Fatal Fury Team - Technical Reference

Another update to SNKPlaymore's youtube channel and this time it is the Fatal Fury (Garou Densetsu) team, as with the previous update this has been split into two seperate video uploads.

First up Terry Bogard:



And of course Andy Bogard and Joe Higashi:


Strange that they've decided take away Terry's Crack Shoot overhead properties, and i thought his Leader DM was more impressive in XI compared to his NeoMax. But otherwise looking good.

Japan Team - Technical Reference

Another Technical Reference video uploaded by SNKPlaymore today, this time featuring the Japan Team (Kyo/Benimaru/Daimon) and was uploaded in two parts.

The first featuring Kyo Kusanagi by himself:

The second featuring Benimaru Nikaido and Goro Daimon:

Also it seems that the Arcadia Magazine ships on the 30th June according to the Arcadia Magazine website as opposed to the date shown on the Playasia site (28th), so most likely that will arrive mid next week (hopefully).

Have also ordered a couple of new books as well to add to my stack of things i need to do a write up about.

Elizabeth Team - Technical Reference

The second part of the Technical Reference series has been uploaded to SNKPlaymore's youtube channel today, this time it features Elizabeth's team. (Elizabeth/Duo Lon/Shen Woo)

I've embedded it below but make sure you check it out on the actual Youtube site to watch it in 720p quality, if you want to download it i recommend using a program called Youtube Downloader.

Also the new issue of Arcadia should have started shipping today from Playasia, this month's main article again will be the Project Diva Arcade game...Though there will be some KOFXIII news regarding the game's story and about the game's system. Check out the previews below.

HOT KOF GGPO Tournament Finals Video

As mentioned in the previous entry HOT KOF recently hosted an online KOF02 tournament on GGPO with UK player Giga D (GGPO name: Username123) coming 1st place. A video of the final match between Username123 and Kakashi02said has been uploaded to youtube today.



Check out Kakashi02said's Youtube channel here, and the HOT KOF website.

Ash Crimson Technical Reference / HOTKOF GGPO Tournament Results

SNKPlaymore as mentioned in the previous entry will be releasing a special set of videos every weekday up until the release of KOFXIII in the arcade.

Today being the first scheduled day of videos, the Technical Reference for Ash Crimson has been uploaded to youtube.

Very useful to watch, as it shows you points at which you can cancel moves with the new system changes as well as the different properties you have whilst performing EX moves.

Also congratulations to Giga_D (username123) who came first in a GGPO tournament hosted by HOT KOF, check out their website which should have videos fairly soon.

KOFXIII - Countdown / Video Schedule / Yagami Team

SNKPlaymore have updated the official KOFXIII website today with a countdown page, counting down to the arcade release of XIII. This page also contains the schedule for the videos it will release up until the release date, most of these being technical reference videos.

The weekly update for the blog this week is featuring the Yagami team.

And of course that also means more video updates from SNKPlaymore's youtube channel.

King of Fighters XIII - Arcade Release Date

SNKPlaymore's press release section was updated today with the official arcade release date, it's due to hit arcades in Japan on the 14th July. No word on whether Casino will get it at the moment...Hopefully the console release will not be too far off.

In other news my net connection at home is kinda screwed up. Probably not very interesting to know but it does mean some of the things i wanted to write up about may take alot longer to sort out.

KOFXIII - Women's Team

Another week of updates from SNKPlaymore, this time featuring the Women's team.

Also don't forget that KOF02UM: Tougeki Edition is out next week!
Preorder it here on Playasia.com for approx £24.

Here's a few of pics of the stuff i hope to work on writing about next.

KOFXIII - Ikari Team Neo Max Exhibition Vids.

SNKPlaymore's Youtube channel has updated with three new videos, this time focusing on the Ikari Team.

First we have Ralf:



Leona:



And last but not least Clark:



Loving how this game looks so far, can't wait!

The King of Fighters Fighting Evolution 10th - Art Book - A Quick Look

I've been meaning to write about this for quite some time now, although quite an old book (5 years or so i believe) it's not very easy to get ahold of SNKP related books in the UK so i tried to win this when i saw it up for auction.

It ended up costing me about £18 or so including delivery, not that expensive i think, but in my opinion it was worth every penny.

First thing i noticed when i received and something eBay photos would probably not prepare you for is how thick this book is. At slightly over 250 pages, it is not much thinner than the side of a cigarette packet.

Filled to the brim with artworks spanning from KOF94 up until 03, the book covers all of the KOF artists over the years though of course most prominently feature is Shinkiro who was the one of the main artists for SNK up until their bankruptcy.

All artists are featured (that i can tell), even Wing Yan and King Tung, who are the artists for the Hong Kong KOF man hua/comic.

Although when i was a bit younger i never really tended to appreciate Shinkiro's drawing style, after looking through this book i got a real feeling of how much love he puts into his work and appreciated it alot more.

The above image of Chang is probably one of my favorite Shinkiro pieces, although he is designed to be a comical character anyway the realistic look of him smiling really does make me laugh.

Like the newer Character Encyclopedia i previously wrote about, this one also features some character profiles and character images through out the years. Although maybe not as well presented as the Character Encyclopedia it probably does rival it in term of information.
(Though i can't read Japanese so i'm not really able to say for sure.)

Also above you can check out the character's 'relation' chart. I do remember spotting something that was left out, though it may very well just have been something that's happened in the story since '03, but can't remember exactly what it was right at this moment.

Not much unlike the lay out Neo Geo Freaks Magazine used to use (or at least it reminds me of it) they have a rundown of each KOF game up until 03.
(At some point i probably should learn some more Japanese so i can actually read this stuff...)

Geese Howard and Athena Asamiya also have a whole page dedicated to them, in the case of Geese i believe it is a brief history of his character and the Athena page being dedicated to her costume changes over the years.

One thing i actually didn't expect was that this book not only features KOF but also some of the other major (or not so major) SNK fighting game titles. Last Blade, Buriki One, Samurai Shodown all have small sections dedicated to them. Not in a great deal, but it was nice that they were included too.

And of course you couldn't really have a SNK book about King of Fighters without the two games it was spun off from. The Art of Fighting and Fatal Fury series are also covered in this book in alot more detail than the other games i just mentioned, with artwork from the games throughout the years.

In the closing sections of the book it also features special illustrations from SNK, the one i found most interesting was the comic book panels drawn by Shinkiro. I'm not sure whether a comic book was ever made, if it was artwork created for instruction manuals, or an unused concept.

I'll have to have a flick through a few of the AES manuals for the games i own to have a check later tonight.

So in closing, as i mentioned i felt this book was worth buying though given that it is quite old now i wouldn't be able to recommend where to buy it other than eBay, but if you manage to find it around £18/20 or so i would recommend getting ahold of it to all fans.

Next write up i will be looking at the All About SNK Fighting Games 91-00, hopefully i'll try to do that as soon as i can. Thanks for reading!

Neo Geo Battle Coliseum - XBLA - A quick play

Sooooo Neo Geo Battle Coliseum has finally landed on the Xbox Live Arcade, priced at 800MS points and weighing in at 830.79MB. (Check it out on Xbox.com.)

Managed to pick it up before work today and had a quick play through it, bare in mind when reading this i've had very little experience of the arcade version and ps2 port so i am unsure of alot of (if any changes).

Firstly as far as i know all secret characters are unlocked from the get go, as you can see from the above photo Goddess Athena and Mars People are there on the character select screen.
If you go to the far right (or far left) you can select Shishioh (King Lion), Mizuchi, and Neo Dio off screen. Goodman is selectable in an 'invisible' box in the centre.

On playing the actual game, i jumped straight into practice mode, and noticed the smudge filter straight away. Although not so much of a big deal once everything is moving, it does look fairly odd, i had a quick look in the options menu and couldn't seem to find the option to turn it off.
(Though i could be wrong.)

Though on the bright side, the 3D background look gorgeous. I'm personally not normally a fan of 3D backgrounds in SNKP games but i think they look pretty good in this one.

After a quick practice session i jumped into Story Mode, i'm not sure whether this was the case in the ps2 version or whether i'm playing a different mode from the ps2 1player mode but i remember in the arcade after defeating your opponent you get a choice of something like regain health/regain time and possibly something else.

Story mode doesn't seem to have this, it just plays through like a normal fighting game.

I then attempted to jump online after getting owned by Mizuchi in story mode, but couldn't find any matches. (I'm guessing most people were at work/school.)

One problem i have had so far is i have found it difficult to pull off Iori's super moves, i'm not too sure whether i'm inputting a way the game doesn't understand or my stick needs to be replaced or there is a problem with the game. (I'm assuming it's one of the first two at the moment.)

But on the whole, as a game i wasn't too excited about at first i'm glad i ended up getting it.
I'll try and put more time into it tonight, and since we are doing our SNK Wednesday night tonight, hopefully the netcode will get tested and wil be good too.

For 800ms points this game is a bargain.

Strikers 1945 Plus - iPhone/iPod Touch - Free for today only!!

A bit late for me to post this considering the time it is now, but in case anyone sees this before the promotion runs out this app is free today.

Check it out on iTunes.

Though if you did miss out, don't worry too much as the controls aren't great so it's not an essential purchase.

There's also Metal Slug Touch available on iTunes for £2.99, though the controls for that are also not that great either :(

Arcadia Magazine - July 2010 - A Quick Look.

Another month has flown by and another issue of Arcadia has flown through my letter box, this month the issue covers the new Hatsune Miku Project Diva Arcade game and comes with a small sheet of related stickers. (Which i did actually take a picture of but somehow forgot to save the photo before leaving home today...)

As with the previous couple of issues, the opening page features an advert of Mai Shiranui though also is coupled with an advert for the upcoming Neo Geo Heroes ~ Ultimate Shooting for the PSP.
This comes out the 29th July and will cost Y5040, preorders also will come with an arranged soundtrack CD.


The next section of the magazine covers the main article of this issue, the Project Diva game. Not much interested in this myself so i pretty much just skimmed past it.

First set of SNKP related articles this month covers the aforementioned Neo Geo Heroes game, mentions a little about the 4 new characters who were not in KOF SkyStage as well as the game modes. There's also a small section at the bottom of the page regarding Ichiki Mitsuhiro and Tougeki '10, which i haven't had much of a look at yet.

Next couple of pages covers a couple of SNKP's new mobile phone games, and mentions the new Mai Shiranui figure i wrote a bit about in a previous blog entry. Then there is also the Neo Geo Fan Club fan art pages, a Mai fan art winning this month (alot of things relating to Mai lately lol).

The next couple of pages covers Examu, ArcSys and Tekken, then onto the KOFXIII news.

Though not much you wouldn't know already this issue covers the latest team revealed, the K' team.

Also this issue has a page dedicated to Mai Shiranui...(Like i said alot of Mai related things lately...) called the Shiranui Mai Fan Club. See above image for more details.

Something i haven't seen as of yet is that Chin has a new super move which looks like it bounces off the wall, potentially for a follow up attack. The image blurb doesn't mention whether he is red in that image because he is drunk or if that is just a colour scheme, would be pretty interesting if it is the former.

Also something else added to this game is Shen Woo has a new move which reverses fireballs.

And Leona has some kind of new super which looks like she runs backwards and forwards slicing the opponent, the image looks a bit similar to her charge back > forward + Kick move. (Apologies for no picture of this.)

Other things covered in this issue include Border Break, a couple of sports titles, Arcana Heart 3, and suprisingly very little SSF4 coverage. The Girl's Island feature this month covers Nina from Tekken.

Just to finish up a couple of SNKP related images from this issue.