King of Fighters [HK] A trip to Hong Kong

Was fortunate to have had the chance to visit Hong Kong recently, as i had to go out there to do some family things, so took the chance to have a quick visit of the arcade scene over there.

For those whom may not have ever been before, Hong Kong is pretty much KOF land. You'd be hard pressed to find an arcade without at least one KOF machine somewhere, specifically King of Fighters 2002 is really popular there.

Before i left i did a little research into arcades there via members on Orochinagi.com as well as asking some friends/family, and found out two days before i landed they were doing a one day location test for KOF Skystage the new shmup.
Though i wouldn't say i was that excited about the game it would have been nice to have tried it out before it got a general release.

Anyway as i didn't have much time over there i spent the free time i did have checking out GameZone in New City, MongKok. (This is the arcade featured in videos by Youtube user game3talk)

Firstly the button layout in HongKong for KOF machines are typically the 'Chinese layout', with ABC in a row and D beneath A, whilst this isn't a huge problem to get used to on 2002 i did find it pretty hard to get used to doing multiple inputs on XII.


Also the big KOF game currently in Hong Kong is King of Fighters Road to Revenge (Aka KOF02UM), actually i think aside from the Gundam VS Gundam game it is one of the most played arcade game in Hong Kong.
This actually shows too as the player level there is intense, even though i am not that good of a player myself i struggled against pretty much every player i came across and by this i mean i was pretty much getting one manned on KOF02um consistantly.

On KOFXII however every player i played against didn't stand a chance :) (Though to be honest this isn't much of an achievement considering hardly anyone plays the game... ).
Also if you ever stop by in Hong Kong and play on the single screen (most of the other machines are back to back types) KOFXII machine in the NewCity Gamezone, i managed to get first place high score and put my initials in as 'UK!' Hopefully the machine will be around for a long time as i want my score there forever, and just as i write this i realise i should've taken a photo of my score -_-


Anyway back to Road to Revenge, the actual game on arcade looks alot sharper than the console version (by this i mean the backgrounds, not the actual character sprites) and i couldn't really notice any significant changes compared to the console version (aside obviously the boss characters are removed). Though i may not have played it enough to actually find many differences.


As i mentioned previously the player level in Hong Kong is very high, i managed to learn one or two things from the little time i spent playing there, and you will probably be able to play against pretty much most characters BUT alot of players tend to use either one of the Kyos, K', Kasumi or Nameless. As i say though you will still be able to play against a nice range of characters aside from those.

So New City, Gamezone as i mentioned was the arcade i had the chance to spend the most time at. In this arcade there were at least 9 KOF machines in a row on back to back set ups (with a random virtua striker game stuck in between).
All of these machines housing either KOF:Revenge, KOF02, KOF98UM or XII, with another XII machine on it's own opposite.

I didn't manage to get many photos but these are the ones i did take:

(Random football game)

(This screen was broken lol...)

(Lots of KOF machines :D )

And even though i think Street Fighter IV is a pile of shit game, i took some photos of the cabinets they had there. (Which were on some kind of multiple cabinet link up system)

(Some kinda budget cabinet...lol)

(Twice the price to play compared to a game of KOF:Revenge and not even half as good a game :( )

Also before i forget, a game of KOF (pretty much all of them) generally costs about HK$2 which is approximately 15p (or 24cents in US currency), so you can spend pretty much all day in the arcade in HK on very little money compared to playing arcades in the West.

One last thing before i finish up this huge post, eating and drinking in Hong Kong is very cheap also. You can eat something in somewhere like McDs, Cafe De Coral, Fairwood for about HK$30 (about £2) and they have menus in English in all of these places so it's fairly easy to figure out what you want to eat.
Cafe de Coral and Fairwood are considered fast food restaurants though they serve Chinese food, and you can eat pretty much standard stuff you find in Chinese restaurants in the UK such as Char Siu (BBQ pork) with rice.

I recommend visiting Hong Kong at least once if you're a KOF player, even if you aren't it is a nice place to visit for a quick shopping holiday. Just be prepared for the amount of people there, overcrowding there is insane, 12pm and it's pretty much as busy as Oxford Street on the weekend...

Anyways thanks for reading, as i say anything you feel i left out or you wanted to know about feel free to leave a comment.