The King of Fighters, the flagship IP of SNK, has accompanied countless people through their childhood in an era when domestic game arcades are everywhere. After experiencing the sudden death of 14 in sales and the criticized difficulty of 13, in 6 years In the past, SNK finally remembered this IP and will launch King of Fighters XV, also known as King of Fighters 15, on February 17, 2022.

1. The reborn King of Fighters 15

Since its launch in 1994, it has become a fighting game that has made the world crazy with its charming characters and unique and novel game system. "THE KING OF FIGHTERS" series. Six years after the previous game, the game graphics, game system, and online functions will all be completed by the breakthrough "King of Fighters 15".

The game will initially contain 39 fighting characters, which is a decrease of some characters compared with the previous game. ***There are thirteen teams, each team has three members, and 6 additional characters will be added later as DLC (divided into 2 teams)

The light and shadow expression and processing of The King of Fighters 15 It has been greatly improved and is performed more beautifully than the previous work. In addition, the character models were not directly used from the previous game, but were significantly adjusted or remade. This is a battle between making the graphics look beautiful and the processing load (system operation), but the production team is able to strike a good balance in this regard, that is, ensuring the smoothness of the game while also showing the charm of the characters.

The system, visual effects and sound of this game have all been improved compared to the previous game. Not only is it easy for fans of "The King of Fighters" to play, but it will also be easy for fans of other fighting games to get started.

2. SNK’s world-class IP The King of Fighters

“The King of Fighters” is a famous fighting arcade game released on the MVS game console by the Japanese company SNK in 1994. The abbreviation of "KOF" is also the name of the world-scale fighting competition held in the plot.

It was originally a fighting competition held on the stage of Nan Town in the company's other two works "Legend of the Wolf" series and "Fist of the Dragon and Tiger 2". "KOF" is the official abbreviation, taken from the first letter of each word. The trademark is registered under the name of SNK Corporation. Mainland China and Hong Kong are known as the "King of Fighters". The officially recognized Chinese translation of the game is "King of Fighters" (it can be known from the SNK Playmore Hong Kong official website or some background text in some series). Taiwan's translation is "King of Fighting", which is the translation of the original game console's move stickers.

As of 2020, *** has released 14 official King of Fighters game works: The King of Fighters 94, The King of Fighters 95, The King of Fighters 96, The King of Fighters 97, The King of Fighters 98, The King of Fighters 99, The King of Fighters 2000, The King of Fighters 2001, The King of Fighters 2002, The King of Fighters 2003, King of Fighters XI (King of Fighters 11), King of Fighters XII (King of Fighters 12), King of Fighters XIII (King of Fighters 13), King of Fighters XIV (King of Fighters 14).

3. Can the glory of fighting games come back?

The core reason for the decline of fighting games is the operational threshold and equipment threshold. Although the single game time is almost the shortest among all competitive games, and seems to be the most suitable for fragmented time, in fact it still requires a monitor and a host or computer. Both the input hardware and the network quality of handheld consoles and mobile phones are not enough to support fighting games.

The training curves of fighting are most similar to those of shooting and red alert. The basic operations in the early stage are extremely easy to understand. Although it is difficult to get started (no one is the highest), it is easy to master once and for all. process. And the stickiness of the game is extremely high. Fighting games often have people who are beaten by people who are autistic or willing to quit due to other reasons, but not as many as other games, because a large part of these people who quit are just quitting the current game, not quitting fighting. Arena. These people take this once-and-for-all training result and continue to fight in other fights, maybe they will become the boss directly.

However, this does not meet the psychological expectations of contemporary people who only want to eat fast food and fast food. If you want to play fighting to the point where you can show off your skills and be able to play X, it will take too long. Contemporary young people have missed the glorious first half of the 1990s, when it was easiest to acquire the practice process once and for all. They have missed the period when most people were noobs and everyone moved forward together.

But will fighting games decline from now on? I don’t think so. Although the glorious era is gone forever, fighting games will not disappear.

Although fighting games are melodramatic, good fighting games have enough charm to attract real hardcore players, and are worthy of players to study, train, and compete to experience greater fun. Fast food can never replace careful work.