Rounding out the newcomers is the excellently named Krohnen McDougall, who may sound like some kind of Hebridean lager, but is in fact a shady NESTS-linked enigma with a crazy shape-shifting arm. Dolores is a mysterious psychic priestess who is key to the nonsensical magical shenanigans that form the story of XV. She enters the fray as the principle rival to flames-wielding hero Shun’ei. Isla is a streetwise, Harajuku youngster with an Iori-esque set of disembodied flaming purple hands. The gameplay features teams of three, with a vast selection of KOF legends included, alongside a trio of new entrants. Four LP on the spin will automatically end the combo in either a spectacular Climax Super, or the most powerful attack currently available if you don’t have enough meter juice, with LK, HP and HK resulting in special move, super special move (think EX attack), and Max Super Special Move respectively. How the combo end is decided what the fourth input is, and how many bars of your power meter remain. This can only be activated from a neutral position, and involved four consecutive button presses, which must begin with three light punch inputs. New to the mix is the Shatter Strike – a powerful tool that is best compared to the Focus attack from the modern Street Fighter universe, debilitating your opponent and opening a window of opportunity to cause a huge amount of additional damage as they crumple in front of you.Īs is de rigeur in a lot of modern fighters there is also a single button combo system, called Rush. There are a few different varieties of MAX mode to tinker with, one which can be triggered in any situation and improves damage and the strength of Guard Crush, and a second Quick version which sees your avatar bathed in a pink hue and is activated either when you guard or carry out an attack – allowing you to combo straight into your next desired action without leaving yourself wide open. A lot of time-honoured features are retained – the evasive roll, hops, five-bar super meter, Climax and Hyper Climax special moves – and there is also the ability to trigger a MAX mode which boosts your attack power for a brief period. The gameplay is deep, but easy to learn thanks to a simple control scheme employing the Neo Geo standard four buttons, and a decent tutorial and combo-led mission mode that allows newcomers to pick things up and brings long term KOF nerds up to speed with the current mechanics in play. With its super accessible fighting system, no-nonsense presentation and fun, addictive gameplay, there is hope that this could be the one. Despite being readily available across a number of formats over the years, SNK’s flagship one on one fighting franchise has never really had a standout mainstream crossover success that it probably deserves, but hopefully that’s about to change with The King of Fighters XV.
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