King of Fighters Maximum Impact 2 Hands-on Preview

In a genre becoming rapidly more esoteric as it falls from mainstream favour, adapting 2D fighting favourites into three dimensions is a dangerous business. Do you risk alienating the fans by making too many concessions to the current leaders, or do you stick with what you do best and have new players return to their Tekkens, Soul Caliburs, and Virtua Fighters? King of Fighters: Maximum Impact 2 is actually looking like it’ll do a decent job of straddling those two poles.

The first step into 3D for this series, 2004’s King of Fighters: Maximum Impact, wasn’t well received. Average reviews from both the press and fans condemned it, but some major tweaks that have clearly been born of SNK listening to the fans’ complaints go a long way towards putting the series back on track. There will undoubtedly be sceptics, but first impressions suggest that this game retains most of what makes the older games so much fun.

While Soul Calibur has popularised true 3D movement in fighting games, MI2 remains essentially a 2D game, with only the polygonal graphics and a basic sidestep to differentiate it from previous 2D iterations – the characters (of which there are many) fight on a flat plane with only the edge of the arenas to stop them. There are a huge number of characters to choose from, all with their own set of moves, as well as a few secrets that are unlocked by finishing the game multiple times. I won’t name names, but some of them are sure to bring a smile to the face of SNK veterans.

The fighting system shouldn’t be too hard to fathom for anyone familiar with Street Fighter, since the cross-pollination between the two series which peaked with the SNK vs. Capcom series has been ongoing for some time now. Special moves and super combos are activated in much the same way, and MI2 introduces ‘Sabaki’, a new parry move which, when timed correctly, will knock the opponent’s attack off target and leave them open for a counter. The retention of 2D fighting conventions in the series helps to keep the relentless pace, with the added depth of movement that the third dimension allows. Whether it will placate the militant fanboys remains to be seen, but it’s definitely a fun game to play.

Aside from the basic arcade mode, story mode provides the meat of the single-player game, following the ongoing interactions between characters with short cutscenes reminiscent of how the plotlines in the Dead or Alive series play out: characters chew the scenery a bit before going at it. This time the voice acting can be switched between the original Japanese and a new English dub which should please those for whom dubbing of Japanese games is a constant annoyance.

Versus mode provides the multiplayer (no online play outside Japan, unfortunately) and includes team battle, as well as an intriguing party mode which will apply random modifiers such as the inability to block or a limited life bar to one of the combatants. What may turn out to be the most appealing single-player element is the missions mode, though, which provides a large number of tasks of increasing difficulty to unlock extra costumes and the like. They start off fairly basic, asking you to hit an opponent ten times or break through the enemy’s guard, but before too long start to task you with more fantastical objectives, such as beating up the tank from Metal Slug. Some of them, such as defeating an enemy on hard without knocking them down, are just plain cruel.

Graphically MI2 looks adequate, and there’s not much more to say about the visuals than that. Character models are big and well-animated, and look like their sprite counterparts. Special attacks are rendered with all the expected gusto, with fireballs and light trails flying around the screen in a fashion that won’t blow anyone away but stays true to the earlier games in the series. The backdrops are ostensibly window dressing for the square arenas and story sequences, and really aren’t anything to write home about in this world of games with interactive hazards and multi-tiered arenas, but they’re in keeping with the apparent theme of taking baby steps into the 3D realm with this venerable series.

So then, as with many fighting games making the move into the third dimension, we have one that finds itself walking the tightrope between fan service and adherence to the conventions of its new subgenre; as with all of them, it’s likely to attract equal parts vitriol and praise. Either way, this is looking to be a fast and fun fighting game, but one that might fail to win over the hardcore fans.