While training offers little guidance for pulling off counter specials and other complex maneuvers, button-mashing light punch often generates a legitimate combo, ending in a potent finisher. KOF XV’s changes happen in the one-on-one (or three-on-three) contests, where efforts go toward accessibility. Unlockable music tracks and video galleries offer minimal incentive to keep playing beyond seeing the often kitschy endings. A mission menu poses combo challenges, although those come through more as an extension of standard training. Luckily, the few available online versus rounds during pre-release ran smoothly, even with notable distance between players. That’s standard fare for the genre, but when the game itself feels so empty at launch, wouldn’t more modes rather than fighters be a better idea? There’s nothing to do except the story/arcade and online battles, which offer rooms for casual and ranked play.
This hardly matters to the casuals, but to KOF fanatics, it may feel like a misstep.ģ9 total characters pad out the roster (three of them new), and marketing materials tease an additional dozen via paid DLC. This is readily apparent in the team structures: Chizuru, Iori, and Kyo are still a squad, but King has replaced Yuri alongside Ryo and Robert. KOF XV focuses so much on building SNK’s brand that it sacrifices a coherent narrative. There’s room to appreciate an animated restaurant display or how the bartender at Pao Pao pays more attention to the fighting than to her customers. It’s strange, but the purposeful limitations carry more personality than stages decked out with hyperactive animations (rest assured, KOF XV has a few of those, too). KOF XV hosts its tourney on calm streets, or within other game universes like Metal Slug where bearded POWs cheer you on in the background. Mortal Kombat games have stages set in the middle of hurricanes or inside volcanoes. The execution is simple and antiquated, but it has some appeal. Then, team-specific endings (made up of stills and text chatter) last longer than all preceding dialogue combined. The “story” here is done in the traditional arcade mode of old, dressed up with three cinematics and the same sequences for every character no matter their place in the plot. When you compare KOF XV to its greatest rivals - mainly recent Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat games - the scripting falls flat. Alternate dimensions rip open, and a sold-out crowd watching the finale still thinks they’re somehow safe being near this tournament location. What was once about overthrowing corrupt organizers like Geese Howard has become an exercise in absurdist fantasy. The boldness with which KOF XV descends into unintelligible anime nonsense is almost admirable. SNK has built a branded fighting game universe, for better or for worse.
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