Analysis of King of Fighters XV: get in the ring

Many of us know the King of Fighters saga since its debut back in the 90s and, as expected, KOF XV was not going to leave us indifferent. New characters and a lot of unlockable content awaits us in this new installment. This game is the first chapter of the fourth saga of the series and also the first game that has not been developed for arcades

A fighting game for everyone

Its director, Yasuyuki Oda said that the main goal of KOF XV was to make it the most accessible and easy to play game in the series. This is because it's not easy to transition the charm of a fighting game like KOF to a more "three-dimensional" aspect (plus its audience has changed a lot since then), Oda hopes with this new installment to please both longtime fans and new players

The first thing that strikes us is the tremendous improvement in graphics from its predecessor, in addition, we will have new characters that will delight fans of games like Guilty Guear for its originality and colorful and quite interesting mechanics. These "guest artists" are

Shun'ei, a young student with the power to create giant hands and a fast and precise fighting style, we could say that he is the protagonist of this new story succeeding Kyo, K' or Ash. His nickname is "The Amped-up Illusionist"

Isla, the deuteragonist of the new story arc, is a rebellious girl who desperately seeks the respect of her rivals, especially Shun'ei and with the ability to create "spiritual" hands that will punch for her while she keeps her hands in her pockets, a crack. Her nickname is "Dreaming Brilliance".

Meitenkun, a kid who suffers from narcolepsy but is capable of beating you with his pillow if necessary. No wonder his nickname is "Sleep Prodigy".

And finally we have Dolores, a very elegant young African girl capable of doing magic with sand, but not like Kukri, Dolores is able to put you in coffins and create quicksand, watch out for her because her attacks are almost as unpredictable as those of Chizuru. Her role in the story arc of the story mode is fundamental.

An overwhelming cast of characters

But it's not just about new characters that fighting fans live for, in KOF XV we will be able to enjoy our favorite characters again with 39 playable characters plus 13 unlockable ones. All of them will form teams of 3 in all modes but you can also enjoy 1 vs 1 fights in the versus section

The story mode is quite random so I advise you to try to pass it with the default teams to make it easier to unlock the cinematics and other extras.

As for the mechanics, players who already know the saga will notice certain changes but it retains largely the same combos and mechanics as always. For the initiated my opinion is that it is the perfect game to start in the world as it is very easy to perform combos and reject / dodge the attacks of the opponent, plus King of Fighters is almost heritage of the video game world.

Although it looks 3D the game is still in front view with the added bonus that the most spectacular combos and magics will have their own camera sequence to make the fight more attractive. The characters will have a single life bar by default but you can "tune" the combat previously in a small menu of options that will facilitate the selection of characters

During combat you can see your life bar at the top, the list of your characters (indicating who has died and who has not) and at the bottom the traditional maximum bar that, once loaded, you can use to deal blows and special combos

Final Conclusions

The menu of the game is intuitive and quite similar to other fighting games, First we have the Versus mode, History and Training, then we would have all the On-Line modes where you can rank up and make friendly matches with friends and rivals from around the world. You can also view replays of fights both yours and rivals if you want to analyze your mistakes or achievements, consult your player profile and see your ranking

Finally we have a very interesting tutorial for both novices and experienced people, missions and a kind of "music player" where we will find the great songs of the game as well as a list of KOF 94 and other songs that you will unlock as you face different characters or get certain achievements.

In short, KOF XV gives us what we expected, an accessible and entertaining fighting game with which to have a good time, with varied characters and a fighting system that retains the usual mechanics with slight improvements

The best

Character design

Attractive graphics and a very high quality music

The game is ideal for beginners and a candy for the more experienced ones

The Worst

The story mode is not very careful, being team battles does not delve too much into the individual history of each character

We have made this review thanks to a copy for PS4 from the hand of Koch Media