The King of Fighters 2000 (PS2)

 Hinako Shijo arrives at The King of Fighter XV in 14 November 2023. So, I celebrate that occasion by playing SNK’s The King of Fighters 2000 (2000) where she made her first debut. 

This opening has kind of abstract meaning. K’ is walking down alley passing through his teammates, and Benimaru’s team along with snapshots of other teams. Finally, he meets Iori Yagami but turns into Kyo Kusanagi as K’ passes. Then he kicks out the title. I’m not sure what’s going on here. Anyway, we’re her to fight and not to ponder about the opening. So let’s get to it.

Because this is PS 2 port and not straight arcade game, the game offers me main menu that leads to more feature such as option and practice. As I enter Party mode, this messages come out: “Defeat 14 opponents to use Heavy D!, Lucky Glauber, and Brian Batler. (You can also use these 3 if you exceed 5 hours of Game play)”. So I assume party mode is feature to unlock new character. But all I need is Hinako Shijo who’s already unlocked from get go.

After some practice session…    

So here’s the roster. It consists 8 of 4-persons teams and 3 individuals. You can pick random characters to form your own 4-person team. But if you want to get true ending, you have to pick characters of original team. Because i mandate myself with picking Hinako Shijo, I must pick the rest of her “Female” team which are Mai Shiranui, Yuri Sakazaki, and Kasumi Todoh. “Female” teams sound too…general. Like any female character can be put into the team easily. Should be more thematic like: Fatal Fury team, Ikari team, or the Karate Team. Speaking of Karate Team, Yuri Sakazaki is supposed to be fighting along her brother Ryo, her father Takuma, and her crush Robert. Instead, her position in Karate team is replaced with King. I don’t know the reason why King is there instead in “Female” team like in previous KoF. Maybe SNK try some refreshing change on “Female” team. Or it has something to do with rumor I heard that King becomes Ryo’s fiancée/wife/girlfriend? Another thing that draws my attention is Benimaru’s team with 2 new faces. I understand Shingo is Kyo Kusanagi’s pupil (maybe?) so Benimaru enlisted him. But these 2 new guys look disreputable. Like they should work for Mafia or Yakuza as lowly grunt. And the most baffling of all: Goro Daimon is BLOODY missing! As former Judo practitioner, I adore him. But at least I get to play as Hinako Shijo, the sumo practitioner.   

Everytime before the fight begins, you have to set the order of your team and only 3 of them that fight directly. The last one in the order will be striker (in-game term for assist) or you can pick the alternative striker in this case is…Nakoruru from Samurai Shodown? Did she time travel from Samurai era to get here just to assist Hinako’s team?   

I let Kasumi Todoh goes first because I feel bad beating her in Art of Fighting 3. Our first opponent is K’ team, already? But K’ himself act as striker and not join the fight directly. Coward! The basic control of this game is similar to any in King of Fighter game. Move joystick left/right to move. Move it to down direction to duck. Move it to up direction to jump. Move joystick backward to block enemy's attack. There are 4 attack buttons: ‘Square’ for light punch, ‘Cross’ for light kick, ‘Triangle’ for strong punch and ‘Circle’ for kick. I complained about this SNK button configuration in Garou – Mark of the Wolves. However, because this is PS 2 port I can get used to it. I’m familiar with this kind of configuration in PS 1 port of Marvel vs Capcom and Street Fighter Alpha 3.  

The Ramon guy is push over and immediately replaced with Vanessa. Like in previous King of Fighter game, the match lasts 1 round for every character defeated instead of best of 3 like in Street Fighter or in single mode. Kasumi Todoh is pretty easy and reliable to pick. The way she is able to counter attack with grapple reminds me of Aikido.

There’s additional action that you can put in shoulder button such as calling striker, initiate armor mode, or counter mode. You can call striker in conventional way by pressing both weak kick and strong punch buttons, which is extra chore. But hey! I must use the special feature of PS 2 port, right? Nakoruru’s assist is she heals Kasumi for like 5% of her health bar. I know that healing should be kept to minimum in any fighting game otherwise the game become slow. Your character can also get healing by surviving a round.

There’s so much what can Kasumi do against Maxima with her remaining little health. But she’s done well defeating 2 opponents consecutively. Now is the waifu’s time. Like legit sumo practitioner, she can slap hard. This move may lack of range compared to E. Honda’s hundred hand slap but she moves forward while slapping. Perfect move to close in to the opponent.

Judging by her low health, I’m not doing well with Hinako Shijo. However I manage to land her super. She grabs Maxima’s neck and violently spin him around before throwing him across the screen. Scout_cheers05.wav     

Luckily Hinako can defeat Maxima in time. I think Maxima is fine, Hinako. He’s big man with cybernetic part.    

If I put Kasumi Todoh in last order, I can choose assist between herself, Li Xiangfei (another original member of “Female” team) or unknown who’s clearly Ryuhaku Todoh, Kasumi’s father. He is registered as unknown maybe because he doesn’t legally join the tournament but fatherly love get the best of him.

This time, I let Yuri goes first. She’s probably the easiest fighter to pick because she’s legit shoto. She can shoot bigger fire ball if I hold attack button during command input. I notice Ralf is doing dodge roll to evade the big fireball which I’m supposed to do if I play as Hinako against enemy’s projectile. It’s activated by pressing both weak attacks.  

Ralf is down but now I must fight Clark and he’s another grappler. I remember how one of Clark’s grab works in King of Fighters 99. First, he does tackle that can pass projectile and the command input for it, is pretty easy. I think it’s half circle forward and punch. But the tackle alone doesn’t do damage. I need to follow it up with more command input within short time to perform real throw. Lucky for me, the CPU here doesn’t bother to follow up the tackle so Yuri is saved except for some little bruises.

Every King of Fighters has some changes on moveset, presumably to keep the gameplay interesting. In this version, Yuri has hurricane kick. She’s 90% Sakura Kasugano here. The way she puts her arm like that, makes her hurricane kick more like ballet dance than original hurricane kick. Maybe deep down in her heart she wants to be ballet dancer but her father forced her to learn karate instead.   

It's Hinako’s turn again. If I do quarter circle back and punch input, she does this short combo of: slap forward and then overhead double slap. I heard the last part of the move can be used for anti-air, although it doesn’t look convincing.

Next opponent is Whip and she love to use whip to keep Hinako from closing in. I know I should use the dodge roll move. Usually when I use it, I instinctively follow it up with throwing the opponent but it feels bad because of my experience in Capcom vs SNK. If I do that in that game, the special score goes down. Although it doesn’t do much except when the score reach high enough (99.99 I think) before final boss, I will fight Akuma instead of M. Bison or Geese Howard.

Anyway, Hinako lose by time out. It’s better than her health bar completely empty.  

Hinako is replaced with the famous Mai Shiranui. Whip is quite susceptible to Mai’s fan throw. I’m not sure if the folding hand fan is as powerful as energy fireball for projectile. But then Mai is ninja and way of ninja is full of mysterious.

Or it’s because of global warming. The thing is real, you know.

Fine. If you’re real hot stuff, why don’t you take the first turn against Kim’s team, huh? So far, it goes well. Chang can’t do anything with Mai continuously throw the hand fans. 

Ok. Mai can defeat Chang with no problem. What about Choi? I call Xiangfei for assist and all she does is blowing a raspberry. Very helpful. [Medium-sized sarcasm]

Mai wins again. By time out this time and Choi goes into temper tantrum like 2 years old spoiled boy who doesn’t get 3rd serving on his delicious ice cream. Heavy_taunts05.wav

It’s Yuri’s and Kim’s turn. Much like Chang, Kim is weak against projectile. I can just spamming projectile and he gladly accept it. Maybe AI in PS 2 port is much easier to deal with than in Neo Geo version. I heard that in KoF 96 or 95, the AI has ability to input reading. I’m glad, I’m spared from that difficult computer opponent.

That’s pretty rude, Yuri. Besides you don’t want to deal with more intellect computer opponent that can read your mind. Trust me.

Suddenly…

Suddenly the screen turns red! Invasion? I hope Men in Black will sort this out. I believe our heroines can’t deal with extraterrestrial being.     

Thank God. It’s not alien from outer space. It’s just Kula single-handedly sabotages our match. It’s simple math, really. 3 vs 1. 3 would win easily.

Ryuhaku Todoh assist is quite powerful as he shoots bigger slash waves than Kasumi. Scout_thanks02.wav

Our team sort the invasion things out so we can beat someone legal again. Meanwhile the tournament committee mumbling about Kula is anti K’. The plot thickens.  

Our next opponent is Psycho Soldier team. Hinako is beaten badly by Kensou who doesn’t have any psychic power (in this version). Getting beaten by him is considered as bad as getting beaten by Dan from Street Fighter Alpha, even though Kensou is not designed as joke character.

Kensou is too much for Hinako (in my current skill’s level) so it’s Mai’s turn and thing doesn’t go easier. Kensou activate “armor mode” which makes his moves completely uninterruptible and makes him take less damage. By default, it’s activated by pressing weak kick, strong punch, and strong kick at the same time and it cost 3 whole super bar. I can map it to shoulder button but I forgot about it.

Finally, we defeated Kensou and now it’s Athena’s turn. I totally forget that Athena can reflect projectile. Engineer_negativevocalization01.wav  

Just like in Garou – Mark of the Wolves, I get 3 kinds of help if I use continue. Although the lower difficulty option is replaced with maximum number of striker which less helpful in my opinion. I’m afraid that I don’t get the true ending if I choose one of these options thus I choose no help at all.

That was close. It seems Kasumi is dissatisfied with winning by time out but I take any kind of win anytime.

I can’t believe Yuri dares enough to punch a drunken old man. But then again Chin is annoying striker in previous match so he deserves a big uppercut. Strangely, this rematch feels easier than the first time. Kensou is drastically less aggressive and Athena is absent because she becomes team’s striker now. Although Bao fought fiercely.

Meanwhile, there’s change on plan in tournament organizer’s side because we the finalists are far from K’ s whereabouts possibly still not recovered from wounds and humiliation from first match. The tournament committee wants Heidern to guide us to the lift in a factory and later activate the generator, which Heidern didn’t know about them. The generator will power up “Zero Cannon”! Why there’s satellite cannon in King of Fighters’ plot? 

 

Heidern is much as confused as I am. So, the purpose of this KoF tournament is to capture K’ s team and search NESTS’s base. I don’t know much about NESTS, I assume it’s your generic secret evil organization that bend on world conquest. Also, I know that they’re obsessed with making Kyo Kusanagi’s clones in KoF 99. Anyway, Heidern can’t do anything against this drastic change of plan because he’s under numerous gunpoint. Finally! Something realistic in KoF! No matter how strong or weird character in KoF, they can do nothing if they’re under numerous gunpoint.

 

Back to the tournament, we’re currently fighting “Fatal Fury” team. I fancy Blue Mary and she’s my main in Fatal Fury game if playable but the show must go on. Obviously as sumo practitioner, Hinako has some grappling moves. One of them is this move where she ducks a bit (presumably to avoid attack at medium height), grab her opponent while saying “excuse me!” and then push them to the corner of the screen. The input for this move is dragon punch motion but with kick button.

 

I forget to take screenshot in the match between Yuri and the legendary hungry wolf Terry Bogard. The match goes pretty lame anyway. Yuri keep chucking fireball and there’s so much what Terry can do until time out. I believe any pro Terry player will cook me easily if I do that. The AI is just very easy here.  

 

There’s big crisis in this tournament involving satellite cannon but it goes down to fight between husband and wife. I know it's barely domestic violence but still awkward. Andy’s expression sums up mine. Demoman_sf12_badmagic11.wav

The fight ends with graceful throw and even more graceful hair flow of Andy’s. He should be advertisement actor for shampoo.  

Suddenly, we encounter Zero and he calls us simp. Simp for who? I simp Hinako, for sure. I like that we get image of Heidern still under gunpoint. There’s some baffling exposition of what Zero is through dialogue between him and Heidern. Apparently Zero is the one responsible to kill Krizalid in KoF 99. I barely remember that fact! He also killed real Ling and put his copy on his stead in this tournament organizer. Now he wants our energy to power the Zero Cannon so he can use it to take over the world! I bet Hinako’s sumo power is the biggest fuel for the Zero Cannon.  

So, the final battle begins. I don’t know why but his profile image there doesn’t look menacing. He looks freaking goofy instead. That old man in Dragoon Might has more imposing image.    

Final boss encounter in Dragoon Might

See what I mean? I think it’s monocle and the sharp eyebrows that makes this old man looks more menacing and he’s also dangerous to fight. What about Zero? We will see soon enough. 

He suddenly makes powerful gravity well as super move. Ok. This guy means serious business.

That’s some powerful anti-air move, I mean look at the range of those bladed cape. It reminds me of Yu Zhong from Mobile Legends: Bang Bang. Zero also has ability to reflect projectile swiftly. Funnily, he doesn’t have capability to shoot any kind of projectile himself. So, he’s dramatically fairer than any SNK’s boss.

Hinako is kind of “dead weight” in this boss fight because I can’t do much with her against Zero. I know I should use dodge roll but my instinct doesn’t want to acknowledge it. If only armor mode can be used with less super cost than 3. On Yuri’s turn, I’m doing better than before. She loses by time out but at least she manages to put some serious damage on the boss.

The final blow belongs to Mai with her fan. Again, I question the lethality of fan but as long as we win, I won’t complaint. Unlike Rugal, Zero doesn’t have second phase. What a great mercy! I mean sure Zero is not easy to defeat. But compared to Rugal who has 2nd phase and harder to fight, Zero is bit of walk in the park. Cm_heavy_gamewon_05.mp3

Zero is down but not defeated yet. With his dying breath he activates switch that make generator absorb all of our energy. Luckily, the switch is dud because Kula’s team sabotage it.    

Then Kula activated laser cannon above and shooting directly at Zero, making deep hole in process. He’s completely dead, for real. I think this scene could be Female team looking at Bugs Bunny’s hole in KoF and Looney Tunes crossover no one expecting for.

One week later…

 

Hinako establishes a sumo club on her all-girl school. Her fighter team is invited to the club. Suddenly her schoolmates are interesting to Mai and her friends, then chasing them like fans of idol or something. The end.

Yeah, me too, Hinako. :)

SNK’s The King of Fighters 2000 (2000) is the King of Fighter game where Hinako appears for the first time. Also, Kula and her friends. Compared to Street Fighter Alpha 3 that I very fond of, the gameplay feels too rough and unintuitive although there’s interesting mechanic here and there. Like the aforementioned armor mode and counter mode which is activated by pressing weak punch, weak kick, and strong punch at the same time. It allows you to execute super move unlimited times (though limited with counter mode’s duration) and do more damage with special moves. In team mode, you’re forced to take 4 fighters. You have to master -at least- 3 of them in direct fight. I mean you can take random fighter with similar moveset or Karate team, which all of them are shoto. But in other case, each team member has different moveset which can be not easy to get used to if you’re new to this KoF’s gimmick main feature. For example: the female team. Yuri is shoto. Mai is kind of shoto, I guess? Kasumi is short-range shoto with counter attack moves. Lastly, Hinako is grappler. She’s probably the most different one among her team. Her moveset in this version is the closest to the one in KoF XV but the developers add ground stomp as ranged attack (which is similar functionality to Goro Daimon’s move) thus making her more reliable. To make it easier to understand, let’s say: If Street Fighter Alpha 3 is typical knife duel, then the King of Fighters is Swiss knife duel where each duelist has multiple weapons to fight. There’s more layer strategy or whatnot on it but it feels too tedious or complex for me. The background is fairly good. One thing that baffles me is: why we fighting Ikari team at demolition site. That’s pretty dangerous. I don’t think the music in this game is memorable enough for me. Sorry. The sound effect is kind of quitter if compared to Street Fighter Alpha 3.

 

The King of Fighters 2000 (2000) is quite good King of Fighters. I give it that although I’m not much fans of KoF. I feel like the main atrocity comes from the lack of capability to conserve your character. Thankfully, the developer team add character tagging mechanic (probably inspired by Marvel vs Capcom) in later KoF. The main idea is you put someone who’s highly sacrificeable in first order while the reliable main character in the second or third order, which can be atrocious or boring. Nonetheless, I have fun with this game. Strangely, it feels breezy compared to Mobile Suit Gundam Ex Revue that I played before. Perhaps the developers tone down the difficulty because this is PS 2 port. The other benefits of PS 2 port are extra action mapped to shoulder buttons, and training mode plus command list. Moreover there’s Hinako Shijo that I fancy. According to credit roll, her voice actress is Ayako Kawasumi who also vocalized Saber/Arturia Pendragon from Fate series and also HMS King George V from Azur Lane who’s my wife. So, that tracks. :P