The first King of Fighters outing on iPhone was fantastic. It did an amazing job of translating the game into an iPhone-friendly experience with a simplified control scheme and some nice touches to the feature set. The only thing that put it a place below Street Fighter IV: Volt was its lack of online play.
SNK has addressed its main criticism with the release of The King of Fighters-i 2012, which is a brand new app and not an update to the previous game. If you haven’t played The King of Fighters on your iPhone before or already own The King of Fighters-i, is it worth the extra coin?
Let’s get the basics out of the way. Everything that made the original King of Fighters-i awesome has been retained in full, which makes this a great game out of the box. Instead, it should be judged based on the updates it makes to the original. If you’d like to read in more detail about the awesomeness of the original, feel free to check out my review. The 2012 edition adds 12 new characters to the roster, which boosts the roster count to an impressive 32. If you’re looking to expand it even further, two more characters are available as paid DLC. With 32 characters out of the box, you’ll have more than enough to work with. If you were a fan of the trading card mode, it’s been improved with a new currency system that rewards you for playing the game.
The above updates – while nice – are what you would expect from this type of game. The real deal-maker or deal-breaker here is the game’s online play. As with any online game, the stability will depend on the strength of your internet connection, but when it’s good, it works great and is a lot of fun to play. I haven’t played enough of it to pass a final judgment on the community, but I haven’t experienced any rage quitters yet. One nice touch to the online experience is that after each match, you’re given a number of pre-written phrases to chat with. If you want to let your opponent know that the next one is your last, or if you’re having a great time, the pre-written messages let you convey that.
As an overall package, The King of Fighters-i is the new king of iOS fighting games. Kudos to SNK for not only addressing the previous game’s shortcomings, but for also going above and beyond to make this as good as it is. At this point, I’d highly recommend this and Street Fighter IV: Volt, but if you’ve only got room on your phone for one, it’s simply a matter of personal preference.
In Third Person 