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

TOKYO--After announcing the game back in August, SNK is displaying a playable version of The King of Fighters '94 Re-Bout at the 2004 Tokyo Game Show. The game appears to keep the same gameplay as the original King of Fighters game, but it makes a lot of changes to the graphics.

Re-Bout's backgrounds are 3D, though so far, they look pretty plain and, for the most part, not up to the standard for 3D fighting game backgrounds. The arenas don't look much better than a PlayStation game. The game's characters have been redrawn, or at least retraced. The character sprites are much smoother, but they also have a really soft look that doesn't mesh very well with the game's backgrounds. Finally, the whole background rotates a bit when your characters move into the background for a quick dodge, which just looks weird.

Not all the changes are graphical. The game will also feature online support over KDDI's broadband player-matching service in Japan. Additionally, you'll be able to select individual characters, rather than being stuck with preset teams. This is the first time outside of KOF '98 that you've been able to put Heavy D! on a team with Terry Bogard.

The King of Fighters '94 Re-Bout will hit Japanese shores before the year is out. No plans to release the game in other regions have been announced at this time. For more updates, be sure to check GameSpot's coverage of the Tokyo Game Show 2004.