The King of Fighters 14 Review

After several years, several app games and a number of betrayals resulting in said app games being taken down, SNK has finally come out with the successor to The King of Fighters 13, a tough act to follow since 13 is possibly the greatest fighting game ever made.

Originally released on a system that charges its users for a basic function after they already paid for the damn game system and game itself, The King of Fighters 14 has been released on the PC with a Steam edition just like 13 did.  After playing it since its open beta and after a number of updates and fixes, I’m ready to tackle this new KOF.

I can’t really call it a retrospective since it very recently came out and I’m still playing it, so consider this a review in the style of my previous retrospective posts.  There’s quite a lot to cover here and right out the gate KOF 14 breaks a tradition by having a vocal opening that intensifies the hype like you wouldn’t believe.

It's a new story with a new KOF, a while after that one KOF tournament where no one seems to know what happened.  A big burly badass Russian billionaire named Antonov buys the rights to The King of Fighters tournament and declares himself the King of Fighters champion by default.  I guess when the previous winners aren’t clear you have to start somewhere.  Like a wrestling federation, Antonov has made a lavish gold championship belt with the new KOF logo for the champion and challenges all fighters to enter the tournament and win it.

Antonov is suspected of being shady, but Heidern’s squad can’t find anything crooked on the guy.  In fact he’s actually kind of nice.  He’s competitive, kind of bullheaded and a showboat, but Antonov really does want to run the KOF tournament because he likes the excitement of the fight and competition, as the player finds out.  He’s like Zangief without the patriotism and he has a preference for the high life.  For the first time in King of Fighters history the sponsor is actually running KOF purely to run KOF like it’s supposed to.  It took 11 games worth of story to finally get that.  I like this because it gives the story the tone that it’s there for fun, which is the core reason to play any fighting game.

That’s not to say characters don’t have their reasons to enter.  A number of characters sense a strange aura around the tournament, like a premonition that something is going to happen.  This attracts many of the more important characters to enter.

The characters entering are a nice combination of old characters and new characters.  One of my complaints with 13 was that it didn’t introduce any new characters, but 14 has a fair number of them as well as some returning ones getting some more attention.

The Ikari Warriors, Japan, Yagami and Fatal Fury teams haven’t changed since 13, but just about everyone else has.

The new hero of the story is a kid named Shun’ei, who has a mysterious power that summons red and blue hands of energy.  To control this power he trains with his master Tung Fu Rue and fellow disciple Meiteikun, who is always falling asleep, and they enter to train.

Yes, for the first time in the actual story (not a bonus character) Terry and Geese’s teacher Tung Fu Rue is entering KOF.  It’s been a long time coming.  He plays much like he did in KOF 11 too.

I don’t have a whole lot to say about Shun yet.  This is the beginning of the new saga and much about him hasn’t been revealed, but he looks like the reserved type with altruistic motivations, like a mix of K’ and Kyo.

Also new to the scene is the Brazil team.  They’re officialy referred to as the South American team, but that’s only because one of them is technically Columbian by race.  They all live in Brazil so I just call them the Brazil team.

The head of this team is a young boxer named Nelson.  After an unspecified accident, Nelson lost or broke his left arm and a currently-unspecified organization got him a new cybernetic one, which Maxima seems visibly concerned with.  He was good enough to defeat Tizoc in a championship match and the poor wrestler hasn’t been seen since.

Nelson has a chain combo system like Angel and Gai, but it’s much easier to understand and use since the order of the buttons you press never change.  Moving the control stick in different directions uses something situational, like a guard crush or getting behind the opponent.  He’s a good mix-up character and a cool design.  Compared to other boxers like Vanessa, Dudley or Steve Fox, he's much more colorful.

Nelson’s friend is Bandeiras Hattori, an aspiring ninja who clearly does not look the type.  He’s entering KOF to attract people to his dojo, like the Kyokugen team or their loser counterpart Dan in Street Fighter.

As the last name suggests, Bandeiras uses moves from Samurai Shodown regular Hanzo Hattori plus a few tricks from other Samurai Shodown regulars like Ukyo and Galford.  I don’t know if he’s actually related to Hanzo or if he took the name for some attempt at authenticity, but Hanzo would slap his face at this guy.

It’s not that he’s a bad fighter.  Bandeiras has ninja speed and can use Hanzo’s spinning tackle as well as the ninja log trick.  He’s a better representation of a ninja than Eiji or Andy combat-wise, but as a character he is a complete goof.  Bandeiras is exactly the kind of person people think of when they hear the word “weeaboo”.  He thinks Japan is the land of ninjas, asks Mai to be his teacher, Robert implies he looks like a cosplayer and in their team’s ending he gets arrested for acting and dressing suspiciously.

I love him.

The final member of the team is Zarina, an energetic nature lover who enters to raise awareness and support to keep toucans like her friend Coco from going extinct.  Like Christie Monteiro and Momoko, she uses capoeira, which if you ask me is one of those fighting styles designers default to when they just want it to be different, but I guess there hasn’t been a straightforward, non-psychic capoeira user in KOF yet, so there had to be eventually.

The most interesting new team is the Another World team.  For the first time ever, KOF brings in characters from completely different worlds and/or time periods.  This team consists of Samurai Shodown’s Nakoruru and the characters Mui Mui and Love Heart.  They come to the KOF world sensing a great disturbance after a certain someone no one remembers caused a giant distortion in the space time continuum.  Seeing as Nakoruru in her home game is a guardian of the Earth, it’s her duty to find the world’s disturbance and put an end to it.

Nakoruru is a popular character, but many people have no idea who Mui Mui and Love Heart are because they’re both from SNK’s pachinko machines that have never been released in America.  I recognized them from the very first leak of KOF 14’s roster because they were both support characters in The Rhythm of Fighters and songs from their machines were in it.  I can’t speak for a foreign casino game’s fun factor, but I’ve always loved the style of those pachinko games from what I can see online.  I think they’re all great additions to KOF.

The other team of newcomers is the Official Invitations team, a band of weirdos personally contracted by Antonov to spice up the competition after impressing him with their combat prowess.  Tournament sponsors already had fighters they wanted to see compete, but fuck them!  Antonov is a big belt-wearing mamma jamma and he can do whatever he wants!

The most prominent member is Slyvie, a very oddly-dressed former agent of NESTS who can generate static electricity from her body.  I don’t know what NESTS did with her, but I don’t think she’s right in the head.

Her teammate Mian has a more grounded fashion sense.  Her outfit looks exactly what you’d think a Chinese stage dancer would look like and she uses traditional Chinese dancing in a fighting style she calls Sichuan Bushinryu.  She’s a shy girl so she wears colorful Chinese masks that change mid-battle, giving her a striking similarity to Lee Pai Long from Art of Fighting (wouldn’t it be cool to see that guy again).

The way the masks change mid-battle is a cool effect.  She supposedly changes them so blindingly fast you can’t see it, so every time she turns away from the camera, moves her arm over her face or strikes with a strong attack the mask changes with nary a graphical hiccup to see.

Sylvie and Mian are joined by Kukri, a guy Antonov hired on the spot at Kukri’s request right after the other two.  He uses assassination arts with sand as his best weapon.

Very little is known about Kukri at this point other than he acts like a total edgelord and he seems to know more about what’s going on.  His face is always covered by his dark hood so he could be the subject of a big reveal later on.  It’s shown he’s secretly working for someone and I won’t spoil who, but it’s someone fans will recognize.

Takuma closed down his noodle shop to open a new barbeque and stays back home to manage it, so once again Yuri is back on the Art of Fighting team to fill the spot.  The vacancy on the women’s team this time is taken by yet another pachinko character I recognized: Alice Garnet Nakata.

Alice has been around even longer than Love Heart and Mui Mui so I wasn’t totally surprised to see her in a KOF game.  She was also in The Rhythm of Fighters and the Days of Memories dating sims.  In fact she was the only one in the Days of Memories games that had never been playable in a game prior.

Alice is a lot like Shingo, only she imitates Terry instead of Kyo.  She has the same energy, same slight clumsiness and a purely physical fighting style aping her hero.

On the subject of Shingo, why is he not in this?!  It’s explicitly stated he’s recovered!  He can fight again!  I want Shingo back!

Wait for meeeee!

Things are working out nicely with the formations of the other teams, but not so much with Kim.  Chang and Choi have gone out on their own, walking a bad path.  Instead of rehabilitating criminals, Kim has made a team with his very own sensei Gang Il.

"What am I supposed to do?!  This game is fucking bugged dude!"

They’re joined by a sultry woman named Luong. She’s kind of like Malin in that she doesn’t have much to her yet.  At first I thought her name suggested she was with the Hizoku clan like Duo Lon and Lin, but there doesn’t appear to be any connection.

Gang Il has moves from Kim’s sons from Mark of the Wolves (who are currently kids in KOF’s story) and Luong has lightning fast kicks, including one move very much like Yamazaki's serpent slasher.

Kim’s team enters to bring Chang and Choi back to the path of righteousness.  After being rehabilitated following the NESTS saga, Chang and Choi have been tempted to go back to their criminal ways by Xanadu, an apparently notorious criminal who recently escaped from an underground prison.

Yes, this notorious criminal is allowed to enter as opposed to being sacked by authorities before the first round even starts.  I guess Anonov pulled strings because he really really wanted to see him fight.  I almost forgot this is the tournament that allows little kids and guns.

Xanadu is a bug-eyed freak with bad dental hygiene and a tendency to speak total nonsense.  Even Chang and Choi are kind of freaked out by him, but nonetheless he’s the leader of the “Villain Team”, which is unfortunate naming because KOF 14 already has a villain team.  Since that name got taken, instead it had to be named the South Town team.

After a long absence in the story, South Town crime lord and de facto SNK boss Geese Howard enters The King of Fighters with a new team.  Geese has had a presence in KOF for a long time and is a fan-favorite.  He was in the updates to KOF 98 & 2002, Capcom vs. SNK and a bonus character in 11, but this is the first time Geese has made his return in the story and it’s great to see him take part in it again.

Geese is being backed up by Billy this time, but rather than get that psycho mofo Yamazaki back, he has a new guy, the battle butler Hein.

"Hit 'em with the Heiiiinnn!"

Hein names his various martial arts moves after chess pieces and what those moves do fit the movement of the corresponding pieces.  Despite working with Geese and Billy Hein is really polite and calm, not having any hard feelings at all in battle.

Finally there’s the Mexican team.  SNK brought back some of the most popular Mexican characters and put them all together for a trio of wrestling badasses and one of my favorite teams in the game.  Have I mentioned that KOF is very popular in South America?

Ramon and Angel both make their returns with a beefy masked wrestler in a dinosaur mask named King of Dinosaurs.  The King of Dinosaurs has some familiar moves, like yelling “Justice Hurricane” for one of his attacks and a high flying head grapple.  He has it out for Nelson for some reason and when Terry calls him Tizoc/Griffon he seems to react.  Hmmmmm….

"I am not Hulk Hogan, brother!"

I question how much of a mask that is because The King of Dinosaurs is fully capable of chomping at his opponents with it as if it were a real mouth, including a biting rush super attack.  Is there a bear trap controlled by his facial muscles?

The strong character selection complements the relatively simple plot.  Being the beginning of the new storyline, the story won’t pick up steam just yet, but there’s just enough detail to make it engaging.  Sadly there’s no real story mode in 14 like in 13.  It’s called story mode, but it’s just arcade mode again, which is expected when there’s little to work with yet.  As a trade-off, all the team endings are some of the lengthiest and most lively yet, certainly longer than the little scenes KOF 13’s arcade mode had.  With so many teams plus two boss characters there’s a lot of them too (just don’t expect much from the final boss’s).

The new characters and new story will make it easy for newcomers to understand and there’s still lots of callbacks, returning fighters and cameos for the usual fans to enjoy too.  SNK wanted to make 14 more accessible to newer players and I commend them for doing so with the story without disregarding its past.

This story does go somewhere.  Click here to see my rundown of where in the game’s finale.

The goal of accessibility went into the rest of the game and as a result the changes made to KOF 14 from previous games make it feel significantly different from any other.

The first big change is the move to 3D, at least for the main series.  Instead of the full-3D fighting of the Maximum Impact games, it’s all on a 2D plane like Mortal Kombat 9 and Street Fighter 4.  That’s a disappointment for me.  They only used 13’s beautiful, colorful, lovingly-animated 2D look for one game (assassinate anyone who says it was for two) and already they move on to a new one that doesn’t look as good.

I should clarify that not looking “as good” does not mean “not good.”  The Maximum Impact games showed that SNK can make their characters look and feel like they did in 2D, so with modern day graphics it looks even better.  Some backgrounds look a little washed out, but all of them have a lot of details going on in them just like the 2D games.

Characters themselves have been put back to normal with the new 3D style, something I’m sure many fans will appreciate.  Athena has her purple hair back, Ryo’s hair is blonde again and Ralf and Clark slimmed down.  I didn’t really mind the art shift 13 had, but I know a lot of people did and it’s good SNK listened to the fans.

The only character redesign now is in the outfits.  The majority of returning characters are all boasting new Falcoon-designed clothes.  Some subtle, like Andy’s flame pants and Chang’s metal gauntlet, others more noticeable, like Terry’s fancier jacket and Choi’s striped shirt.  I like the new duds, particularly for the Yagami team.  I’m digging Yagami’s new jacket and jeans and Vice and Mature look more like they used to (I didn’t like the identical suits in 13).

Even in 3D all the characters act like they should.  They got all the animations and familiar win quotes just right and with the 3D some of them look even better with new camera angles to emphasize the power of their EX specials and climax attacks (this game’s Neo Maxes).  The climax attacks aren’t as fun to use as the Neo Max attacks in 13 though.  In that game there was a moment of silence as a foreboding warning to enormous screen-filling spectacles and they were quick enough to keep the flow going.  No other game presented attacks like that in quite the same way and now it’s basically aping Street Fighter 4’s ultimate attacks, which highlights the visual’s biggest problem.

KOF 14 doesn’t have a lot of distinction to its style.  Previous games were like moving art and art is what SNK does best.  Now characters look kind of like plastic figures.  I would have greatly preferred something more than just moving to 3D with little stylization.  Taken for what it is it looks nice and the endings are still perfectly hand-drawn at least, but it’s not as memorable-looking as the older games.  It’s not as easy to recognize as a King of Fighters game at a glance.

Another major tradition changed up is voice acting.  There’s always been voice acting, but a lot of the plot and dialogue was left up to text.  Now there are fully voiced FMV cutscenes and pre-fight character conversations.

Sadly you don’t get a pre-fight conversation for every combination of characters like in 13.  Each character only has about 3, meaning whether you’ll see one is up to luck.  It’s a shame there’s less, but there’s still a lot of them to see and the voice acting put in helps make a lot of them entertaining.

Benimaru, your name is now Pasta Head.

In another major change those voices are almost all recast.  Many of KOF’s previous voices were done by SNK staff rather than real professional voice actors.  Kyo’s voice actor even said he’s getting too old for the role so now that the acting has more of an emphasis, they made the decision to break a longstanding tradition and let others take over.  There are a few exceptions to this, like Maxima, since his voice actor is a well-known professional and when Shingo inevitably comes back he’s probably going to keep his actor too for the same reason.

Fear not, the new voices were perfectly cast.  Few of them are recognizable Japanese voice actors, but they all do good impressions of the previous voices to the point that you may not even notice they have new voice actors.  I think DLC character Yamazaki might have a better voice than before.  His new actor has the right craziness to him, almost sounding like Wataru Takagi when he gets aggressive.  I 100% approve of the new actors.

No English voices though.

...... What?

For some baffling reason KOF 14 has no English dub whatsoever.  In this day and age that’s a strange thing to not do for a game like this.  I understood not dubbing KOF 13 because there was minimal voice acting so it wouldn’t make much of a difference, but now there are fully voiced cutscenes and fully voiced character conversations!  Dub the damn game!  For a full-priced game that almost seems like a cheat!  I’ve seen people excuse it by saying previous attempts were bad so they shouldn’t do it, but that’s bullshit!  They should do it and do it right like Street Fighter 4 did!  It’s lazy!

As far as presentation is concerned that leaves the music.  A King of Fighters game is never complete without a good pumping soundtrack to get the fighters motivated.  In this game, the soundtrack is hit or miss.

Themes like the Villains team, Mexico team and Another World team fit the characters, but on their own are forgettable and not that exciting.  I don’t mind the Villains team theme using dubstep, it’s just that it only fits Xanadu and anywhere else it doesn’t work.  It sounds more like a boss track.

I was also majorly disappointed with the light, synthesized music for K’’s team.  They had some of the best hard-hitting rock music before and now there isn’t a guitar chord to be found.

But for every miss there’s a hit.  I love the South Town, Kim and Yagami team’s themes in particular.  They keep the elements that made their themes in other games so catchy.

Lest we forget that awesome opening song, Follow Me.  It sounds like what an opening melody like the one to the arcade version of KOF 13 would sound like with a voice track.  The instrumental version of it is the default menu music, but once you clear story mode you can switch between the instrumental and vocal versions, both of which are great mood-setters.  They should open up KOF 14 tournaments with it.

What elevates the soundtrack from “alright” to “good” is the “fateful battle” themes.  When a specific pair of characters fight each other, the game plays a newly arranged version of a previous SNK track representing them, with one exception in which a vocal track is added to one of the new songs.  This means two renditions of Geese’s theme, Kula’s 2000 theme, Andy’s theme from back in Fatal Fury 2 and my favorite, the Japan team’s theme from KOF 11.  It’s music to my ears.

The soundtrack is good enough that I bought the 3-disc soundtrack off of ebay.  If I were to rank it I’d put it above KOF 96 and 2000, but below 11 and 13.

KOF 14 looks and sounds good, but some of it feels like a step back and that’s the same thing you could say about how the game plays.

KOF 14 is significantly slower than the games before it.  Previous King of Fighters games played at lightning speed, but in this one moves have more down time.  The director is known for his work on Mark of the Wolves and Street Fighter 4 and it sure feels like it.  The result is a King of Fighters game that has more of an emphasis on execution than fast reactions.

Poking by mashing the light punch button isn’t an option anymore.  As part of the goal to be more accessible, KOF 14 introduces the “rush combo”, something familiar to anyone who’s played Persona 4 Arena.  By mashing the light punch button at point blank range, each character has a basic combo of at least 4 hits they can use without having to input a complex command.  They finish with a special attack if they don’t have a super stock and a super attack if they do.

I like the rush combos as a quick way to do some easy damage and I suppose it works as an alternative way of poking, but they have to be so close to pull off that they aren’t always as effective as the old-fashioned way and they can’t lead into a traditional combo.  Now a heavy attack is the best combo starter.

Knockdown/blowback attacks are also not so much knockdown moves anymore as “blow across the stage” attacks, which actually makes it feel like it has less weight and is more of an annoyance.  The attacks never seem like they have the kind of windup it should take to blast an opponent away like that, especially not when it’s barely on the edge of where it hits.  In previous games it was more plausible as a quick, sharp blow to trip up the opponent and after being hit by one the person hit could recover and get back into the fight, but in KOF 14 they go flying across the stage, hit the edge of the screen and then get up a fair distance away.  That kills the flow.

Max mode has changed up a bit as well.  Instead of the always-present EX meter, max mode can be executed at the cost of a super meter and allows use of EX special attacks as part of a temporary, dwindling EX gauge.  Really skilled players can activate EX mode as a cancel to extend a combo.  That combined with players gaining a super meter after losing a round and characters having more health makes KOF 14 seem to encourage long, methodical combos by making the most of the super meter you’re given and giving players more of a time window to execute them.

Close-ups like this are used when a character uses an EX super attack.

I’m in two minds about this.  On one hand it’s fun pulling off a good combo and it’s easier to see how they’re done when you watch someone play instead of the canceling being faster than the naked eye.  I learned Ramon's little one-two combo going from his headbutt to his super attack from watching El Rosa, for example..

A slower speed also makes it a little easier to figure out and time counterattacks and the like.
On the other hand, my favorite part about KOF was the speed and reaction-based gameplay.  It’s the game where you dodge and block your opponent with counter moves, finding the right moment to strike and there’s never a moment to rest.  It flowed like a good dance.  14 still has those traits at heart, but now it feels more like fighters wait their turn to do their combo string, which isn’t as exciting and because of the slower pace, doesn't flow.

Like I said, it does still have the core KOF traits at heart and veterans will be able to adjust, since not much has changed control-wise.  It hasn’t changed character-wise either, but in the sense that their moves have been used before.  Some moves from 13 are out and some from before were added.  For example, Benimaru has his slash attack from 2003 and Clark can use his Running Three super attack again.  Clark’s climax attack is also his leader special from 2003 and 11, which I prefer much more than just a really strong grapple.

Maxima’s chest blaster is now a weaker, regular super attack and his climax move is a nifty feat where he tosses his opponent in the air and then snipe shots them with a powerful chest blaster shot.  Maxima was due for a decent long range weapon and the new climax move is showy in the best way.

Iori has his Neo Max from 13 as his climax move, but not the one he used with his flame powers like you might expect.  He uses the claw slash his de-powered formed used, for which I am thankful because it was one of my favorites.  It’s that blend of the older games with some new conventions that makes KOF 14’s characters still feel fresh while staying familiar.

Don't jump.

A particularly glaring omission to the controls, and one that really upsets me, is that there’s no taunting in KOF 14!  None!  Why?!  I love taunting!  Taunting is one of my favorite things to do in the middle of a match!  I don’t care if people never use it!  I don’t care if my opponent lands a direct hit while I’m doing it!  It’s fun!  It adds personality!  Bring the taunting back!

Lack of taunting aside, it’s all very fun and flashy even with its differences and the online mode has much more to compliment it this time around.  Large rooms can be set up with a variety of different modes and slots for players to challenge and spectate in, such as winners moving on, losers moving on, or simply playing the same opponent continuously.  The chat box in the rooms is also nice for organizing and conversing with other players.

Players can now register up to 3 pre-selected teams and three stages they can switch in between bouts.  Certain stages with text banners can also have custom text set in place for both single player and multiplayer matches.

There’s also a new mode called party play, in which six players, each with one character, fight in teams.  It looks like a blast, but I haven’t been able to find enough people to play it.  With enough friends and some organizing I’m sure it can be a lot of fun.

There’s much to keep the fighting going, but the extra content outside the fighting is a bit lacking by today’s standards.

Time trial, survival and mission/trial modes are back and there’s a new tutorial organized into sections, but that’s all standard.  There’s no more color editing or a big picture to slowly reveal.  The main extra of 14 is the gigantic art gallery.  Every time you win a match in story mode you get a piece of artwork for the gallery, which contains over 200 different pieces of art from KOF’s past.

That sounds amazing and maybe it is for newcomers, but for the fans it’s mostly the things you’ve seen before.  A sizable chunk of them is just team group art from every game, but there are some gems in there I hadn’t seen before, like a promotional poster from Wing Yang and King Tung, the comic artists, and artwork for the prologues to KOF 2000.

I'd recognize those limited faces anywhere.

One thing I’ve noticed is that in any artwork K9999 is supposed to be in, he’s completely gone.  It’s like he never existed.  The timeline must be more messed up than I thought.

Since playing through story mode for all that would get tedious eventually, you can also get artwork from players you fight online.  Not unlike the 3DS’ Puzzle Swap game, you can get a piece of art for the gallery you don’t have if your opponent does.  It’s a nice little incentive to play more, even if it’s not as big a deal as the gallery’s size makes it out to be.  Unfortunately many players I fight online don’t have any gallery items at all!  What is wrong with these people?!  Play the damn story!  It’s the primary draw of every game!

Special artwork for playing through the main game with specific teams of characters also returns, albeit with only 10 to unlock this time.

Outside of that the only interesting extra is DLC and SNK did not handle it very well.

All the DLC from the PS4 version is present in the PC version.  Some of it was already free, like new stages and new rearranged tracks.  Two extra costumes originally pre-order bonuses for the PS4 version are also included for the PC version.  One is Kyo’s classic original look and the other is a more visually distinct version of Nightmare Geese.  In previous games, “Nightmare Geese” didn’t really have that name and was only visually distinguished by a weird glow.  With this costume SNK ran with it, making him look like a wraith and giving him an echoing growly voice filter for all of his lines (including the pre-fight dialogue).

That’s all well and good as a couple of freebies, but the big DLC items are behind a pay wall.  Yamazaki, Vanessa, Whip, and making his main KOF game debut, Rock Howard, are all DLC characters.  There are also a slew of more extra costumes for various characters.

My first problem with this DLC is it’s locked off despite being available day one for the PC.  It’s already programmed in the game and it was all available during the beta!  They’re straight-up holding out on us!

Even if you can forgive them and maybe reason that the DLC came out too soon on the PS4 version so it would be like they were favoring the PC version if they included it all or something, I can’t forgive that they make you buy it all at once.

On the PC version, you cannot simply buy the characters or costumes that you want.  You can only get them all in one package by either paying for the $75 special edition of the full game or $20 special edition upgrade!

I could buy another game with that money!  The DLC characters are not worth that much!  They don’t add that much to the single player experience and the only pre-fight dialogues they have are with each other!  One of the things I think can be an upside to having a lot of DLC for a game is that what the player specifically chooses to spend their money on makes it more significant.  It shows what they wanted and that can say something about them.  That feeling is lost with this strictly bundled method.  It should be an option, not a requirement.  I don’t mind paying for DLC, I mind being forced to pay for what I don’t want.

The only saving throw to this is that the DLC characters can still be fought against even if you don’t buy the DLC pack.  At a random point in story mode there will be a team comprised of a random DLC character and two random fighters on one of the DLC stages.  I liked it when Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure: All Star Battle did that and I still appreciate it here.  At least it’s some free content.  They also all have their own new arranged music and it sounds as awesome as the rest of them.

The price on the DLC pack wouldn’t be so bad if it weren’t for the standard PC version’s price.  I got it 20% off at about $47, but the full price of the PC version is $60, which is really pushing it for a game outclassed by ones you can get for $30 or less.

I like it a bit more than 2002 Unlimited Match and it surpasses older games like 2000, but it’s not as good as 11, 13 or even 99.  Yes, KOF 99 doesn’t have as many characters or HD flair, but it had more flowing gameplay and artistic visuals that make it one of my favorites.  It’s also available for only $10.  $60 is too much to pay for KOF 14 and its lack of substantial extra content with no English dub.

That's not to say it's not worth your time or money.  KOF 14 is a very good game worthy of the KOF name.  It does some new things, ditches some old things and comes out with something unique for players to mess around with.  At 40 or 30 dollars it’s absolutely worth your money, but at 60 you’re better off waiting for a price drop and spending that money on some of the other games in the series.  Since this year's Steam summer sale ended, it may be a while before it's on sale again, so if you're really eager to get it it's at least fun at any price.  For the rest of us there's always next year.  Maybe this game will get an even better sale.

I give The King of Fighters 14 a 7.5 out of 10.  For anyone who had some money to burn and already got it, I’m always up for a challenge on Steam.