King of Fighters R-2

• Release Date: 1999 05
• Genre: Fighting
• Style: 2D Fighting
• Similar Games: Fatal Fury (Super Nintendo Entertainment System), Fatal Fury 3: Road to the Final Victory (Neo Geo Advanced Entertainment System), The King of Fighters '95 (Neo Geo Advanced Entertainment System), Samurai Shodown II (Neo Geo Advanced Entertainment System), Samurai Shodown (Game Boy), Samurai Shodown (Sega Game Gear), Fatal Fury (Sega Genesis), Fatal Fury 2 (Sega Genesis), The King of Fighters '96 (Sega Saturn), The King of Fighters '95 (Sega Saturn), The King of Fighters '95 (PlayStation), The King of Fighters '96 (PlayStation), Samurai Shodown (3DO), Super Street Fighter II Turbo (3DO), Fatal Fury 2 (Super Nintendo Entertainment System), Samurai Shodown (Super Nintendo Entertainment System), Street Fighter II: The World Warrior (Super Nintendo Entertainment System), Street Fighter II: The World Warrior (Game Boy), Samurai Shodown (Sega CD), Street Fighter II: The World Warrior (Arcade), Fatal Fury: King of Fighters (Arcade), Fatal Fury 2 (Arcade), Fatal Fury 3 (Arcade), The King of Fighters '95 (Arcade), The King of Fighters '96 (Arcade), The King of Fighters '97 (Arcade), Samurai Shodown (Arcade), Super Street Fighter II Turbo (Arcade), Super Street Fighter II Turbo (IBM PC Compatible), The King of Fighters '97 (PlayStation), Street Fighter II: The World Warrior (IBM PC Compatible), Samurai Shodown (Sega Genesis), Fatal Fury (Neo Geo Advanced Entertainment System), Fatal Fury 2 (Neo Geo Advanced Entertainment System), The King of Fighters '96 (Neo Geo Advanced Entertainment System), The King of Fighters '97 (Neo Geo Advanced Entertainment System), The King of Fighters '98 (Neo Geo Advanced Entertainment System), Samurai Shodown (Neo Geo Advanced Entertainment System), Street Fighter II: The World Warrior (Commodore 64/128), The King of Fighters '99 (Neo Geo Advanced Entertainment System)

Game Description

If you wanted to play King of Fighters on the road, what could you do? Put an arcade machine on wheels and pull it around? Hook up a battery to a Neo-Geo home unit, carry it in a backpack, and hook it up to a Game Gear with a TV tuner? Or would you just settle for the cheesy Game Boy version? You don't have to -- now, King of Fighters R2 has exploded onto the super-cute Neo Geo Pocket Color!

All of your favorite fighters have made their way onto the small screen, from the hyper-bouncy Mai Shiranui to the strapping Terry Bogard. Check out newcomers like the vicious Kasumi Todoh and Leona, and quail in terror of the new Extra Power Gauges!

Aside from new "Blow Away Attacks" and "Power MAX Activates," King of Fighters R2 also features a link-up mode so you can hook up your Neo-Geo Pocket Color to your Dreamcast for cross-platform abilities. Train and equip your fighter on the handheld, then take your friends to school on the big screen! The "Making" mode allows you to customize the fighters to your own particular style -- with over 50 modifiers, there's virtually limitless replay value.

With bright, colorful graphics, and tried-and-true King of Fighters gameplay, R2 will keep you brawling until you run out of battery life!

Roots & Influences

King of Fighters series (Arcade)

King of Fighters 95 (Game Boy)

Review: Overall

SNK Corporation with the Neo-Geo Pocket Color. SNK has been known for its successful King of Fighters series in the arcades now it brings that experience to the handheld market with King of Fighters R2. This is one of the first color-specific titles for the Neo-Geo Pocket Color, and it definitely opens up a pint-sized can of whoop-ass on the competition at Nintendo.

King of Fighters R2 is a three-on-three "team battle" fighting game, similar to Virtua Fighter 3tb. At the start of the game, you select three fighters and create your own team, then pit them against other teams from across the globe in a cacophony of snap kicks and fireballs. There are fourteen fighters available from the get-go (which actually pales in comparison to the latest arcade King of Fighters game, which features something like eight dozen brawlers).

Control is a scaled-down rendition of SNK's typical four-button layout. A is punch, B is kick, and that's all you've gotta know. Using standard Street Fighter joystick "rolls" results in special moves aplenty, and increasing your POW meter lets you lay the smack down with fireballs the size of metropolitan Chicago. Control is fast and responsive, especially when combined with the expertly-designed pad on the unit itself.

Aside from the typical team battle and versus gameplay modes, beating the game unlocks "making" mode. This allows you to create a character, equip them with weapons like handguns (really!), and enhance their fighting skills with new moves. It's a cool little feature, and brings some RPG-like flair to the proceedings with a badly-written story mode. And when you're finished, you can upload the data to your Dreamcast for use with King of Fighters 99 on the console.

Graphically, this game is about as good as it gets for portables. Characters have a cutesey, "Super-deformed" Japanese anime look, and the backgrounds have a slick hand-painted look to them. The animation is noteworthy, with smooth-scrolling backdrops and a high frame-rate on the fighters.

And it wouldn't be an SNK game without really bad translations! Thanks to SNK's wonderful localization department, King of Fighters R2 is riddled with more grammatical errors and paradoxical sentences than ever before. If you're skilled in the ways of Nihongo, all you have to do is change the language to Japanese in the settings menu. I'm sure the game makes more sense that way...

All in all, King of Fighters R2 is a great little fighter to pass your time on a long plane trip. Hopefully, this title will inspire yearly updates from SNK -- how about a pint-sized port of Samurai Shodown IV, guys?

Review: Enjoyment

Dead-on control, and almost as many special moves as the arcade version.

Review: Graphics

Large, super-deformed cartoony brawlers duke it out in front of lush backdrops. Thumbs up.

Review: Sound

The background tunes are as decent as the Neo-Geo Pocket Color can muster. Sound effects are lacking, though.

Review: Replay Value

The "Making" mode lets you build up your character, then upload them to the Dreamcast version. There's plenty to do here.

Review: Documentation

Shoddy, poorly-written, and more confusing than anything. It's what you should expect from SNK!

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