that there’s separte sagas of about three years apiece, and that these make up a long

and storied history... but take it from my perspective. I was introduced to this nonsense

with Maximum Impact 1, and yes, I already hear your collective screams of “UR DOIN

IT RONG.” Bear with me. That was my entry point to this backstory, with the Meira brothers

and Duke and later Nagase and Luise and the rest. Yes, I missed out on the largest part

of the plot. And that kinda comes to a head with this King of Fighters, released in Japan

in 2006, which isn’t KOF ‘06, it’s XI. Which isn’t 2011, just... XI. Does your

head hurt yet?

To fill you in on the story... y’know what? You can go ahead and play the 10 Kings of

Fighterses and 10 Fatal Furies and Mark of the Wolves and... what, three Arts of Fighting?

And Samurai Showdown, and you get the point. There’s some kerfluffle about the Orochi

Seal, and some stupidly overpowered boss character is using it to their own evil ends. As three

of the 33 characters available from the start, your job is to investigate said kerfluffle

by beating down anyone in your way. Simple, right?

And here’s where the madness begins. Guilty Gear XX was complex enough with just the original

and two flavors of X before it. This King of Fighters rides on the back of the more

than two dozen games before it, so there’s a whole system of desperation moves, guard

cancels, guard evasion, saving shifts, quick shifts, super cancels, dream cancels, enough

to make Solomon revolve in his grave. And if you’re new to this particular system,

it can be a bear just to try to digest it all. Sure, you can flail through with a random

team of your favorite four-letter words. But sooner or later, some SNK boss is going to

roll up and Tommy Lee Jones you back to reality, Agent J. Fortunately, a challenge mode gives

you a perfect opportunity to practice roll recoveries, throw breaks, and get practice

against some of the bosses, while unlocking not only the bosses but some of the more egregious

exclusions from the roster, including Mai, Robert Garcia, and Geese Howard.

Also when you inevitability when you bite the dust, here’s where the game takes a

bit of pity on you, in a shrewd move for the arcade industry: your reward for plunking

in another quarter (or, given that this is the PS2 version, deigning to press the start

button) is a power boost for the upcoming rematch. You can either knock down the opponents’

health by a quarter right off the bat, begin the match loaded with for special attacks,

or turn down said pity and prove that you can do it the hard way. Your choice.

My primary issue, though, is that - compared to contemporaries like the Guilty Gear series,

the sprites look kinda dated. I know there was a lot of frustration regarding the recycling

of Darkstalkers-era graphics in the Marvel Vs. Capcom series; I hoped that in 2006 we

could do better. And it’s upsetting, because the UI itself pushes a much more modern aesthetic,

with a robust sound palate. Chances are, if you’re the kind of fan who’s already put

countless hours into sussing out the plot of this monstrous undertaking, you’ve already

got a copy. If you don’t, prepare to get very, very lost while enjoying a decent fighter.

Besides, with re-releases and virtual console ports, how hard can it be to amass twenty

four or so of the older games so as to get a clue?