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King of Fighters M2 -SNK/I-play (2005) -played on a Sanyo 8300
Oh, once fearless fighting fighter kings, what has become of thee? My Thoughts The King of Fighters series was once SNK’s annual mega-bought fighting game. It featured tons of fighters from the SNK universe and was always good for a round of beatings or two. After the massive disappointment that was the mobile version of Samurai Shodown, I was again expecting the worst from a SNK fighter on the phone.
The King of Fighters games are known for their rosters of dozens upon dozens of fighters. The mobile bought has four: Terry, Mai, Kim, and Leona. At least they are four of the more popular fighters from the series. This way we’re not stuck with those ludicrous basketball team rejects. M2 features a few modes: KOF mode (story), survival, and battle. KOF mode is where you fight in a story involving heavenly light and clones. Survival is self-explanatory and battle mode lets you choose a fighter and an opponent for one pointless fight. What is odd in KOF mode is that you can’t choose who you want to fight with. The game automatically starts you off with Terry and you face off with the other three fighters and his clone. Once Terry’s part is finished you repeat with Mai, Kim, and lastly Leona.
Sadly, the most entertaining part about the game is a few bits of dialogue. “Unidentified light source, what mystery is this?” and “What light is this that shines so brighty?” may seem like lines from a Shakespearean play, but they are more likely a result of garbled translation. SNK’s track record for mobile games just keeps getting worse. Will there ever be a shining light for SNK’s mobile games? At least KOFM2 is better than Samurai Shodown.
-Shawn
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Summary
The visuals are
good. While the characters are small, each one is easily comparable to their
arcade counterparts. The backgrounds are also detailed and provide familiar
locales from the arcade games. The animation is a bit lacking with only one or
two frames per move. This also means that Mai is missing her boobacious bouncing
action we’ve all grown fond of. 
The moves are
very basic punches and kicks. You can perform a few special moves but there is
no point when repeatedly hitting the ok button works just fine. Like in the
bigger Kings, the characters also each have a stylish move. Two of these
moves are not worth attempting because they are two of the most difficult button
presses to pull off in any mobile game. To do these moves after a combination of
hits, the screen panoramas with instructions telling you what you need to do to
perform the move. Terry’s is fine as you just hit “6” when a ball passes through
a square. Leona’s is also easy since all you do is stop three bars when they are
all in the green. The two painfully hard moves belong to Mai and Kim. For Mai
you need to hit nine numbers in four seconds. That may not sound so bad if you
can enter a familiar phone number in a couple seconds, but when the numbers are
completely randomized every time you want to do the move it is needlessly tough.
For Kim you must hit the highlighted number in a grid in four seconds, which is
equally as hard. Those aren’t the only moves however; there are also deadly
moves where you need to hit “6” as quickly as you can. Unfortunately, cell
phones are usually not made so that you can hit one key over and over fast
enough for the move to work.
Score: