An interesting twist on KOF, but it's far from delivering the Maximum Impact promised.
For starters, the game is entirely dubbed in English with no Japanese soundtrack feature. The voices are okay in combat but lousy in the story cut scenes where there are huge gaps in the dialogue cut with the worst lipsyncing outside of a Sandy Frank dubbed Japanese movie. As if to add insult to injury, the Japanese voice cast is the only cast listed in the credits.
The game has nineteen fighters to start out with and one unlockable character, namely the boss of the game Duke. This isn't a huge deal with the one on one combat of Maximum Impact, but this is still perhaps the smallest cast of fighters in KOF history. The game consists of the usual suspects such as Terry, Kyo, Iori, Mai, Yuri, Ryo and Athena and a handful of new charcters who are sorta okay.
The combat itself is pretty good, if nothing special. While it's not going to trump DOA in arenas or combat mechanics, all the characters retain their signature moves and super moves. The 3D fighters don't quite have the personality of their 2D counterparts, but they get the job done. The arenas look good, but are awfully restrictive compared to other 3D fighters. There are several areas that clearly have invisible walls to keep the fighters in the arena.
The game only has a few modes of play including Story, Versus and Missions. The Story mode is perhaps the blandest story in KOF history featuring an annoying bucktoothed gameshow host in a hideous suit announcing the various matches. The final match is with Duke, a cheap Rugal knockoff who can be either unbelievably hard or easy to beat at random no matter what level the game is set at. He has an unlimited super gauge and will often use the same super attack up to three times in a row, making defeat pretty much inevitable even if you do defend yourself. This kind of overpowered boss tactic is common to KOF, but it was excusable in previous entries since the boss battles were often three or four against one, but in one on one it's more ridiculous than anything else.
The versus mode allows you to play against the computer or a friend in one on one or classic KOF three on three matches. The Mission mode consists of a series of increasingly difficult combat challenges. Completing these unlocks alternate colors for the various characters costumes as well as a few bonus arenas.
Die-hard KOF fans, like myself, will probably still like Maximum Impact, but if you can pick it up cheap as a used game like I did, you'll be a lot more pleased with it than if you paid full price. Those just looking for a good 3D fighter for the PS2, however, are still better of with DOA 2: Hardcore.