Old SNK Goods From Japan S.2 - The Art Of SNK World II

It's been a while since i've done one of these write ups.

Amongst the things that my friend brought back from Japan for me were both books from The Art Of SNK World series, since i previously covered the first book i will only be mentioning the second book in this post.

The book starts with a small fold out image of Kyo and a title page featuring Chibi versions of various SNK characters, probably one of the few (maybe first) times that i've seen Shinkiro draw in this kind of style. 

Unlike the first book which had clear seperate sections for each game this one organises them into two major sections of 'Fighting Spirits' (coloured images) and 'Monochrome World' (black and white images, mainly sketches).

If you've collected a few different SNK/KOF artbooks by now you would have seen much of the Shinkiro artwork which is shown in this book for KOF so i didn't take any photos of those ones.

For KOF95 it also has full page profile images of the teams, which i felt took up needless amounts of space...You can kind of see an example of this with the bosses on the page on the right hand side. I quite liked the sketch type drawings of Iori though. 

Savage Reign is also featured in this book, which i personally liked just due to not seeing much artwork around for that game, there isn't that much though sadly.

Although i'm not too fond of the game itself i quite like these charcoal'esque images from Fatal Fury 3.

The above image i took because i found the proportions of King's chest pretty amusing, not quite sure what's going on there.

The Monochrome World section of the book was my favourite section of the book due to the range of things shown, which include 4koma (4 panel comic strips) and artwork from instruction manuals amongst other things.

The King Of The Monsters artwork was quite refreshing to see, partially because it's something i don't see much of and also because it's a game i have very fond memories of playing when i was a bit younger.

The book then ends with a Conversation section, which i skimmed over due to not knowing enough Japanese to read it, and a History Of Neo Geo sections which shows much of the games released up to the point of this book.

Overall this book is a nice addition to my growing collection of SNK artbooks, although personally not my favourite, though i think if you had the choice of choosing either the first or the second i personally preferred the first one more.

Mai Shiranui Cosplay - Giorgia

Going through my daily morning web browse routine before work i came across the above image on Kotaku of this Italian Mai Shiranui Cosplayer.

From Kotaku's page i was then directed towards her DeviantArt Page, and then from her DeviantArt Page i was directed to her main website. (Check out those two links for more images)

KOF-i - Iori Stage (Factory) - A Quick Look

This is just going to be a quick post before i go off to sleep (almost 4am here!).

When i read the notes from the translation of the recent KOFXIII blog entry about Iori over on Orochinagi's forums, i went off to Youtube to have a look at some high quality videos of the stage to see if i could spot any of these 'details' that were going to be in his stage.

A little while ago i got the idea to have a look at the original 95 stage and compare it to the KOF-i version just to see if there were any differences or how close it was to the original.

So i've taken a few screenshots and stuck them together using Photoshop.

As i mentioned i had previously looked up the stage on Youtube to see if i could spot anything and although at the time i wasn't too sure i just managed to confirm by looking at one of my screenshots more clearly that Rocky from Robo Army is also on the scrap heap near Candy Diamond.

As for the stages themselves, at first glance they seem pretty similar. After studying them a bit more i've started to notice the subtle changes like the buildings off in the distance have changed, and various parts of the factory are different.

I'm not sure if i remember correctly but i vaguely remember there being stages in the Gallery section for KOFXII, hopefully you can view the stages in the console version of XIII so i can take a better look without life bars and characters blocking the view.

KOF-i - Versus Replay Data

Last night on the tube journey home i managed to get a couple of games on KOF-i against Cristina via local bluetooth wireless.

Since it was my first time trying out versus on KOF-i i saved the replays and uploaded them to Youtube.





Although you can't tell from these replays the game has a slight slowdown when played over bluetooth.

From what i remember though about other games i've played over bluetooth also have this issue, but it is still playable and i didn't think it affected gameplay.

It's a shame that online versus wasn't implemented as not many of my friends own an iPod Touch/iPhone and also play KOF. It was quite fun to play against someone on this version of the game.

Also on a semi-related note some things i have previously forgotten to mention whilst doing various writes ups about KOF-i.

Unlike the console version of the game whilst in HD mode if you activate NeoMax it still takes 3 super bars (they changed this to 2 bars in the console version if i remember correctly).

Whilst getting more comfortable with the game and experimenting with more combos, although it should have been immediately obvious, i discovered some combos are not possible due to the simplified special move inputs. (For example certain special moves will always come out as a hard punch/kick version making combos which require the light version not possible.)

I hope that SNKP will continue the support for this version of the game in the future, or at least port the console version on to the 3DS/Vita so i can play it with a d-pad!

Since i'm always carrying my iPod everywhere and rarely have much time nowadays to play consoles at home it's been really great having a portable version of the game, especially on those journeys to and from work where i can mess around in training mode.

More portable KOF please!

KOF-i Dialogue - K' Versus Fatal Fury Team

Another set of dialogues featuring K', this time against the Fatal Fury team.

As always K' being gloomy (and a bit emo), Terry even offering him a bit of counselling.

K' Versus Joe Higashi:

K' Versus Terry Bogard:

K' Versus Andy Bogard:

DontDropThatCombo - Athena Combo Tutorial

DontDropThatCombo has uploaded the next part of his series of combo videos, this time featuring Athena Asamiya. Going to be studying this one alot since i actually pick Athena in XIII, hopefully there's not any changes in her combos between the arcade and console version.

I quite like the combo @6:35 (Combo 46) with 5 of her Shining Crystal Bits.

KOFXIII Blog Update - EX/Flame Iori / KOFXIII Asian Version Pre-Order Bonus

SNKPlaymore has updated the official KOFXIII blog today with a few videos of EX/Flame Iori, much like the Saiki and Billy Kane updates before it, it shows a couple of combos along with his NeoMax.

I tried to Google Translate the blog entry but it made even less sense then me trying to slowly browse through it with my limited Japanese. I'm sure Professor or Toxico will translate it over on MMCafe at some point soon.

So far EX/Flame Iori is looking good, i remember hearing a bit of Dune's interview on Elive a while ago saying that he would be incredibly strong.

Anyway check out the vids:







[Edit]: SNKPlaymore HK has also uploaded a KOFXIII Promotional Video, it's the same one we've probably all seen a million times now but adds a small clip at the end showing the pre-order bonus that will be included with the Asian version of the game.

I think it says that it is a Phone Rest/Holder, not too sure.