The King of Fighters '94 Re-Bout E3 2005 Hands-On

One of the numerous fighting games on display at SNK's floorspace at the 2005 Electronic Entertainment Expo is The King of Fighters '94 Re-Bout, a remake of the original title in the classic 2D fighting game series. Back when KOF '94 first came out, SNK was already starting to become a powerhouse in the fighting game genre, especially on account of the Samurai Shodown series but also because of Fatal Fury and Art of Fighting, which had continued to evolve successfully. But King of Fighters would go on to become the company's greatest, most popular fighting game series of all, thanks to its unprecedented depth and fantastic rosters of imaginative characters. Most fans would agree that the series' breakthrough title was actually KOF '95, but '94 introduced most of the elements that went on to make this such a great series. History lessons aside, the version of KOF '94 that we played still looked really early and made us long for the original.

KOF '94 Re-Bout actually doesn't do much to overhaul the original. Thanks to the Atomiswave hardware, the game is capable of higher-resolution graphics than the original, which is noticeable in the touched-up graphics that are on display. Rather than feature completely redrawn characters and animations, Re-Bout basically traces over all of the original sprites and 2D artwork, making them look sharper and higher-res. But there's sort of a disconnect between the new artwork and the admittedly choppy animation. What's more, it's debatable whether the redrawn frames of animation actually look better than the original--those of us with nostalgic ties to the original may not prefer the redone art.

The gameplay itself hasn't changed much, so it lacks the sophistication and the large character rosters of subsequent titles in the series. Still, you've got two dozen different fighters here, which was a huge number back in the day and still is quite a few by today's standards. Re-Bout does add a team edit ability, first introduced in KOF '95, so you aren't limited to the predefined teams of three as in the original KOF '94. The game will also feature a color edit mode as well as playable versions of Rugal Bernstein and Saisyu Kusanagi, two of the bosses from the series. For good measure, KOF '94 Re-Bout will allow you to optionally play in "NeoGeo Mode," designed for purists who want to see the original graphics once again. (The game's excellent audio seems to be the same whichever mode you choose, though we couldn't hear it too closely amid the din of E3.) The NeoGeo mode was pretty buggy at E3, but we have no doubt it'll get fixed by the time the game comes home.

Though SNK has previously suggested its intentions to port The King of Fighters '94 Re-Bout to the Xbox as well as the PlayStation 2, the company's E3 sell sheet for the title states that only an Xbox version is on the way. For what it's worth, that version (along with all of SNK's subsequent Xbox fighters) will feature online play, including a tournament mode that will reveal who the world's best players are. KOF '94 Re-Bout is due out this fall. We hope it ends up doing justice to its namesake, though if nothing else, the ability to play an online-enabled version of the unaltered arcade classic is something we'll be looking forward to.