King of Fighters Ex 2: Howling Blood for Game Boy Adv Reviews & Ratings by IGN

The SNK name have slowly faded into obscurity the past couple of years, but no one can argue that the name isn't a strong one when it comes to fighting titles. During the Neo Geo arcade machine's heyday, it wasn't uncommon to see every slot of a multi-game system filled with a fighting game. The company's success pretty much came from the multitude of Samurai Showdowns and Fatal Furys, but the series that's outlasted them all, and continues to thrive, is the King of Fighter franchise. Playmore and Marvelous Entertainment gave the series an original shot on the Game Boy Advance more than a year ago to varying success; cartridge and system limitations hindered the design the first time around, but the team's given the series another try with King of Fighters EX 2: Howling Blood. This sequel is far and away a better production.

Features

• More than 21 characters
• Practice and story mode for single player
• Link cable support for two players (multiple cartridge)
• Cartridge save
• Link cable support for two players

King of Fighters EX 2 obviously builds upon the style of fighting game that's been a staple of the SNK line for more than a decade. Where Street Fighter II and its sequels popularized the one-on-one fighting genre and took it in one direction, SNK's development teams capitalized on the Capcom success by trying its own style, and taking those in other directions. Despite having their own themes and characterizations, these games have their similarities, from special moves to combo techniques, and it's completely the gamer's preference if the style and direction is successful or not.

The King of Fighters series began as a SNK's "best of" design, pairing up fighters from the company's Art of Fighting and Fatal Fury series. But it continued to evolve so much that the line-up of fighters that grew out of the KoF series nearly overshadows the combination of the two games that started the franchise. Specifically in King of Fighters EX 2, there are more than 21 different fighters to choose from, and their styles differ wildly from one another; sure, there are the balanced Ken/Ryu-style of fighters to make the game feel "familiar" to those not-so-die-hard fighting fans, but there are the extremes, like humongoid Chang with his ball and chain, to the miniature Freddy Kreuger look-alike Choi that bounces around the screen like a flea soaked in Jolt.

The design of King of Fighter EX2 doesn't stray far from the original game, but it's the production value that's improved significantly. The sequel follows the design of the original King of Fighters EX release by pitting teams of three against each other. The bout isn't over until all three fighters are downed, but if a player has a character in reserve he can call upon him or her in a "striker" move. These moves can be used as a simple attack, or as an offensive way of starting or ending a combo.

But where the original game featured sloppy collision detection, wonky combo strings, and a serious amount of graphic glitches and slowdown, this sequel tightens up pretty much everything that went wrong with Neo Blood. The graphic engine allows for a lot more on-screen action and sprite-based special effect glitz this time around, and there's even enough processing power left over to bring back a King of Fighter trademark: fallen fighters sit along the sidelines as the bout continues, a feature that was left out of the original EX. And even with the amount of action on-screen, the audio engine pumps out much better tunes in this sequel than the original...shame that the voices still had to end up incredibly compressed. But that's the limitation of the cartridge medium, and it's better to get a lot of characters and frames of animation in the game than to have "Round one, fight!" come through clear as a bell. It was the right compromise.

The only real issue with King of Fighters EX 2: Howling Blood is in its gameplay variety: the single player experience is just a little weak due to a sloppy storyline that's incredibly hard to follow. King of Fighter EX2 is definitely made for the multiplayer modes, but the investment of multiple systems, multiple cartridges, and a link cable means that the odds of getting in some one-on-one action is just a little rarer than you'd get on a console version of the game. A little more focus on the solitaire experience would have done wonders for this fighter.

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