's on PSN in a tolerable form, that is.
Well, I once wrote down my thoughts about Art of Fighting and what it did for the fighting genre as a whole.
There's also a couple of neat threads on NeoGAF about how SNK's fighting games tend to go out of their way to present their characters:
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=686589
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=848816
On a more general view of things, I like how the Fatal Fury games are more about their setting than their gameplay, since they change the controls and some gameplay features almost every couple of games.
And when I say that about the setting, I mean there's enough meat on that topic that, if the developers didn't think extensively about the topic, they certainly put enough detail into the series' hub of South Town for admirably dedicated fans to extrapolate on its geography, history and economy.
In the process, they end up adding a bunch of neat little details like special animations on stages - or knock-out special cases, like in FF3 (you get those big sprtes for getting knocked toward the "camera", or if in the other direction, against specific BG objects - IIRC it's possible to crack an aquarium glass by knocking someone into it in that game) and Real Bout.
I particularly like how in Real Bout, where Geese canonically dies from falling off his building, the 1st round version of the stage is "infinite" like the ones in Galaxy Fight, but the following one has destroyable barriers like the other ones in the game - like they included that mechanic in the game just to make sure Geese's intended death scene would make sense within the game's system.
You're already aware of SS2's greatness, and I agree - but I still respect that after its success they decided the game's controls should be changed to fit the game's specific nature, instead of trying to replicate SF's 6 buttons in a 4-button system - so instead of 2 slash and 2 kick buttons, they refocused on the fact that weapons are important, and started only using a single kick button, leaving the remaining one for the strongest weapon attack, or a form of active defense.
For sheer beautiful games, can't go wrong with KoFs 99, 2000, 2003, XI, XII and XIII, as well as Garou and the Last Blades.
For KoF as a whole, other than not shying away from experimenting with its systems despite its success, I'll always admire its courage to do things like significantly changing character moves to match story events (which leads which on the development side I don't know, but that they do it is neat), even if they are the protagonist (Kyo in 96).
Or that one time in 99 where they just went and replaced the protagonist entirely, and further puzzled people by having 2 Kyos in the select screen, hinting at the story and representing the character's 2 play styles.
And then there's stuff like NeoGeo Battle Coliseum, which is filled with a bunch of internal homages, from Akari from LB summoning a bunch of characters and creatures from other games in her super, Kyo and Iori having a team super that reenacts the KoF97 ending.
I could probably do this all day, but it's easier to take on a game o series at a time, and I'm curious what else the rest of the Cafe can present.
...!!
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| Professor 4247th Post
MMCafe Owner
| "Re(1):Operation: make me like SNK fighters" , posted Sat 21 Mar 21:44:
quote:
I remember people talking about the wonderful attention to detail in old games like Art of Fighting with shredded clothes and different reactions to different characters, etc.
Ready to be converted.
In some ways, converting isn't nessesarily when you consider that SF4 and SF5 are developed by the company (Dimps) founded by ex-SNK staffs! I sort of wish they had time to make an original franchise too, given the lack of freedom they probably have. It certainly seems like their creativity is more apparent in SF5 though, like the famous Ramen Chun-li!
My personal suggestion for a quick look on classic NeoGeo fighters would be "餓狼伝説バトルアーカイブズ1(Fatal Fury: Battle Archives Volume 1)" if it ever comes out on the PSN. It's a compilation of the Fatal Fury trilogy, and you get to experience the early years of the Neogeo down to its golden period. It's a relatively easy series to get into because the basics aren't too far off from Street Fighter, and the single player experience is pretty fun.
The storyline has a wonderfully loveable cheapness of B-rated films from the 1980's. Most of it takes place in a local American town and starts off with two young brothers avenging the death of their father, killed by a corrupt businessman who's making a profit running a city-wide tournament that's totally fixed. By the 3rd sequel, they find themselves in an oddity of asian obscurity in their town, a la Big trouble in little China.
To this day, I think Fatal Fury 1 is still the only fighting game where you can see your protagonist falling to his death on a game over!
Oh, and the last boss wears a gold Rolex.
[this message was edited by Professor on Sat 21 Mar 23:27] |
| Spoon 2829th Post
Platinum Carpet V.I.P- Board Master
| "Re(4):Operation: make me like SNK fighters" , posted Sun 22 Mar 03:14:
Opening remarks: if you are limited to PSN, it's going to be a tough sell. The catalog on there is highly limited and is lacking in both cult classics as well as mainstream hits.
Question: are we specifically looking at SNK fighting games, or games on SNK systems? There are some gems on the Neo-Geo that were not made by SNK, like the unearthly beautiful Waku Waku 7, combo breaker innovator Breakers Revenge, and anything by Data East (bless BALLOOOOOOON their souls).
Various: Garou Mark of the Wolves is probably the smoothest playing game on it, and is gorgeous. MotW is almost precisely SNK's answer to the SF3 series, which history now shows was something that commercially nobody should have attempted/bothered to top. KOF'98 is about as classic as it gets: from Kensou's outfit which is pure 90s fashion, to the Three Gorges stage of Team China which shows a sight that probably no longer exists due to the construction of the dam there in the 2000's in real life, to jump CD being a thing every character can do if you don't know what to do. You already like Samurai Shodown, so I don't need to sell you on that. In theory I like Last Blade games, which are beautiful and have lots of neat systems and awesome characters. In practice, the games for me feel strangely stiff and awkward to play, and I've never quite been able to put my finger on why, especially given that I love Samurai Shodown. Art of Fighting 3 is a 2D Tekken that is gorgeously drawn and animated. But because I know what will actually sell you on anything is a piece of art that looks like it should be the cover of an anime VHS or laserdisc, here's the cover art for Voltage Fighter Gowcaizer.
[this message was edited by Spoon on Sun 22 Mar 03:17] |
| nobinobita 1389th Post
Red Carpet Executive Member
| "Re(5):Operation: make me like SNK fighters" , posted Sun 22 Mar 13:48:
quote:
Opening remarks: if you are limited to PSN, it's going to be a tough sell. The catalog on there is highly limited and is lacking in both cult classics as well as mainstream hits.
Question: are we specifically looking at SNK fighting games, or games on SNK systems? There are some gems on the Neo-Geo that were not made by SNK, like the unearthly beautiful Waku Waku 7, combo breaker innovator Breakers Revenge, and anything by Data East (bless BALLOOOOOOON their souls).
Various: Garou Mark of the Wolves is probably the smoothest playing game on it, and is gorgeous. MotW is almost precisely SNK's answer to the SF3 series, which history now shows was something that commercially nobody should have attempted/bothered to top. KOF'98 is about as classic as it gets: from Kensou's outfit which is pure 90s fashion, to the Three Gorges stage of Team China which shows a sight that probably no longer exists due to the construction of the dam there in the 2000's in real life, to jump CD being a thing every character can do if you don't know what to do. You already like Samurai Shodown, so I don't need to sell you on that. In theory I like Last Blade games, which are beautiful and have lots of neat systems and awesome characters. In practice, the games for me feel strangely stiff and awkward to play, and I've never quite been able to put my finger on why, especially given that I love Samurai Shodown. Art of Fighting 3
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Art of Fighting 3 is silky smooth and has some beautiful backgrounds, but I gotta say, it has the softest looking hits of any fighting game I can think of. I wonder if they actually motion captured all the animations for the game in house cos everyone moves like they're LARPing. Lenny's whip attacks look like soft caresses and Jin Fu Ha has a special where he literally just does a cartwheel. Like, a very weirdly realistic, mundane looking cartwheel. He has another one where he sticks his arms out and twirls like he's pretending to be a helicopter. When he does his jumping elbow drop he lands limp on his back, face staring upward like he just hurt himself.
The dot art is impressive and the animations are impressively smooth, but the actual motions lack style and impact.
Sorry, I don't mean to be a jerk just, AOF3 stands out to me as an example of how more frames of animation doesn't necessarily mean better animation.
Waku Waku 7 though. Dear lord, that game is beauuuuutiful. Such a great cast of characters too! And the endings are hilarious.
www.art-eater.com
[this message was edited by nobinobita on Sun 22 Mar 13:50] |
| sibarraz 544th Post
PSN: DefensorVirtuoso
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New Red Carpet Member
| "Re(6):Operation: make me like SNK fighters" , posted Sun 22 Mar 14:28
quote:
Opening remarks: if you are limited to PSN, it's going to be a tough sell. The catalog on there is highly limited and is lacking in both cult classics as well as mainstream hits.
Question: are we specifically looking at SNK fighting games, or games on SNK systems? There are some gems on the Neo-Geo that were not made by SNK, like the unearthly beautiful Waku Waku 7, combo breaker innovator Breakers Revenge, and anything by Data East (bless BALLOOOOOOON their souls).
Various: Garou Mark of the Wolves is probably the smoothest playing game on it, and is gorgeous. MotW is almost precisely SNK's answer to the SF3 series, which history now shows was something that commercially nobody should have attempted/bothered to top. KOF'98 is about as classic as it gets: from Kensou's outfit which is pure 90s fashion, to the Three Gorges stage of Team China which shows a sight that probably no longer exists due to the construction of the dam there in the 2000's in real life, to jump CD being a thing every character can do if you don't know what to do. You already like Samurai Shodown, so I don't need to sell you on that. In theory I like Last Blade games, which are beautiful and have lots of neat systems and awesome characters. In practice, the games for me feel strangely stiff and awkward to play, and I've never quite been able to put my finger on why, especially given that I love Samurai Shodown. Art of Fightin
-- Message too long, Autoquote has been Snipped --
As far as I know, Art of Fighting 3 use rotoscoping for their animations. Today we where talking with a friend about this game, we came to the conclusion that the game is beautiful, and that the gameplay could be fun, but that the game is very hard to play. AOF 3 is an odd game since it was like SNK decided to make a tekken game in 2D, the combos require a godlike timing. Also, this game has the blandest characters ever designed by SNK. Even ryo and robert look boring here. Overall this game is one of the weirdest fighting games for me since I think that is an underrated game but at the same time is an incredible bad game. I depends on the mood that I had on the day that I decide to play AOF 3
Now, if I had to reccomend SNK fighters, I will pick this ones.
Fatal Fury Special: Now in order to enjoy this game you must had the feeling of those games from 1993. Is slow as heel and the commands could be a little clunky, but this game is so fun, in 1 player mode it offers a good challenge and in versus you will enjoy all the matchups that the game offer. Some characters are super good (joe, kim geese) but overall every character is fun to play. Also, I love all the details that the backgrounds had. Also, krauser stage is the best shit that you will see in your with an orchestra playing dies irae while krauser promises you to chisel your gravestone.
World Heroes Perfect: Sadly the last game of the saga from ADK. The biggest tragedy is that just when it looked like ADK learned how to make fighters, they stopped doing them. This game is kinda curious, each character has a sort of "drive" that you get pressing ABC and that helps them to differentiate from each other.
KOF 95: Another great game who could feel a little clunky but that had some exciting matches in versus, since the damage is so high that you need to think very well your moves if you don't want to die instantly. This is my favorite kof from the neo geo era, also the OST is top notch. THE ONLY con is that could feel a bit outdates and slow next to pretty much every other kof not named XII
Real Bout 2: Great game with an entertaining combo system and a great variety of characters. Is one of the most beautiful neo geo games and is a very balanced game
Last Blade: Is a masterpiece, this game represents all the love that SNK gave to his fighters.
Garou: This was SNK saying screw it capcom we will make a game of your style better than you. If they achieved that I doubt it, but is a game this is awesome to play for how complex is. Also the animations and backgrounds are amazing, Is incredible to think that the Neo Geo saw the birth of the series and also his end, with an evolution that I doubt that anybody could see in 1990
King of Fighters 2000: The swan song of SNK, this game has the best use of the strikers system in the series, but also is a bit broken. Still, is cool to see what SNK saw as his farewall of the industry
And for no SNK games, but that somehow we still feel as SNK fighters
Breakers Revenge: This game feels a lot like street fighter, Sho is broken as fuck, but is a fun game.
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| Iggy 9880th Post
Platinum Carpet V.I.P- Board Master
| "Re(8):Operation: make me like SNK fighters" , posted Sun 22 Mar 23:17
Maou, I think you need to provide more focus to help this discussion go anywhere.
Do you want to play a game with people, and thus are you looking for the best gameplay mechanics that still hold up? Then go to the classics, Garô Special, RB2, KOF98/2002, SamuSpi0SP...
But you'll need friends to play those. Even if you get a version with working netcode AND you manage to find an opponent, it would probably like jumping online for the first time in Third Strike and get obliterated by an army of Aegis Reflectors and Geneijins.
If you want to understand what made SNK great at the time regardless on how the games stand up in 2015, focus on two things: esthetics and scenario.
Esthetics champions could be SamuSpi 3 (Zanmaden) and 0 Special, Last Blade 1&2, Real Bout, Aof Gaiden for the failed experiment it is... I also have a soft spot for KOF 96, and KOF 99-2000 have gorgeous backgrounds even though the sprites are less than perfect.
Scenario focus would be AoF 1 and 2, KOF 95-97, Garô 1-2-3-RB, Last Blade 1&2... You would need to play them as storied, sequentially. KOF97 is not that interesting if you don't consider it was built up all the way from 2 games prior. Also, try to read the stories that were published in Neo Geo Freak at the time, as they frame the narrative and explain who are these people or why does Kyo changes drastically in 96. This feeling of playing a great fighting game that also unfolds like a good manga from the 90s has yet to be reproduced and explains why the yearly KOF were such a success.
Finally, if you want to understand SNK's legacy on the system side, you absolutely should play every game in order. Garô 3 is one of the worst games of the series, but it's a fantastic game to analyze when you think of where it came from (how do you top Garô Special, the most successful game of the time?) and what answers it came up with. Plus, it looks great. Playing all the Garô games allows for a better understanding of why, even amongst hardcore SNK fans, many have nothing but contempt for the KOF series.
Speaking of which, I'm surprised by the amount of love MOTW receives here. I thought SNK purists considered it as a streamlined and bastardized attempt to get back at Capcom, without any of the depth that made the series distinctive in the first place. Of course, it plays fine and is very welcoming for Capcom players (which is one of its main flaws in a way), but I personally find SvC Chaos a much more interesting game to study than MOTW.
|
| Spoon 2829th Post
Platinum Carpet V.I.P- Board Master
| "Re(9):Operation: make me like SNK fighters" , posted Mon 23 Mar 02:37
quote:
MOTW
The beauty of the game is seductive, for sure. If we're just talking about appeal on that level, I don't think it's at all unreasonable why the game gets so much attention. I think it's also interesting to consider from the perspective of trying to deconstruct what SNK thought was good/important from SF3 and how they should put that into their game, even on really superficial things. That doesn't mean that the decisions were right, of course. As a Guilty Gear fan, it's even interesting to see how MOTW had a proto-FRC system in place. From the modern perspective of an outsider, the feel of MOTW and how good it looks make it easily approachable. Whether it being approachable on the basis of its homogeneity is a positive or negative trait is subject to debate.
It certainly abandoned a lot of unique/innovative mechanics from FF. The proto-3D dodging/movement that was a staple of it went, and that to me was a big shock.
quote:
AoF3 pillowfisted fighting
See, I thought this too at first: that the characters did these gorgeously animated attacks that... for no reason, cause people to flip into the air! Or reel backwards in a gazillion frames of animation. It had hit responses that seemed nonsensical! Look at all these ground moves that pop people weirdly into the air and then you sort of do a (nicely animated) ground chain that carries them along! And those punch chains where they sort of shuffle along and dish out jabs, what the heck?! They look even weirder when they're used as juggles! WEIRD.
But when you look at it from the perspective of how Virtua Fighter and Tekken and other early 3D fighters moved, it starts to make sense. It's so obsessed with duplicating the "every direction + button yields some different normal that probably chains into something else and everything juggles and there are these bizarre semi-launchers and juggles and people jump A MILE HIGH TO SHOW OFF THE FACT THAT THE GAME IS IN 3D AND WE CAN PULL THE CAMERA OUT and and and" that it even goes and tries its own take on the contact or lack of contact in those games. Have you watched a video of what hit reactions to normal strikes look like in VF1 or Tekken 1? Especially in VF1, which had no real hitstop, no hit sparks, and hit animations involving very sudden flinching that seem to happen on frame 1 of the collision detection, it has a weirdly fake contact that almost doesn't seem out of place in bad action movies/wrestling.
But in the context of the SNK oeuvre, AoF3 is pretty amazing for how much it tried, and how it tried to adapt a particular aspect of 3D fighter gameplay style into 2D. It retained some AoF staples like the energy gauge for specials/supers (taunting lowered the enemy's bar! I love it!).
You could probably draw a lineage from AoF3 to Buriki One. Going from the 80s/early 90s kung fu movie influenced AoF to the Grappler Baki/Garouden inspired deliberately MMA game Buriki One is either a too-brilliantly-cutting-edge move, or a bet on a piece of pop culture (guess how much of North America knew about the Gracies etc. in the world of pre-Zuffa UFC without mainstream internet) that didn't resonate with the rest of the world pre-mainstream-Internet.
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| Loona 836th Post
PSN: IkariLoona
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Red Carpet Regular Member+
| "Re(1):New Dragon Gal Pachislot Game!" , posted Mon 23 Mar 18:47
quote:
SNK announced today new Dragon Gal pachislot game, the visuals look nice in 3D, in my opinion it's close to Guilty Gear xrd.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zx71D6vrUYg
http://slot.snkplaymore.co.jp/official/dragongal_souryu/index.html
It's weird to think that a slot-only franchise by SNKP is celebrating its 10th anniversary...
The aesthetics do bring to mind early Dragon Ball, and the animation looks alright, at least - there's some charm in that, despite how its actually used.
Interesting opinions here on KoF - in a way, I tend to see it as the Justice League to Fatal Fury's Gotham City. It's supposed to include it, but the need for a grander scale and stakes tends to leave out the smaller setting's particular charm. When it comes to mechanics, it doesn't allow itself to be as experimental, at least as long as it's not successful enough to give devs some breathing room to try new things in a non-KoF series.
...!!
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| Maou 2759th Post
PSN: zonepharaoh
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Platinum Carpet V.I.P- Board Master
| "let's go to South Town" , posted Tue 24 Mar 00:21:
Good call, Iggy. These are all great suggestions, and if I were to focus them, I could think of two ways, and I'd love to learn further form people here:
1. Essentials: As with Capcom, SNK's fighting game output is too prolific to be comprehensible to the outsider. But if someone were to ask me the pre-modern SF essentials that were both important AND that someone might play with me, I could do it easily: SSFII X (acme of both old-school mechanics and atmosphere), SFZero 2 (acme of Zero series aesthetics and the core of modern SF gameplay), Third Strike (most technical, most gorgeous, most popular for tournaments). How can SNK be approached similarly?
2. Aesthetics: Prof, Iggy, and others have talked intriguingly about the manga aesthtic, story, and loving attention to detail in certain games--shredded clothes, interactions with the backgrounds, different responses by different characters. Even if there's no one who still plays them, I wouldn't mind exploring some of these just as discrete art pieces I could share with small groups.
...it would be nice if in either case, the games were reasonably obtained in some form other than "getting a Neo-Geo."
人間はいつも私を驚かせてくれる。不思議なものだな、人間という存在は．．．
[this message was edited by Maou on Tue 24 Mar 00:25] |
| Iggy 9881th Post
Platinum Carpet V.I.P- Board Master
| "Re(1):let's go to South Town" , posted Tue 24 Mar 02:05
Dear Maou,
Unfortunately, it has come to my attention that this conversation cannot continue any longer, due to irreconcilable differences. The reverent of my church advised me to stop answering your messages until you remove the mediocre games (no offense, but it's true) you have listed as "Capcom essentials" and accept your true (Vampire) Savior.
Best regards and may all the heretics burn in hell.
---------
More seriously and on the topic of esthetics, I think one of the most singular choices that make SNK stand out is their odd choice of atmosphere.
While most Capcom games are lively, energetic, visually stunning in the most immediately satisfying way, many of SNK's classic prefer a more subtle approach to visuals.
Ignoring SvC's depressing/depressed tone, Last Blade is particularly remarkable for having downright melancholic backgrounds, as well as some gently sad moments in the scenario if you all let it play out. SamuSpi also assessed a lot of its visual identity by going with romantic backgrounds inspired by classic swordplay movies, sometimes even relinquishing music entirely in favour of mere background noises. I can't think of any Capcom game that would have taken this route. The closest would be War Agony in Savior? The effect is intentional ruined by it belonging to Buletta, though.
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| Maou 2759th Post
PSN: zonepharaoh
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Platinum Carpet V.I.P- Board Master
| "Re(2):let's go to South Town" , posted Tue 24 Mar 03:20
quote:
your true (Vampire) Savior.
My dear Iggyngton,
My lawyers have advised me to admit to your superior taste and to clarify that Vampire Saviour is really neat, even if I don't understand it at all (see also: Guilty Gear). They further suggested I clarify I was ill-advisedly thinking almost of SNK as a series rather than a whole range of output, thus limiting the purview of my post to SF. I do, however, have documented evidence that could point to my opinions on additional non-SF essentials and add an entry for Justice Gakuen as acme of bad systems salvaged by marvelous characters (could the latter point be a point of entry for me to SNK's world at last?!) and must remind you that my Nekketsu Seishun Nikki characters have been implied to bed more people than yours, including Hinata, Kyoko, and possibly Daigo.
Yours sincerely,
Maou
人間はいつも私を驚かせてくれる。不思議なものだな、人間という存在は．．．
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| Loona 838th Post
PSN: IkariLoona
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Red Carpet Regular Member+
| "Re(1):let's go to South Town" , posted Tue 24 Mar 20:41:
quote:
1. Essentials: As with Capcom, SNK's fighting game output is too prolific to be comprehensible to the outsider. But if someone were to ask me the pre-modern SF essentials that were both important AND that someone might play with me, I could do it easily: SSFII X (acme of both old-school mechanics and atmosphere), SFZero 2 (acme of Zero series aesthetics and the core of modern SF gameplay), Third Strike (most technical, most gorgeous, most popular for tournaments). How can SNK be approached similarly?
The classic golden trio of SNK competition would probably be KoF98, KoF2002 and Garou, although for the KoFs you would be well served by the UM updates, both of which are available on Steam - some people swear by the original versions, but maybe those were the ones where they're used to winning games.
(Well, 98's Extra mode did get tweaks IIRC).
Garou did well on a recent poll by SNKP, so if you can't find an older port, there will probably be new ones in the near future.
Samurai Shodown V Special is also respected, but it's only officially released on the NeoGeo - it did well on the poll mentioned above, just behind the more famous Garou and LB2, so hopefully SNKP might decide they should make some money off of it, instead of restricting player choices to the NeoGeo 2nd-hand market or piracy.
quote:
2. Aesthetics: Prof, Iggy, and others have talked intriguingly about the manga aesthtic, story, and loving attention to detail in certain games--shredded clothes, interactions with the backgrounds, different responses by different characters. Even if there's no one who still plays them, I wouldn't mind exploring some of these just as discrete art pieces I could share with small groups.
...it would be nice if in either case, the games were reasonably obtained in some form other than "getting a Neo-Geo."
When it comes to story, there are 3 or 4 rough continuities of games at work that don't necessarily match release order, so the levels of craftsmanship change wildly if you follow events in chronological order, but often the connection is small enough that each game can be enjoyed on its own.
It's generally accepted that the South Town games follow this order of events:
Last Blade series -> Art of Fighting series -> Fatal Fury series -> Fu'un series
LB connects to AoF via Zantetsu's legacy - his endings show Eiji from AoF in them. The supernatural plot points in FF starting with FF3 make more sense taking into account LB's own setting.
The stories of Geese, South Town and the Sakazaki legacy are what tie AoF and FF together.
The Fu'un series is a strange little oddity, but one of its characters claims to have met someone fitting Terry's description - it's not an essential sub-series, but gets mentioned for completeness'sake.
Samurai Shodown appears to be its own thing, although it acknowledges the South Town games through several nods, like cameos in the endings or the secret referee challenge in SS2 that uses moves from the other games. SS doesn't take itself too seriously at times - Wan-Fu's SS2 ending openly breaks the 4th wall to deny you an ending, one of the later games has the bald characters of the series ganging up on another character to shave his head.
The chronological order of the games can be tricky to figure out, in part because they kill a popular character in her SS2 ending and want to keep her around, not to mention things like the RPG and 3D games most people don't have access to.
Still, the better games of the series hold their own pretty well, and SS2 is one such game, which improved just about everything that could possibly be improved about the original (unless you really really liked Tam-Tam, but then you want to stick with Cham-Cham and pay attention to her monkey) with plenty of little details, from the painting of Charlotte's stage, to Genjuro and Haohmaru's endings matching, to each character getting his or her own item that spills out of them when they're cut in half.
Most of the Neo games were covered in the PS2-era Anthology, and SS2's availability on mobile bodes well for a possible port to Steam or other modern system.
The anniversary site for the series might be worth looking into.
KoF borrows a lot from the South Town games, or course, but between its team system and original characters and setting, story-wise its stakes tend to be higher (what's problematic for a single character wouldn't be for a group of them), but it strikes a nice balance between referencing and continuing the stories from the FF and AoF games and focusing on its own.
For example, while it's never clear if the events from AoF ever happened in the KoF story due to the age differences (in FF the AoF characters would be a decade older), the Sakazakis have gone on to develop their own little sitcom stories in the series' backstories and endings.
Kyo and the Ikari team always have some connection to every story game's primary plot, but the focus isn't necessarily on them. The series has changed protagonists with every major story arc, but still keeps some characters around to work as a "bridge" between events. Arguably, in the middle of the latest arc they've actually switched the protagonist from Ash to Elisabeth.
Kensou has never been a protagonist in his own original game or KoF team, but he's been developing a story of his own since KoF99, and that's not settled yet, although several games since then have added relevant elements to that for those paying attention.
The anniversary site for the series is a pretty handy source of backstory for each game that actually has one (although it's still missing XIII - for that there's archive.org's backup of the Atlus site).
The only games that aren't story-relevant and 98, 2002 and XII, but even those have little nods, like character-specific intros (Kyo and Chizuru in 98 comes to mind, as she shown off the Yata mirror); despite lacking a plot, 2002 actually introduced a character, Kusanagi, and 2002UM intrduced Nameless and a story for him, intended to replace K9999; XII is considered a low point, but still has character-specific victory quotes, like observations of Iori losing his flames, or Ryo being a dick to Ash by cutting his painted nails.
One of the greatest things about XIII in-game is the dialogues between nearly every possible character pair (not all, because it only applies to single player mode, and the DLC characters aren't CPU challengers and you can't play as the bosses) - they're practically all transcribed at GameFAQs.com, although it's missing the Story mode specific dialogues which are between character trios instead of just individual characters. There are plenty of references to past games (even stuff as obscure as 3-Count Bout) and character-specific trivia (from Takuma's old acquaintances to Mai justifying the way she dresses).
I absolutely recommend Chin's dialogue, the old man's a master troll who still has some pretty nice insights on most others.
There's also some interesting stuff in the SvC Chaos dialogues, often from Tessa/Tabasa, who appears to know everybody's lore.
Then there's stuff like KoF Maximum Impact, especially the 2nd one - it's in its own continuity, which is a bit of a blend of the KoF and FF ones (KoF ages, but dead Geese). It focuses a bit too much on its own original characters, but is filled with nods to past games that make sense, like Mai having Andy Kouhadan special, since it's a Shiranui technique he learned from her family, or Ryo using the uppercut super Marco uses in Garou (which he's supposed to have learned from Ryo). Not to mentioned the many outfits and stage cameos referencing numerous games.
It's a PS2 game, but maybe there'll be a port one day.
I probably ended writing too much, but it's a broad topic - I'll glady go into greater detail about more specific stuff as needed.
...!!
[this message was edited by Loona on Tue 24 Mar 21:09] |
| neo0r0chiaku
2th Post
New Customer
| "Re(2):SNK Stuff Thread 13 - Spring 2015 Editi" , posted Thu 26 Mar 00:28
With SNK not releasing anything for us in the past years since the last KOF, wouldn’t make sense to release let’s say, a New MOTW, Metal Slug, and Samurai Shodown. This will be in 2-D (new animation and drawings of course) and with online mode. Put it in one media disc compilation for say $50 bucks. Download the each game for $20 each.
Main point is, it would be new 2-D games but SNK would have invested their time on the online mode. To make sure they keep in contact with everyone around to world to have access in using the game to play against others. Wouldn’t sell more and live up to its standards for now during this slow period?
They can use downloadable packs for other modes and features and charge the customer. That is for a whole other topic though. My recommendation is, these three new games, with your basic arcade, VS, training, and a fully invested time and effort online mode. Every SNK fan is back online and growing, then the new KOF can come out!
My idea of KOF, is the next one should be a dream match but if it starts with a new story, they should use the new generation (i.e. MOTW characters). All the original characters are either dead, old, or retired.
quote:
Last posts from previous thread--
Doshin
"Re(3):Tencent and SNK!" , posted Wed 11 Mar 18:50
Consumer Psychology-
The company is looking for psychology graduates to work in their development team to make their games more appealing. I guess they still haven't figured out why MSD had so many downloads.
Maybe they should try using common sense. Then again, SNK was never known for that. I guess that's what happens when you have confused businessmen out of touch with their own business.
quote:Statistics and Analysis-
The company is looking for statistics graduates to analyze data useful for game development.
Overseas sales and business management-
For taking care of business sales, contracts, etc.
These might be useful, at least.
sibarraz
"Re(4):Tencent and SNK!" , posted Thu 12 Mar 00:33
Consumer Psychology-
The company is looking for psychology graduates to work in their development team to make their games more appealing. I guess they still haven't figured out why MSD had so many downloads.Maybe they should try using common sense. Then again, SNK was never known for that. I guess that's what happens when you have confused businessmen out of touch with their own business.
Statistics and Analysis-
The company is looking for statistics graduates to analyze data useful for game development.
Overseas sales and business management-
-- Message too long, Autoquote has been Snipped --
Long Live!
|
| kofoguz 1161th Post
Red Carpet Premium Member+
| "Re(3):SNK Stuff Thread 13 - Spring 2015 Editi" , posted Thu 26 Mar 06:50
quote:
With SNK not releasing anything for us in the past years since the last KOF, wouldn’t make sense to release let’s say, a New MOTW, Metal Slug, and Samurai Shodown. This will be in 2-D (new animation and drawings of course) and with online mode. Put it in one media disc compilation for say $50 bucks. Download the each game for $20 each.
Main point is, it would be new 2-D games but SNK would have invested their time on the online mode. To make sure they keep in contact with everyone around to world to have access in using the game to play against others. Wouldn’t sell more and live up to its standards for now during this slow period?
They can use downloadable packs for other modes and features and charge the customer. That is for a whole other topic though. My recommendation is, these three new games, with your basic arcade, VS, training, and a fully invested time and effort online mode. Every SNK fan is back online and growing, then the new KOF can come out!
My idea of KOF, is the next one should be a dream match but if it starts with a new story, they should use the new generation (i.e. MOTW characters). All the original characters are either dead, old, or retired.
I usually dont like this but if it helps us to see old IPs to come back I'm all for episodic/season style ala KI or Blazblue. Think about a 2D World Heroes with starter roster of six. Like you said focus on good Netcode and beautiful atmosphere and expand from there. With DLC and seasons.
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| the real kap
70th Post
Occasional Customer
| "Re(3):Ledo Millennium is trying to buy SNK PL" , posted Sun 5 Apr 09:20
quote:
I wonder which are the intentions of ledo millenium with SNK
Chinese Martial Arts MMO starring Hon-Fu, Tung, Chung, Cheng, Chin, Kensou, Bao, Xiangfei, Lin, Luan, Chat, Sai, Lee Pai Long, Lee Rekka, Wang Koh-San, Ron, Duo Lon, Shion, Shen Woo, Jin Chonshu, Jin Chonrei, Baitang and the entire Chinese Market Stage from KOF XIII. It's the only thing that makes sense.
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| Loona 839th Post
PSN: IkariLoona
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Red Carpet Regular Member+
| "Re(1):Former SNK public relation arrested for" , posted Thu 9 Apr 18:20
quote:
Shoichiro Takatsu, a former SNK public relations staff who's now a CEO of his own company was arrested today with 2 other suspects for a 200 million yen fraud (approx $2 million) involving the popular manga Konjiki No Gash!! (金色のガッシュ！！)
According to reports, Takatsu's group company licenced Konjiki no Gash to a pachinko maker for 200 million yen despite not actually having its rights and went as far as having someone presume the author's role to contact the pachislot maker when they started suspecting a fraud. The police are investigating other pachinko licenses that Takatsu's company may have faked, including Jojo's Bizzare Adventure and Slam Dunk.
During Takatsu's time back in SNK, he was pretty famous in the media as SNK's lead public relation figure, often appearing in mangas wearing Genjuro's costume.
Isn't he this guy who appears in one of the "use the NGPC instead of the B&W version" screens for SvC MotM?
I think I saw a couple of strips featuring him in a KoF97 mook too...
On one hand it's pretty weird to see someone that made himself a visible part of SNK's promotional efforts involved in shady stuff, but on the bright side, at least this piece of pachinko news isn't about the actual company for once.
This bring s minor brainfart to mind: how popular are business sim games in Japan?
Now that SNKP is putting stuff on Steam, the PC market is a little less foreign to them, even if the PC doesn't seem to have that much traction in Japan.
The thought of SNKP making and releasing some sort of "Pachinko Tycoon" game which they could both sell as a source of income, and use to outsource successful business strategies from players to help them run their business (over time patching any mechanics that end up detracting too much from the business reality of it all) could be an interesting way for them to diversify.
...!!
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| Loona 843th Post
PSN: IkariLoona
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Red Carpet Regular Member+
| "Re(3):Former SNK public relation arrested for" , posted Thu 9 Apr 23:32:
quote:
Business sims have its own niche market in Japan but I don't think a Pachinko version will sell well! Especially right now given how the market is shrinking.
Without trying to sound too harsh, Pachinko/Pachislot is more or less "mindless entertainment for the lower IQ masses", so to speak. It's popular for two reasons, which is that it's braindead simple to play and it's one of the very few legal forms of gambling. It's traditionally been real popular in the countryside since they have very few entertainment spots.
Then came Smartphone games which is crushing all of that.
That would kind of be the point of going for a management sim (instead of/alongside actual pachinko cabinets and their baffling - to me - smartphone counterparts) - negotiating placement of your machines and in which amounts, tweaking their payout odds, associating them with IPs (licensed, adapted or original) taking into account their cost, expected public and locations, advertising/promoting, etc...
Something more engaging than the actual pachinko "gameplay", which seems extremely limited.
If the pachinko business is in decline, it could be an interesting way to turn SNKP's business guys from that side of the company into the role of subject matter experts/consultants that could be useful to the video game side, if there's ever a plan to internally ramp down the slot side of things.
...!!
[this message was edited by Loona on Fri 10 Apr 18:20] |
| Loona 843th Post
PSN: IkariLoona
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Red Carpet Regular Member+
| "Re(3):Ledo Interactive and SNK PLAYMORE!" , posted Fri 10 Apr 18:29
quote:
Leyou Technologies was known as Sumpo Food Holdings (Ltd) until 4-5 months ago when they changed their name. They're apparently expanding business from agriculture and they already got majority stake of the Canadian development firm Digital Extremes last year.
FYI, Digital Extremes is known for the F2P game Warframe and also as one of the studios that helped make the Bioshock series.
The acquisition of DE was a big deal, given that they were a historically important game studio (they had a significant role in the development of the early Unreal games), as well as one with a currently popular product (Warframe). The DE acquisition deal included Chinese giant Perfect World taking a token 3% of the shares of DE... which is a really tiny amount. Leyou is absolutely calling the shots at DE, but it probably spells some greater strategic partnership between Leyou and PW.
PW is the sole operator of Dota2 in China, which isn't quite as big of a deal as Tencent running the show/owning League of Legends, but it's up there.
Random conjecture:
Imagine if what this really means is Leyou creating a 3D multiplayer PvE/PvP KOF/Metal Slug/<othe
-- Message too long, Autoquote has been Snipped --
Interesting info here, thanks!
While I'm not overly fond of the idea of SNKP getting bought, the concept of it having some relationship with other gaming companies that don't restrict their business to Asia might not be bad, as long as they still manage to do their own thing. They need to keep their stuff visible around the world, and a bit more frequently.
It was pretty frustrating to see someone bothered to make KoF MOBA, but that that never left Thailand AFAIK - it takes some short-sighted view, or weird international legal issues to lock your self out of a potentially big audience.
...!!
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| Sibarraz 549th Post
PSN: DefensorVirtuoso
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New Red Carpet Member
| "Re(4):Ledo Interactive and SNK PLAYMORE!" , posted Fri 10 Apr 22:46
quote:
Leyou Technologies was known as Sumpo Food Holdings (Ltd) until 4-5 months ago when they changed their name. They're apparently expanding business from agriculture and they already got majority stake of the Canadian development firm Digital Extremes last year.
FYI, Digital Extremes is known for the F2P game Warframe and also as one of the studios that helped make the Bioshock series.
The acquisition of DE was a big deal, given that they were a historically important game studio (they had a significant role in the developmient of the early Unreal games), as well as one with a currently popular product (Warframe). The DE acquisition deal included Chinese giant Perfect World taking a token 3% of the shares of DE... which is a really tiny amount. Leyou is absolutely calling the shots at DE, but it probably spells some greater strategic partnership between Leyou and PW.
PW is the sole operator of Dota2 in China, which isn't quite as big of a deal as Tencent running the show/owning League of Legends, but it's up there.
Random conjecture:
Imagine if what this really means is Leyou creating a 3D multiplayer PvE/PvP KOF/Metal Slug/<othe
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Interesting info here, thanks!
While I'm not overly fond of the idea of SNKP getting bought, the concept of it having some relationship with other gaming companies that don't restrict their business to Asia
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In other markets of you aré not riot valve or blizzard tour moba will be dead on arrival specially that cheap knockoff that was KOF MOBA
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| Abster 373th Post
Silver Customer
| "Re(5):Re(10):Ledo Interactive and SNK PLAYMOR" , posted Mon 27 Apr 06:14
quote:
Samurai Shodown Anthology, because awful localization of SS6 notwithstanding What was bad with it? I mean, was it worse than the usual SNK localization?
It was bad, and it wasn't memorably/entertainingly bad. Imagine something with bunches of grammar errors and missing punctuation, but without anything fun like "HORRIBLE ATMOSPHERE", or anything memorably idiosyncratic. Or maybe there was something fun, but I failed to find it because I didn't play through the single player of all of its wonderfully huge roster.
Frankly, I'm all for giving SS6 another chance if it were to be released on a machine I'm currently using, PC or console.
Wasn't the Anthology port the same as the original PS2 port? Except that all the unlockable features were unlocked from the start? I had the PS2 port for the Japanese PS2 and I enjoyed it.
Yes, and it also gives you the option to use a redub that fixes some of the horribly bad voice acting the original version had, though not all of them. Unfortunately it doesn't also fix the Jaleco levels of bad translation to the script. I can at least give Tenka credit for actually having one to begin with because unless you were playing the stand alone console exclusive versions, SS Zero's story had no English translation whatsoever.
As for SupiSupe, I'm more inclined to believe it was because of them wanting it to stay Neo Geo exclusive as opposed to its violence factor. Sen was as violent as it could get outside Japan. SNKP USA went on record a number of times to try to get SupiSupe released outside the Neo Geo, including most recently in that poll they had for PSN releases. It finished third in the number of votes aside from Garou MOTW and Last Blade 2.
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| Baines 426th Post
Gold Customer
| "Re(3):SNKP FY15?" , posted Tue 19 May 00:26
quote:
While SNKP is currently running a 50% discount on the Steam version of Metal Slug Defense, that discount appears to be applied to a new default price, which has been halved since its original release - a bit of quiet and wise backtracking that means it's all at 25% of the original price, although now I wonder if that version of the game will ever recover of all the negative reviews it got since.
I doubt it. Even with the prices cut, the Steam version is still one of the worst kinds of mobile-to-PC ports.
It makes no allowance for the differences between platforms in input and display. Controls designed for touch end up a bit cumbersome with a mouse. A screen and UI made for a mobile device ends up ill-suited for a PC monitor. SNK Playmore didn't even try to pretend, leaving the instruction to "Tap Screen" on the title screen.
Beyond that, it removed one of the positives of the mobile version, locking most characters solely behind real money purchases.
SNK Playmore might have been better served if they'd simply sold the game for $5-10 with all the characters available. People would have still knocked it for being a lazy mobile port (because it is), but it wouldn't be the butt of jokes like "SNK PAYmore". Mind, it is possible that they still managed to sell enough DLC to not care...
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| the real kap
77th Post
Occasional Customer
| "JP PSN: Metal Slug 6, KOF2002, KOFMIRA" , posted Sun 24 May 20:15
These 3 classics were added to the Japanese PSN Store last week, I bought the two KOF games and played them for a bit.
KOF 2002 - Slowdowns, slowdowns all over. This took me right back to the mid 90s, it is that bad. For example, when the doors open in the 3D China stage, the game slows down big time.
KOF MIRA - Played this briefly, the pixelated menu graphics are strangely bright and the game also has minor slowdown from what I've noticed so far.
I didn't buy KOF2003/MI2/SS5/SS6, but it's safe to say that slowdowns are natural for these particular PS2 classics. Other ROM dumps on other stores are at least fully functional. *shrug*
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| Loona 874th Post
PSN: IkariLoona
XBL: n/a
Wii: n/a
Red Carpet Regular Member++
| "Re(1):New KOF Trailer" , posted Wed 3 Jun 16:33:
quote:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Us6OWs-CZDM
Ahh, all the familiar characters... it's like SNK forgot about its Playmore days!
[edit] The rendering looks pretty previous-generation though.
The aesthetics lean so heavily towards KoF97 (with the exception of Vice, Mature, Goenitz, Geese, Athena's 98 outfit and the final KoF96 stage) that it almost seems custom-made for China, but everything's in Japanese. I guess that age of the game is still fondly remembered, or at least it's what stuck around in people's minds when they think of the series?
It's a bit strange how later in the video it moves from 3D to depicting the 97 ending in traditional animation, but all in all, aesthetically it's pretty decent work - only Ryo and Robert felt a bit off.
Edit: The Japanese SNKP account just posted a link to Daiichi's official CR KOF pachinko machine: http://daiichi777.jp/pachinko/kof/
Checking the main site, they're no strangers to licensing IPs for their stuff - one of their recent (?) additions is a Biohazard machine, although the Lupin-III-alike looks a bit dodgy.
Strangely, the official video trailer at that site is a lot shorter than the one that made the rounds yesterday - maybe the earlier one was revealed in some industry event?
...!!
[this message was edited by Loona on Wed 3 Jun 19:06] |
| Loona 878th Post
PSN: IkariLoona
XBL: n/a
Wii: n/a
Red Carpet Regular Member++
| "Best Busters featuring KoF... DX?" , posted Mon 8 Jun 21:31:
So the SNKP Twitter today announced a new Beast Busters, but I'm having a hard time telling it apart from the previous one:
* Old: http://www.snkplaymore.co.jp/us/games/apps/bbk/
* New: http://www.snkplaymore.co.jp/us/games/apps/bbkdx/
Also, the Beast Busters series site page for the smartphone version now points to the newer version, where it used to point to the previous one.
The Twitter message tells them apart by stating the new one has "more content and no in-app items", but I'm not sure about the specifics - I have the previous version, but never bought anything inside it - I spend more time with MSD, so I haven't even cleared all the stages, and only really resort to buying in-game when I find no other options.
Upgrading stuff in BBfK hasn't been too intuitive to me, so I haven't even bothered exploring purchases if I can barely understand how to use what I get by simply playing...
I wonder if this is meant to be a first step to adapting that to a desktop version, like they did with MSD... it might work better to aim with a mouse than sliding your finger over the left side of the screen...
Edit:
It turns out the actual store pages paint a more eloquent picture:
Old: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/beast-busters-featuring-kof/id882734896?ls=1&mt=8 (free, time constraints)
New: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id990910241?mt=8 (paid, no time constraints)
...!!
[this message was edited by Loona on Mon 8 Jun 21:37] |
| badoor 425th Post
.png)
PSN: BadoorSNK(forPSVITA:BadoorUSA)
XBL: BadoorSNK(ForWiiU/Steam:BadoorSNK)
Wii: 3DS:4253-3532-0341
Gold Customer
| "Re(2):Rumors from the internet" , posted Sat 27 Jun 02:45
quote:
https://twitter.com/6_Vice_9/status/613997557862301696
Well this is a rumor from some random guy who has a friend that works at SNKP, isn't the best source but at this point this thread is so dead that I wanted to talk something
Basically, he says that EPIC offered SNK the right to use the Unreal Engine for KOF XIV but that SNK declined the offer. Also says that the game will be released next
I could see Tencent (who owns epic) helping SNK with the game, but that now with the rumors of ledo millenium buying SNKP I could see that stoping the use of the engine
With this rejection, my guess is that they decide not to make the game fully in 3-D?
I have no idea about this but is it common practice for Epic games to approach developers and sell their unreal engine? I realize that Unreal Engine has (oddly enough) become the defacto engine to use in Fighting Games, with Guilty Gear Xrd, SFV, Mortal Kombat X, and Tekken 7 all using it.
Also, if the new KOF is gonna be released next year, than I assume this offer must have happened quite a while ago, probably before any of the games mentioned above were announced and were revealed to be using Unreal Engine 4 (at least publicly). Which means Epic were somehow consciously shopping around unreal to fighting game developers somewhat simultaneously.
Or that Epic merely presented the offer recently and SNKP declined because SNKP were already in the midst of making KOFXIV and changing engines would mean them having to restart over, which would have delayed things.
Anyway, these "I have an uncle who works at..." rumors sound sketchy to me, especially once you take a closer look into what they entail.
http://100daysofmegashock.wordpress.com/
http://badoorsnk.wordpress.com/
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| Spoon 2933th Post
Platinum Carpet V.I.P- Board Master
| "Re(3):Rumors from the internet" , posted Sat 27 Jun 08:47
Epic has been actively looking for new business and outreach, because they've been in a funky spot having been the dominant FPS/TPS engine for the past generation: a number of the hugest software houses have an in-house engine (EA with Frostbite, Ubi with Anvil/AnvilNext, Konami with FOX Engine *sob*, Nintendo with whatever it is powers their 1st party games, Bethesda with idTech and Creation, etc.), while all the indies have been jumping on Unity.
This left Epic in a weird spot where their engine still got lots of use, and even use in some pretty thoroughly AAA titles, like Rocksteady's Batman games, but it also became the engine of choice for a lot of maybe single-A or double-A or B games.
Given their recent success with all the aforementioned fighting games adopting Unreal, I wouldn't be surprised at all if their Asian bizdev guys went shopping it around. Now that there's proven success in making high-quality fighting games with Unreal, the notion of making top-shelf fighting games with Unreal isn't bizarre. Business outreach absolutely is a part of their company, given that Unreal Engine as a product unto itself has been a major part of their business for multiple generations.
Part of me doubts that SNK will ever again bet the farm on dot art they way they did with KOF12-13, but given the unparalleled (for SNK) modern success of Metal Slug mobile which has its appeal driven entirely by the historically great sprites of Metal Slug, they must've done a lot of head scratching.
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| neo0r0chiaku
51th Post
PSN: n/a
XBL: IAMDC1
Wii: n/a
Occasional Customer
| "Re(4):Rumors from the internet" , posted Sat 27 Jun 12:11
quote:
Epic has been actively looking for new business and outreach, because they've been in a funky spot having been the dominant FPS/TPS engine for the past generation: a number of the hugest software houses have an in-house engine (EA with Frostbite, Ubi with Anvil/AnvilNext, Konami with FOX Engine *sob*, Nintendo with whatever it is powers their 1st party games, Bethesda with idTech and Creation, etc.), while all the indies have been jumping on Unity.
This left Epic in a weird spot where their engine still got lots of use, and even use in some pretty thoroughly AAA titles, like Rocksteady's Batman games, but it also became the engine of choice for a lot of maybe single-A or double-A or B games.
Given their recent success with all the aforementioned fighting games adopting Unreal, I wouldn't be surprised at all if their Asian bizdev guys went shopping it around. Now that there's proven success in making high-quality fighting games with Unreal, the notion of making top-shelf fighting games with Unreal isn't bizarre. Business outreach absolutely is a part of their company, given that Unreal Engine as a product unto itself has been a major part of their business for multiple generations.
Part of me doubts that SNK will ever again bet the farm on dot art they way they did with KOF12-13, but given the unparalleled (for SNK) modern success of Metal Slug mobile which has its appeal driven entirely by the historically great sprites of Metal Slug, they must've done a lot of head s
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Whatever the case maybe, many titles have outsold themselves to the unreal engine, even Mighty no.9. SNKP, needs to stick to its roots, because no matter how much they try, they can not compete in the 3-D fighting market. Nor equal its counterpart to GGXrd and SFV. The only way it can stand out is its niche cliche. It has always been like that with KOF titles. Once it try to compete to its equal part, it will lose. I do not want to see that happen. They need to know now that the next title is do or die. No success means it will die out for sure.
Long Live!
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| nobinobita 1431th Post
Red Carpet Executive Member
| "Re(5):Rumors from the internet" , posted Mon 29 Jun 18:51
quote:
Epic has been actively looking for new business and outreach, because they've been in a funky spot having been the dominant FPS/TPS engine for the past generation: a number of the hugest software houses have an in-house engine (EA with Frostbite, Ubi with Anvil/AnvilNext, Konami with FOX Engine *sob*, Nintendo with whatever it is powers their 1st party games, Bethesda with idTech and Creation, etc.), while all the indies have been jumping on Unity.
This left Epic in a weird spot where their engine still got lots of use, and even use in some pretty thoroughly AAA titles, like Rocksteady's Batman games, but it also became the engine of choice for a lot of maybe single-A or double-A or B games.
Given their recent success with all the aforementioned fighting games adopting Unreal, I wouldn't be surprised at all if their Asian bizdev guys went shopping it around. Now that there's proven success in making high-quality fighting games with Unreal, the notion of making top-shelf fighting games with Unreal isn't bizarre. Business outreach absolutely is a part of their company, given that Unreal Engine as a product unto itself has been a major part of their business for multiple generations.
Part of me doubts that SNK will ever again bet the farm on dot art they way they did with KOF12-13, but given the unparalleled (for SNK) modern success of Metal Slug mobile which has its appeal driven entirely by the historically great sprites of Metal Slug, they must've done a lot o
-- Message too long, Autoquote has been Snipped --
I really really liked KOFXIII. Hell, I even was a vocal supporter of KOFXII (I actually wish XIII was super zoomed in like XII so each sprite is the size of a 16bit cutscene).
That said, I don't actually play KOF XIII that much. I love it, but I keep going back to other games I like even more. I've been trying to figure out why that is.
I mean, I love everything about it. Visually it's astounding. It's some of the best sprite art ever. The animations are solid and interesting. And i love how they reduced each character to their most iconic components rather than making them busier. Aside from that, I know this is heresy for true believers, but I much prefer the more forgiving inputs of KOF XIII vs older installments. The responsiveness (and also the hugely improved animations) makes it feel more like a Capcom game.
Heck, I even wrote a somewhat passed around article bout how much I love the visuals in the game.
But I don't play it much. I just boot it up to bask in its visual glory once in a while. But I don't think I've ever had a long gaming session with it.
The game seems conceptually perfect to me, but something about the gameplay doesn't totally engross me (even though I prefer it to say Guilty Gear, Blazblue, UNIB, SFIV etc). And I wonder if other people felt similar.
Or maybe it's just that it came at the wrong time in my life where I'm not at college or at a huge company where it's easy to find other people to play with. Also I hate playing fighting games online, so maybe I'm just doing it wrong.
In any case, I hope they do another 2d game. I'll definitely buy it (and then stare at it a lot but never actually get good at it).
www.art-eater.com
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| Loona 884th Post
PSN: IkariLoona
XBL: n/a
Wii: n/a
Red Carpet Regular Member++
| "Re(6):Rumors from the internet" , posted Tue 30 Jun 01:36
quote:
That said, I don't actually play KOF XIII that much. I love it, but I keep going back to other games I like even more. I've been trying to figure out why that is.
For my part, it's the long and execution-intensive HD combos. I love just about everything else about the gameplay, including the fact that you can use half the HD bar to just cancel a special into another special or super, so the resource that combo experts can optimize for feats beyond me still has a use in my hands.
quote:
I mean, I love everything about it. Visually it's astounding. It's some of the best sprite art ever. The animations are solid and interesting. And i love how they reduced each character to their most iconic components rather than making them busier.
I'd still prefer Garou Terry design, which I find cleaner and less garish.
At least you can change Ryo's palette so it's closer to his Wild Ambition Self - I still find it weird that he's just so damn orange after all these years, although sometimes his projectiles even it out with some blue.
quote:
Aside from that, I know this is heresy for true believers, but I much prefer the more forgiving inputs of KOF XIII vs older installments. The responsiveness (and also the hugely improved animations) makes it feel more like a Capcom game.
For my part, combos are more viable to me in XIII than they've ever been before, and I'm glad that's the case.
Then again, to me one of the greatest charms of the game is that it managed to pay a lot of attention not only to its gameplay (the trials show a lot of thought put into move properties), but also story and characterization - it's a small joy to see all those dialogues in Arcade mode, whole-team-specific dialogues in Story mode, and all the little revelations and cameos in the multiple Story mode paths - gameplay tends to change with each game, but stories and character dynamics tend to stick around, so I'm glad to see they really valued that.
(I really gotta finish a little writing project about that...)
...!!
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| Spoon 2937th Post
Platinum Carpet V.I.P- Board Master
| "Re(6):Rumors from the internet" , posted Thu 2 Jul 07:50
quote:
something about KOF13 doesn't engross me
There are a lot of little things in KOF13 that seem like trivial complaints at the low level of play that I did play it at, and some that bother me philosophically.
I have a crazy theory that goes that how big the characters are on the screen horizontally in a 2D fighting game has a disproportionate effect on how we perceive the game. KOF13 looks great and the backgrounds look great, but the widescreen presentation and the relative size of the characters to the amount of arena presented makes it feel way too empty. On a rough test of just copying and pasting Maxima in his idle stance, Maxima is just over 26% of the screen wide in the 4:3 KOF2k2UM, but is maybe 21% of the screen wide in the 16:9 KOF13. The distance between things is just bigger in KOF13, and the size of the characters is just smaller.
How much space there can be between characters fundamentally affects how characters seem visually in terms of the composition of the shot, but it also affects how they play. Allowing for a lot of space between characters means that you have more distance to cross in order to break zoning, or it means there is more space your character's tools need to cover. Think about how big the characters in AOF are relative to the screen: Ryo' who isn't even the biggest guy in the game, occupies 30% of the width of the screen just standing there. Once he punches or kicks, he's maybe as wide as 40% or more of the screen!
KOF13's corner game is the deadliest of any KOF game, what with practical 100% combos everywhere, and >30% combos that barely require any resources. Being cornered is a typical occurrence in any fighting game, but in KOF13, awesome combos aside, it's the worst feeling being-cornered state of any KOF. Now that the two of you are right up against each other, you take up about as little space on the screen as you can, and the guy in the corner is getting beat down viciously. You _feel_ small. There's this yawning ~80% of the arena in which there is no gameplay character activity. It's unpleasant. Even in MOTW, which had some relatively small characters, an average-sized character like Terry is still about 25% of the screen wide in his idle. It is the case that the MOTW characters are quite short relative to the screen, and the total amount of screen they take up is smaller in MOTW than in KOF13. Ryu in USF4 is an average-sized character, and is about 22% of the screen wide in idle.
Unlike Guilty Gear or Marvel, KOF isn't a game in which the characters get to put a lot of stuff onto the screen to fill the space, or in general have huge normal attacks that fill up lots of screen space both with the area that has gameplay effect but also with their VFX. In USF4, the special effects for projectiles are ENORMOUS. The hit VFX for sonic booms expand to fill like 80% of the width of the screen. Evil Ryu's fireball impacts are almost the height of the screen!
My crazy corollary to that theory is that the background sizes and character sprite sizes in KOF13 inherit from KOF12 where camera zooming-in during regular gameplay (not just during cinematic non-interactive moments, like supers) was a pervasive element, and when the zooming was taken out (or rather, kept at the maximum zoom, which only happens some of the time in KOF12), we wind up with a view that's lacking in intimacy.
Disclaimer:
I have had to do a lot of programming with cameras lately, so I'm seeing everything through that lens (hah!) at the moment.
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| nobinobita 1432th Post
Red Carpet Executive Member
| "Re(7):Rumors from the internet" , posted Thu 2 Jul 15:41
quote:
something about KOF13 doesn't engross me
There are a lot of little things in KOF13 that seem like trivial complaints at the low level of play that I did play it at, and some that bother me philosophically.
I have a crazy theory that goes that how big the characters are on the screen horizontally in a 2D fighting game has a disproportionate effect on how we perceive the game. KOF13 looks great and the backgrounds look great, but the widescreen presentation and the relative size of the characters to the amount of arena presented makes it feel way too empty. On a rough test of just copying and pasting Maxima in his idle stance, Maxima is just over 26% of the screen wide in the 4:3 KOF2k2UM, but is maybe 21% of the screen wide in the 16:9 KOF13. The distance between things is just bigger in KOF13, and the size of the characters is just smaller.
How much space there can be between characters fundamentally affects how characters seem visually in terms of the composition of the shot, but it also affects how they play. Allowing for a lot of space between characters means that you have more distance to cross in order to break zoning, or it means there is more space your character's tools need to cover. Think about how big the characters in AOF are relative to the screen: Ryo' who isn't even the biggest guy in the game, occupies 30% of the width of the screen just standing there. Once he punches or kicks, he's maybe as wide as 40% or more of the screen!
KO
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Spoon, you really hit the nail on the head for me. After I wrote that post I downloaded KOFXIII on my phone and found myself curiously enjoying it more than the console version in some way. It was the size of the characters! On the phone they take up the whole screen like KOFXII or Art of Fighting. There's a much greater sense of impact and intimacy.
I mean, obviously the touch screen controls were terrible and the console version is infinitely better, but the simple difference in scale was really pronounced.
Huge sprites aside, the other thing that kept me engrossed were the delightful character interactions before each fight, as Loona has pointed out
quote:
Then again, to me one of the greatest charms of the game is that it managed to pay a lot of attention not only to its gameplay (the trials show a lot of thought put into move properties), but also story and characterization - it's a small joy to see all those dialogues in Arcade mode, whole-team-specific dialogues in Story mode, and all the little revelations and cameos in the multiple Story mode paths - gameplay tends to change with each game, but stories and character dynamics tend to stick around, so I'm glad to see they really valued that.
(I really gotta finish a little writing project about that...)
I found myself selecting characters and character order based on who i wanted to see a dialog with rather than who would be the most strategic choice. These little touches really give the game its soul.
Loona, i hope you finish your writeup on this!
www.art-eater.com
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| Loona 885th Post
PSN: IkariLoona
XBL: n/a
Wii: n/a
Red Carpet Regular Member++
| "Re(8):Rumors from the internet" , posted Thu 2 Jul 20:21
Nobi, I'm flattered by your curiosity, and ashamed I didn't post this here earlier (I'm a bit reluctant about self-promotion) - I finished a text about some of Mai's dialogues, which then expands to other aspects of her character and history: Exploring KoF XIII dialogues: Mai and the Shiranui legacy
Mai's not even a favorite character of mine or one of the richest in references in her dialogues, but I happened to get more screenshots of her exchanges as I was re-unlocking stuff on the Steam version, so I figured I'd start with her. The way I see it, a good story respects its audience and characters, so even if a character is generally out of focus and is more famous for her looks, a decent setting will provide enough material to give you interesting insights on their perspective.
The idea is to eventually cover everything that's referenced that isn't explained in the game itself, since there's plenty, but I'm open to suggestions if anyone has any.
...!!
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| neo0r0chiaku
53th Post
PSN: n/a
XBL: IAMDC1
Wii: n/a
Occasional Customer
| "Re(9):Rumors from the internet" , posted Thu 2 Jul 22:33
quote:
Nobi, I'm flattered by your curiosity, and ashamed I didn't post this here earlier (I'm a bit reluctant about self-promotion) - I finished a text about some of Mai's dialogues, which then expands to other aspects of her character and history: Exploring KoF XIII dialogues: Mai and the Shiranui legacy
Mai's not even a favorite character of mine or one of the richest in references in her dialogues, but I happened to get more screenshots of her exchanges as I was re-unlocking stuff on the Steam version, so I figured I'd start with her. The way I see it, a good story respects its audience and characters, so even if a character is generally out of focus and is more famous for her looks, a decent setting will provide enough material to give you interesting insights on their perspective.
The idea is to eventually cover everything that's referenced that isn't explained in the game itself, since there's plenty, but I'm open to suggestions if anyone has any.
The dialogue before matches is a wonderful touch to the game and has been for a while now. First it started of with certain characters having special intros. I wanted more of that at the time (KOF 96- up). MOTW gave us a nice touch of the dialogue which was neat. Then SVC made the game more interesting despite its negatives and time of release (I enjoyed the game, no complaints on my side). I wonder what other SNK games have in-game dialogue like KOF? I have not plated KOF13 for a while so if anyone can refresh my mind, do certain characters have special intros before the matches like before? I remember KOF 12 not having them, I think.
Long Live!
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| Loona 888th Post
PSN: IkariLoona
XBL: n/a
Wii: n/a
Red Carpet Regular Member++
| "Re(10):Rumors from the internet" , posted Thu 2 Jul 23:07
quote:
The dialogue before matches is a wonderful touch to the game and has been for a while now. First it started of with certain characters having special intros. I wanted more of that at the time (KOF 96- up). MOTW gave us a nice touch of the dialogue which was neat. Then SVC made the game more interesting despite its negatives and time of release (I enjoyed the game, no complaints on my side). I wonder what other SNK games have in-game dialogue like KOF? I have not plated KOF13 for a while so if anyone can refresh my mind, do certain characters have special intros before the matches like before? I remember KOF 12 not having them, I think.
The AoF games have that, although I've had such little contact with AoF3 that I don't know if that had it, but it seems likely.
AoF2 in particular was kind of amazing, because even if due to the "who cares?" nature of its translation, a lot of characters had animations specific to the pre-match dialogue, small stuff like scratching their heads and whatnot, that weren't used for anything else.
I really wish there were an accurate translation of that game, just in case there's something interesting there locked behind a wall of kanji that got replaced with lame jokes.
To much smaller extent there was also some character-specific line before matches in FF3, but no actual exchanges, as only one character said anything at a time.
...!!
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| Izek
142th Post
Regular Customer
| "Re(9):Rumors from the internet" , posted Thu 2 Jul 23:29
quote:
Nobi, I'm flattered by your curiosity, and ashamed I didn't post this here earlier (I'm a bit reluctant about self-promotion) - I finished a text about some of Mai's dialogues, which then expands to other aspects of her character and history: Exploring KoF XIII dialogues: Mai and the Shiranui legacy
Mai's not even a favorite character of mine or one of the richest in references in her dialogues, but I happened to get more screenshots of her exchanges as I was re-unlocking stuff on the Steam version, so I figured I'd start with her. The way I see it, a good story respects its audience and characters, so even if a character is generally out of focus and is more famous for her looks, a decent setting will provide enough material to give you interesting insights on their perspective.
The idea is to eventually cover everything that's referenced that isn't explained in the game itself, since there's plenty, but I'm open to suggestions if anyone has any.
That is such a wonderful article, thanks for posting :)
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| badoor 428th Post
PSN: BadoorSNK(forPSVITA:BadoorUSA)
XBL: BadoorSNK(ForWiiU/Steam:BadoorSNK)
Wii: 3DS:4253-3532-0341
Gold Customer
| "Re(2):Rhythm of Fighters will be shut down so" , posted Sat 4 Jul 17:24:
Shame to hear about Rhythm of Fighters shutting down (after barely a year or so). It's easily one of my favorite recent mobile games. And SNK did put a lot of love into it, first by bringing the old SNK composers back to make new remixes, and by having brand new voice-samples for the characters in game (something which they didn't need to do but is a really neat thing anyway).
I bought the game before it went free-to-play but I thought there was a good amount of music in already. Some of the shop items are a little bit high (mainly the characters, I can understand buying songs to play).
Again, it's a great fun title and I urge you all to get it before it's too late.
quote:
One of my co-workers worked at SNK, and while he was telling me about when they had SGI workstations, I asked "... wait, were you working the Hyper NG 64?" and he said yeah. He also worked on Killer7 at Grasshopper, and said that working at GHM was hellish. Clearly, I will be interviewing this person at some point.
Craziest story: the sprite editor used by artists for a number of SNK fighting games was written for the Neo-Geo, and uses the Neo-Geo as the interface. As in, you would use the joystick and the buttons to draw the sprite. He didn't believe this when he started there, until one of the higher ups showed him by firing up one of the machines and drawing a kickass sprite of Robert Garcia in like 10 minutes.
Wow! I love this. If you can, please interview some more with this person.
http://100daysofmegashock.wordpress.com/
http://badoorsnk.wordpress.com/
[this message was edited by badoor on Sat 4 Jul 18:51] |
| Maese 770th Post
Red Carpet Regular Member+
| "Re(3):Rhythm of Fighters will be shut down so" , posted Mon 6 Jul 15:06
quote:
One of my co-workers worked at SNK, and while he was telling me about when they had SGI workstations, I asked "... wait, were you working the Hyper NG 64?" and he said yeah. He also worked on Killer7 at Grasshopper, and said that working at GHM was hellish. Clearly, I will be interviewing this person at some point.
Craziest story: the sprite editor used by artists for a number of SNK fighting games was written for the Neo-Geo, and uses the Neo-Geo as the interface. As in, you would use the joystick and the buttons to draw the sprite. He didn't believe this when he started there, until one of the higher ups showed him by firing up one of the machines and drawing a kickass sprite of Robert Garcia in like 10 minutes.
I've heard many horrible stories from ex-workers about Grasshopper and Suda 51 as well, but I'm way more interested in those juicy SNK anecdotes. Please do elaborate on that stuff, pretty please!
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"So Rock was adopted..." , posted Sun 22 Mar 15:45
can be done with 
"Re(6):The grandmother of all battles!!!" , posted Wed 8 Apr 03:11
<Jiraishin 
