Learning About SNK Part 1

I'm awful at fighting games. I'm sure fighting game fans are sick of hearing this from people, because I swear any time I say this to one of my friends the response I get is “don’t worry, I am too”. Don't get me wrong however, I do like and respect them in spite of that. Die hard fighting game fans are on another level of skill I can't even begin to comprehend, the sheer finesse and mastery of the controls alongside split second strategizing and decision making is something I can only dream of. I still enjoy them casually from time to time however, learning about the colourful casts of characters and seeing them in action, their fighting styles reflecting their varied personalities. As a teenager I had a lot of fun with Fighters Megamix on SEGA Saturn, a hilariously unbalanced mess of a game with one of the most nonsensically random character rosters that fighting games have ever seen outside of MUGEN. SoulCalibur II was a good time of less dubious quality as well. I also greatly enjoy Guilty Gear, shocking no one because all transfemmes and femboys love Guilty Gear. Bridget is an absolute treasure and I wish her only the best in her transition..

However, a side of fighting games I've always been curious about but haven't seriously gotten into is the fighting game library of SNK. The simple answer as to why I haven't played them is because, well, they're bloody hard. While I've long been interested in the likes of King of Fighters due to loving the art style and character designs, as well as having a soft spot for the Neo Geo thanks to the likes of Metal Slug and Top Hunter, SNK fighters are nonetheless an uphill battle for amateurs. The AI is brutal, the bosses are insanely difficult enough to have a TV Tropes page named after them, and in the case of King of Fighters, you'll need to get good at three characters at once in order to survive the 3-on-3 battles. But hey, pushing yourself out of your comfort zone to overcome something fresh and new to you is often a rewarding experience. So, for the last few weeks I've been playing my way through the Neo Geo fighting game library, with the goal of learning more about fighting game mechanics and how to play them effectively, in addition to enjoying learning about these characters more in-depth.

These are not reviews, as I don't believe I am fighting game savvy enough to do in-depth critique and analysis of these games. These are instead first impressions and me sharing my experiences with playing through these games for the first time.

Art of Fighting

Beaten on difficulty level 4 as Robert

Art of Fighting, uhh… kinda blows. I started with this game primarily because I wanted to see the debut of King, one of my favourite SNK characters because I'm immediately drawn to anyone gender nonconforming. Can't imagine why, I say as I paint my nails and apply lipstick and eyeliner. However, King is not actually playable in this game sadly. This game is in the style of Street Fighter 1 in that there's only two playable characters and the rest of the roster consists of CPU-only boss characters. Unfortunately I don't find the two characters in question particularly interesting at all, their personalities are essentially just “I am karate dude”, but at the very least I found the story, consisting of them rampaging through the city and beating up anyone along the way with a possible lead on where Ryo’s kidnapped sister is, at least a little funny.

This is a rough introduction to SNK as it embodies much of what makes the games inaccessible, in addition to simply being dated and clunky compared to what would come in the next few years. Your opponents use input-reading AI, meaning that based on what buttons you're pressing, the AI is predicting what you'll attack with and responding accordingly in advance. That's fine and all, I want my opponent to react to my actions so they put up a fight, but there's a few things that make it excessive in Art of Fighting. First off, the game is supremely unbalanced. AI characters are so much faster than you, with their special moves being fired almost instantly while yours have slow wind up animations. They also frequently deal heavy damage even when blocked, while your specials only do a sliver of chip damage. In addition, their attacks also tend to have far greater range than yours as well. The two final bosses are unsurprisingly the biggest offenders. In the end, the only way to really effectively fight in Art of Fighting is by finding ways to exploit the AI. Tricking the final boss by starting the motions for a special move but not actually performing it, causing him to do a predictable jump kick ended up being how I won.

The game is also really slow paced in contrast to other non-Samurai Shodown SNK games. Every single special move depletes your energy metre with use. Attempting to use special moves when your energy metre is empty will result in the attack simply fizzling out. You can recharge your energy metre by holding down an attack button to enter a Dragon Ball Z esque charging stance, but your opponent can also lower your energy metre by simply taunting. I respect trying something unconventional, but I'm not exactly a fan of how much this slows down battles with taunts and charges on both sides with each player trying to lower each other's energy, just so you can use a basic fireball attack a couple of times before having to charge again. I also don't love the larger than average character sprites to be honest. They make the screen feel a lot more cramped and the pixel art kinda look a bit off to me.

I didn't enjoy Art of Fighting, but I'll also admit part of that may be down to it being the first SNK game I played out of this list, so I was a bit under prepared for the difficulty. I hear Art of Fighting 2 is even harder, so I'm skipping that one for the foreseeable future until I build up more confidence. I wasn't deterred from SNK however, so I moved onto other games to continue exploring this genre's library. Everything else I've played I loved far more, don't you worry.

Fatal Fury

Beaten on difficulty level 3 as Terry

Intimidated enough by Art of Fighting’s difficulty, I went ahead and lowered the difficulty level of Fatal Fury by one.

Honestly, it's kind of baffling to me that Fatal Fury actually came out a year before Art of Fighting, as in spite of that I feel Fatal Fury is a vastly more polished game. The action is faster, the difficulty is better balanced, you have three playable characters as opposed to just two, the list goes on. I even think it looks better than Art of Fighting, but your mileage may vary there. I played as Terry here, who is a character I'm actually very fond of unlike the genetic karate dudes of Art of Fighting. His cheerful and supportive older brother kind of energy is really endearing.

The game's balancing is still asymmetrical like Art of Fighting, but I find it much more fairly done here. Yes, the CPU exclusively uses characters you can't play as who often have much higher attack power and range, but for the most part there's much more restraint. A few bosses have a berserk mode where after a while into the battle they hulk up and get far stronger, but these berserk modes are telegraphed by a long transformation animation that gives you time to prepare for what's coming. There's at least one character that I'm pretty sure actually takes higher damage when berserk as well, so you're not at a complete disadvantage. I didn't even have any trouble with the final boss. His attacks only do chip damage when blocked and he's very vulnerable to grabs, so it only took me a few tries, as opposed to Art of Fighting which had me stuck on its final boss for over an hour.

In general the pacing here is much faster than Art of Fighting. Special moves can be done infinitely and your movement in general feels a bit faster, even if it’s still pretty sluggish compared to what would come later. In general the game feels less cramped thanks to its smaller sprites compared to Art of Fighting as well. Fatal Fury is much more traditional and by the numbers than Art of Fighting, but given that it was in development at the same time as Street Fighter II, it's actually impressive that they managed to still pull off a game with that Street Fighter II style template before that game had even came out and revolutionised the genre. Fun fact; the director of Street Fighter 1, Takashi Nishiyama, was also the director of Fatal Fury.

There's still room for improvement however. There's a multi-plane gimmick to the arenas you fight in where your opponent can jump back and forward between 2D planes in the background and foreground to fight in. The player however is not granted that ability, the only time the game lets you jump into another plane is when your opponent has already done so themselves, after which all of your attack buttons will instead have you jump after them. It's so context sensitive that it barely feels like it adds anything other than just allowing the CPU to stall. I also found many of Terry's special moves far less useful than they are in later games, as they're not only much slower but also more finicky to perform. It goes without saying as well that while the lacking playable character roster doesn't bother me here as much as it did in Art of Fighting, I would still vastly prefer having the CPU opponents playable as well. Still, I liked Fatal Fury. It's undoubtedly been surpassed by its successors in every way, but if you want to see the origin story of Terry Bogard, there's a pretty enjoyable game attached to that origin too.

Fatal Fury 2

Beaten on difficulty level 3 as Terry and beaten on difficulty level 4 as Mai

SNK delivered with Fatal Fury 2. The action is faster, you've got a nice varied selection of eight characters to play as and fight against, the player can now jump between the foreground and background planes freely, regardless of where the CPU is currently positioned, basically everything I hoped would be improved here was improved upon. I enjoyed this one enough that I ended up playing it twice, bumping the difficulty back up to level 4 for the second playthrough as Mai Shiranui, this game marking her debut.

The jumping between planes now adds a lot more beyond just being a gimmick. Now if you're cornered and being wailed on, you can jump to another plane in order to escape, which also provides you with the opportunity to counter attack by jump kicking your opponent as you jump back towards them. This system also allows for more interactivity with the arena environments that will affect how you play the game, such as objects that obscure the player in the background but can be destroyed in order to gain better visibility. The arenas feel more like actual interactive 3D space as opposed to just a horizontal line you move left and right across.

If there's one thing that I found a buzzkill however, it's the endgame. Not content with having a single boss fight at the end, Fatal Fury 2 instead throws an exhausting gauntlet of *four* bosses at you for its finale. Much like Fatal Fury 1, I didn't actually find the last two bosses very hard, but the two before then were much more of a pain thanks to their cramped single-plane arenas and the range on their attacks. Even on replay, my victories against those two bosses felt more like a lucky fluke than anything else.

I was going to bully the final boss for coming out of nowhere and having absolutely no relevance to anything or anyone, barely even being evil. Then I watched the very strange Fatal Fury 2 OVA and discovered that he is actually the best character. He's German Pro Wrestler Dracula, he's hilarious and a joy to watch. I watched all of the Fatal Fury OVAs with my girlfriend and they're a mixed bag, but overall we had a fun time with them. Mai sucks in the OVAs though, a shame as she's actually a really fun character in her canon in-game appearances, especially in King of Fighters where she teams up with King. Her chaotic party girl energy plays off of King’s much more classy and reserved personality well.

Fatal Fury 2 is just an improvement across the board in every regard other than story. The most I have to complain about is that the controls are still a bit stiff and sluggish and special attacks are still a bit clunky and finicky, but even those aspects are still improved upon Fatal Fury 1.

The King of Fighters '94

Beaten on difficulty level 3 with Ikari Warriors Team and Women's Fighters Team, Beaten with every other team on difficulty level 1

And now we end this first part with a bang. King of Fighters ‘94 absolutely slaps, I adored this one. If any game I played over the last few weeks could be crowned as the one that made me an SNK fan, this is it. In spite of that, it's probably the hardest game to get into out of the ones I played. The barrier of entry is much higher here, with the 3 on 3 tag team format requiring learning the movesets of three different characters and being comfortable enough with their individual movesets that you can switch between them on the fly without getting your wires crossed. Add on top of that how flawlessly the AI is able to block everything you throw at it unless you manage to hit them during a clear vulnerable opening where they can't defend themselves, and you've got a tough game to get into for anyone who isn't confident in their fighting skills. I genuinely believe that the payoff is more than worth the uphill battle it took to get into this one, however. There is so much good that comes with the 3 on 3 format.

Each of your three fighters on your team are essentially extra lives. If one of them loses a round, you then switch to the next one you have lined up for the next round and carry on where they left off. First team in a fight to lose all their teammates lose the match. There's a few other unique things about the King of Fighters formula as well, such as how damage persists between rounds. The victor heals a small fraction of their HP upon winning a match, but it's rarely enough to fill up your health bar unless you took next to no damage. Things aren't just reset back to zero after every round, losses and damage taken persist on both sides and keep the stakes higher and action more tense. If you only barely lose a round and your opponent only has a sliver of health left, then your next teammate can finish them off while they're weakened with minimal effort. Losing a teammate on your end however also means losing access to their moveset that you may have been relying on to deal with your current opponent, and as a result you need to come up with new strategies and approaches to certain opponents as you switch from character to character.

I love this so much. In other fighting games it doesn't actually matter if you only barely beat your opponent or do a perfect round unless you're after points, since at the start of the next round you'll both be at max health anyway, fighting exactly the same way you fought at the start of the last round. As a result, having to win two rounds essentially feels like “win the fight, then win the fight again without losing twice”, which more or less just feels like the game checking that your win wasn't a fluke. That's fine and all, but there's not really a sense of progression of things changing between rounds. In King of Fighters meanwhile, absolutely everything matters. Every individual hit taken and every teammate knocked out is going to shift the trajectory of the rest of the match and keep the gameplay fresh throughout, ensuring you're never doing the same thing twice in a single match.

The cast of playable characters is a huge step up from past SNK fighters as well and they're a delight to see in action, from their varied fighting styles to all the banter they have with other characters and their excellent designs and sprite work. There's a reason this is the only one I beat with all characters, that being that the individual personalities of each character is really starting to shine through here. Every character has unique victory dialogue depending on who they win against, in addition to each team having a unique ending relevant to their story arc and the reasons they chose to enter the tournament. The game is also a lot more fast moving than SNK’s prior games, which makes seeing these colourful characters duke it out with superb sprite animation flow all the better and have even more impact.

I fully expected the Women's Fighter team to be my favourite due to King, and they are great, a very charming group. Surprisingly though, my favourite team, both in terms of gameplay and characterisation, ended up being the Ikari Warriors team. You could make an argument that Heidern, the leader of the Ikari Warriors, is the actual protagonist of King of Fighters ‘94 due to having the most history with the main antagonist and the biggest character arc. In addition to that, they're total dorks, essentially turning their mercenary background into a wrestling persona gimmick and playing that up constantly with their taunts. They also show a lot of genuine camaraderie in spite of it all, which is expanded upon even further in future games. I love these violent hired killer arseholes, they're sweethearts.

Also, the final boss? Absolutely superb, unironically a fantastic finale. I don't know if this is a sign of me simply getting desensitised to SNK’s design or what, but I loved this final boss fight a ton. He's absolutely a brutal fight and he does an absurd amount of damage, however all of his specials have enough of a wind up that you can react to them accordingly, and also have openings that allow you to counter attack. In addition, while the fight is obviously asymmetrical with the boss being far stronger and tankier than any playable character, it's balanced out by the fight being against a single opponent, while you have three team members to gradually weaken him with until he goes down. He's also extremely entertaining in how cartoonishly evil and cruel he is. Once he starts his deranged tirade about killing you and stuffing your corpse to put on display, you're immediately hyped up to kick this creep’s arse.

Before this single post gets absurdly long, I better wrap things up. As of the time of writing, I have now played and beaten King of Fighters ‘95, ‘96 and ‘97 with every character, even working up the courage to bump the difficulty back up to Level 4 with King of Fighters ‘96, so I have seen the future of SNK and can confirm that as much as I love ‘94, it's absolutely improved upon across the board by its successors. ‘94 is pretty janky, special move inputs are still more finicky than they are in later KoF games, you can only choose between preset teams as opposed to creating your own custom team of your favourite characters, certain character specials are pretty unbalanced and have awkward hitboxes and the AI is still quite the input reader to a degree that certain specials and grabs just don't feel like viable options in single player. Regardless, King of Fighters ‘94 has made me a SNK fan, and I'm very excited to play more of their vast library of fighters.

Page written by MSX_POCKY, 16th October 2024