King of Fighters R-2 review by substance J

King of Fighters R-2 is the follow up to one of NGP's best launch titles, KOF R-1. Featuring an innovative new Making mode, Color graphics, and Dreamcast connectivity, I was obviously excited to get my hands on it.

Graphics - Color: A, Grayscale: B+
The instant I booted up KOF R-2 in my NGPC, I was very impressed with the vivid, smooth colors, and fantastic animation. The animation, in fact, appears to be even more fluid than in its predecessor. The intro and character select screens are very colorful, and the art is once again super-high quality. One of the things that really grabbed my attention in screenshots, and when I play the game is the impressive detail in the backgrounds. Buildings, schoolgirls, boats, trains, etc are all wonderfully shaded and have diverse color pallets. The actual in-game characters are perfectly drawn, amazingly animated (easily matching the quality of recent home fighters), and while some say they lack color...I think they look fantastic. Each character is composed of (usually) 3 to 4 colors, and special attacks and effects are also made up of the same number of shades. KOF R-2 is the best looking portable game I have ever played.

Sound: B+
The fantastic tunes of KOF R-1 have returned, and are just as astoundingly catchy. Plus new music for some returning characters and new ones (of course). The SFX are more detailed than before, with nice impact and taunting sounds. I love the music...but it's really too bad Athena's Psycho Soldier song is gone (Noooo!!). Although, now I can't get Rugal's fantastic theme out of my head!

Gameplay: A+
If you've played KOF R-1, you'll know what to expect - Arcade thrills in palm of your hand! Once again SNK has flawlessly ported the look, feel, and fun of King of Fighters to the NGP. And they've added a major bonus - Making Mode! The most unexpected addition ever, Making mode allows you to chose a fighter, name it, and guide it through a mini-RPG (In a Neo Geo Cup sense) where you gain new skills and even features such as editing you win quote! What adds even more fun to Making mode, for me, is knowing that it will be possible to upload my trained new fighter into my Dreamcast, and possibly even download new skills and items! The general gameplay in KOF R-2 is based on King of Fighters 98, and plays very similarly to KOF R-1. Sadly, though, I am a bit dissatisfied with the rearranging of the character roster. SNK has removed one of my all-time favorites, Kim! Adding insult to injury, everyone's least favorite combatants - Kasumi! Why they ever decided to add her to the roster is beyond me, as she's one of the least popular and least useful characters ever to appear in a KOF title. But otherwise, the teams remain balanced well matched. With such fantastic gameplay, the new Making mode, and numerous hidden characters (where are you, Rugal?!), KOF R-2 will keep a player satisfied for weeks, even months. And connectivity with Dreamcast's KOF98 can only stand to prolong the enjoyment.

Presentation: B+
Very nice box art and manual, smooth navigation of menus, and great (impressively shaded) character select screens. But one big problem - No real team endings?! One of the coolest things I took for granted in KOF R-1 is nowhere to be found. Replaced with a generic Rugal-suicide thingie. Not bad...but I had hoped for great color ending screens.

Overall: A
The KOF gameplay you crave, stunning new color graphics, and some very cool antics in Making mode boost KOF R-2 to Must-Have status (like we didn't expect that?). When KOF R-2 was announced, I was not very interested because even as of writing this, KOF R-1 is less than 6 months old, and still quite fun. But KOF R-2 proved to be much more than I expected, and actually worthy of being called a sequel. Highly recommended…just as long as Kim is back in Fatal Fury: 1st Contact! A very impressive showboat title for SNK's NGPC. And to think, color depth can only get better as time goes on. Wow!