The sprite-based game that predated the features of Street Fighter 6

Did you know there was a game that would have had almost all of the same elements featured in the World Tour mode of Street Fighter 6, but all the way back in 2009? I’m talking about a player created male or female avatar that traveled the world, learning the special attacks from various fighting game masters, that you could change the look, and costume of. Plus online play, and an engrossing story.

There would be random encounters on the street to help you level up, and earn items for your character, etc. What made it revolutionary was that all of this was going to be sprite based. This game was called the King of Fighters (KOF) World. A 3D version was known as King of Fighters Online, developed by Triple A Games, and Dragonfly, a Korean studio. The more important, and unrelated 2D version was called the King of Fighters World, this was developed by Shanda.

Shanda Games started development on The King of Fighters World in 2009, and by 2011 they stopped. They cited “lack of market interest” this sounded to me like most fans didn’t want a KOF MMO. They wanted a fighting game, and not a brawler, even if it used classic sprites. I'm sorry that they insisted on going the MMO route. I'm sure a console title would have been a more popular global release. I talked about the long road to development on this title on this blog. During the brawler series I covered KOF World, KOF Online, and even Double Dragon II: Wander of the Dragons. Three titles that showed tremendous promise, but sort of fizzled out despite the IPs they were based on. It was a shame really. I think I would have enjoyed playing a classic sprite-based brawler, but with moves from the various KOF characters.

In 2017 a new studio announced that they were working on KOF World. China-based Ledo Interactive was developing, but SNK Playmore was still in charge of the IP. The dev team said they were 75% complete with the project, there was a closed beta, and four new characters were being adding, along with the KOF regulars.

Three were announced, one guy, and two girls. The first was Miura Taka, a high society character, and master of the rare Taka style of fighting. He developed fire powers, and thus studied under Saisyu Kusanagi (father of Kyo Kusanagi) when he was 13-years-old. Because he used the Taka style of fighting his attacks were actually different than KOF regulars Kyo, Saisyu, or Shingo Yabuki. The third character announced was Hoshino Karol, a model with Psycho Powers similar to Athena Asamiya.

The second exclusive character introduced was Faith Brown, she idolized Heidern the organizer of the Ikari Warriors team. The Ikari senior members were Ralph Jones, and Clark Still. Heidern’s daughter Leona was also a member. Faith, and Leona knew each other, and both learned to assassinate targets with Heidern’s tutelage. Ms. Brown was now a professional assassin herself, teaching others how to be killers. As such she was presented in a sort of disciplinarian / dominatrix look. I wonder how a fight between her and Street Fighter's Poison would turn out.

So what ever became of the titles that could have beaten SF6 to the punch? Sadly no other news turned up by the end of 2017, or to this day. At least not to the best of my knowledge. In typical MMO developer Ledo-Interactive seemed to disappear overnight. Maybe the game comes out on mobile phones tomorrow, who knows? Anyhow, that’s all I have to say about the games that could have been. Were there any titles you were interested in that were cancelled after long development cycles? Let me know in the comments section please. As always if you would like to sponsor me please visit my Patreon page and consider donating each month, even as little as $1 would help make better blogs and even podcasts!

The Abridged History of the Brawler, part 22

In China Shanda Games partnered up with SNK to develop a new sprite-based MMO named King of Fighters World. The game was set to feature the same dot-arts technology used to create the amazing graphics for the King of Fighters XII game.

The title was cancelled in 2011 after several years in development. Had it been completed the title would have turned out to be more of a brawler than the fighting game. Allowing multiple characters to take on opponents on multiple 2D planes, similar to Guardian Heroes. It would have been a slightly different experience than what was proposed in the original trailer. The sprites would have been among the most detailed ever produced for any fighting game or brawler. Unfortunately the game never came to be, killing any chance of rekindling the classic brawler by throwing in new technologies.

By a similar token the King of Fighters Online game was an MMO designed for Korea by Dragonfly. The beta version of the PC-only title lacked the cel-shaded stylings of the promotional video

It too would be scaled back for retooling in 2010. No news on when (or if) the final build would be ready for audiences.

The final title I would be mentioning in the brawler series would bring the genre full circle. Double Dragon II, Wander of the Dragons was announced as a remake by Barunson Interactive Co. for the Xbox 360. The game would be a complete remake of the arcade classic with updated 3D graphics. Unfortunately the game seemed to contain nothing of the classic gameplay from the arcade original. Based on the preview footage the game seemed to be a fixed side scrolling title with a full 360 degrees of control. Making it more like The Warriors Street Brawl or Demolish Fist than the original title.

The developers had clearly made themselves blissfully unaware of the failings with the 3D format for the brawler. Worse they ignored how remakes had been received by game players. Final Fight Streetwise showed that "updated" realistic art and graphics did nothing to win back long-time fans or help the experience. Nor did the change of characters from sprites to 3D models do anything to help the game. It was not the only 3D remake to suffer a strong backlash from players. Konami's arcade gem, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time, a sequel from the original TMNT arcade game got a remake for PSN and XBLA. The Reshelled version was a 3D remake that rated a 55 to 60 point average out of 100 on Metacritic. It lacked the humor, control, animation and art of the original title. The villains, levels and characters were all there but the combat was frenetic, redundant and more difficult than the original. The classic experience had suffered during the migration to 3D. It was so poorly received that it was pulled from the DLC services shortly after release. The exact same things that plagued the Reshelled Turtle game seemed to be happening to the Double Dragon II remake.

Unless the game were delayed at the end of 2011 to address all of the concerns and pay attention to the failures of other 3D brawlers then it too would be destined to fail. New players would look at this game and ask why older gamers were so passionate about the genre. An insipid game would harm the name of the brawling godfather. It would be a sad way to end the legacy of the genre and this series.

If readers were to go by this blog alone it would have appeared that the brawler died a slow and humiliating death over the past decade. While the more familiar version of the genre did indeed lose popularity it never completely went away. The brawler actually evolved and became something more profound on consoles than it was in the arcades. I am not talking about re-releases of classics on the Wii, Xbox Live Arcade or Playstation Network either. The brawler itself became part of a bigger gaming picture. In order to find out how it got there we have to go back in time to the era of Kung-Fu Master and find out how the experience evolved. I hope to see you back for the first part in a new series. As always if you enjoyed this blog and would like to sponsor me please visit my Patreon page and consider donating each month, even as little as $1 would help make better blogs and even podcasts!

Copycat Culture, part 3...

SNK was a Japanese studio that had a legacy of fighting games that was as deep as their rival Capcom. In fact many of the developers that worked on the original Street Fighter and Street Fighter II left to join SNK and start up the Fatal Fury, Art of Fighting, King of Fighters and Samurai Showdown franchises. The company was looking to recover from the boom and bust of the arcade scene in the '90s. They knew that in order to survive they had to expand into growing markets and none looked more promising than China. The studio had actually licensed out their KOF franchise for two different MMO titles. There was the King of Fighters Online by Triple A Games, and Dragonfly Studio out of Korea. The game was based in a free-roaming 3D world and allowed players to switch between many familiar KOF stars while battling entirely new opponents. I talked about the game a few years back. Sadly it was cancelled while still in the Beta stages. The same thing happened to the Shanda Games developed King of the Fighters World MMO.

The KOF World was actually very far along when it was cancelled. It promised to introduce a number of new elements to the familiar KOF franchise. First of all players would assume the role of a new male or female character.

 

These two avatars could assume the powers and even costumes of the KOF icons. Players earned stronger attacks and were able to assign them from a library of moves pulled from the KOF universe such as Terry Bogard's iconic Burning Knuckle.

 

There was even a story that explained who these characters were any why they could mix-and-match the moves from different fighters. According to the company page - "After the destruction of the NESTS syndicate (around the time of KOX XII), future King of Fighters tournaments are banned by governments across the world. Several years later a virtual combat simulator, THE KING OF FIGTHERS - CARD BATTLE (KOF-CB), was created to allow the public to participate in the the tournament without consequences of suffering any physical injuries. The simulator became an internationally popular sport but several users have gone mysteriously missing and reports of violent unrest relating to KOF-CB have started to arise. The players are KOF-CB enthusiasts who help Iori, Kyo and other KOF heroes to uncover the conspiracy surrounding the tournament."

 

Players travelled the globe in search for answers to the missing fighters and violent demonstrations. The gameplay was actually based on traditional 2D brawler mechanics like Final Fight. The characters still had all of the attacks that were featured in 2D fighting games making it a very rare experience. The game was set to be episodic and introduce different factions and icons from the KOF universe. With each new character there was an additional piece of the story that could be explored by gamers.



Of course to truly enjoy the experience a gamer would have to go online and play with a friend. The game engine seemed capable of creating random opponents from a set framework of basic colors and costumes. It was a first for the genre and one that the Chinese developers at Shanda could take pride in developing.



The developers were also touting some entirely new technology that would be featured in KOF World. Previous sprite-based brawlers had fixed details and shadows onto characters. This new game engine was capable of rendering light reflections and shadows on the sprites. It would have been a brilliant effect that not even SNK could have claimed to pioneer.



Sadly the game was also cancelled while in the beta stages. The only reminders of the game were a few screenshots, concept sketches and level layouts. The majority of which I have reposted on this blog. The Chinese game industry was on the ground floor of some exciting new advances in the fighting genre. Both King of Fighters Online and King of Fighters World promised to deliver entirely new experiences for fans of the franchise. Sadly neither title saw the light of day.

 

The lessons learned while developing the games were not lost. Some of the team members at Triple Games and Shanda left the studios to join rival publisher Tencent. The ability to follow a game from the concept stages all the way through publication was all that these developers were looking for. Of course a lucrative contract was also hard to ignore.

 

Everything that the teams had learned from KOF World and KOF Online would be put to the test. They had to develop a fighting game from scratch and make it as good as any ever released. Many speculated that Xuan Dou Zhi Wang / King of Combat looked and played too much like an SNK produced KOF game for it to simply be a coincidence.

 

Was it possible that the developers at Shanda and Triple Games had poached assets from SNK after the games were cancelled? Did they take those assets to the notorious "king of copying" and use it as the foundation for King of Combat? I wouldn't be surprised if that was the case. What happened next would completely change the status of the Chinese development community. Find out about this turn of events in the next blog. If you would like to sponsor me please visit my Patreon page and consider donating each month, even as little as $1 would help make better blogs and even podcasts!