SNK

don’t vox the reaper

  • Reading time:8 mins read

i am surprised how much i don’t hate vox reaper

his character is downbeat, soft-spoken, almost resigned. gently sardonic sense of humor. matter-of-fact about his occupation. generally open and honest and respectful to others, when he’s not killing them.

did he and preecha go to school together?

at a glance, everything about him says “insufferable edgelord,” but he seems like an okay, relatively well-adjusted guy aside from the murders.

doesn’t hurt that maybe he has the best english-language voice acting in the game, ahead of even billy and terry and rock

those four in particular are really killing it here

it’s curious how reasonable everyone is in this game. there’s conflict, but there aren’t really any bad guys beyond inner demons and lingering ghosts of the past

and mr. big, i guess, whose petty shittiness put two games’ worth of story in motion, but his role is sidelined for the most part

it’s mostly just a bunch of people being thoughtful and melancholy at each other, while treating each other with respect

kind of like sonic adventure (a game i’m starting to reference as a touchstone for a certain vibe as much as i do the original release of riven)

there’s this sadness throughout

it’s also very clear to me that mr big, the closest thing to a real antagonist in this web of fates, was supposed to be in the base roster until very very close to release,

while dong hwan was going to be held back as dlc for the first season

and that ronaldo was also crammed in at the last minute

i don’t know what possessed them to swap big for dong

(big dong big dong big dong)

but dong is just not prepared here. no home stage (same as ronaldo), one of the last characters credited, and—i thought initially, missing from the intro, but no, he’s right there…

you see that explosion of silhouettes over the transition with the jin scrolls?

dong is actually the first character we see in the game, beyond terry and geese—or at least, the shape of him,

followed by the darkened forms of joe, andy, ken, and joe—

five extra mystery characters, clearly all dlc

(with fuckin ronaldo “fuck-you” tacked onto the end of the sequence, as if edited in after they thought the animation was all locked down—and even then with some confusion as to whether he would be dlc or not, like his fate was in flux even as they scrambled to shoehorn him in)

by comparison ganacci is pretty securely established, seemingly a later addition but one they had more time and will to work into events as a minor side character—and to allot a spotlight beat with some actual animation alongside everyone else, not just an unflattering static portrait jump-scare

unlike mr. big, who is conspicuous by his absence despite playing such a pivotal role, dong hwan really doesn’t have much to do in the story—

which makes sense if he wasn’t meant to be on the base roster, but part of a first dose of “oh, also these guys” alongside the likes of andy and joe

i’m further guessing that jae hoon was planned to lead a second season of dlc, and freeman a third—going along with their stated commitment to do at least three seasons. each of the three narratively less-important motw characters would have gotten their own little party as they joined the gang.

they announced dong just three days before halloween, a month after the first vague weird cr7 teaser, which in turn was two days after they announced the street fighter collab—which we know they leapt to announce before the ink was dry, lest details of the deal leak before they could do anything

a month earlier than that, in late august, they loudly announced (alongside mai) a 17-character base roster with five dlc characters, sounding like they were confident and had things finalized and were now just focused in on cranking through the last stages of development to meet a meetable deadline

so it looks like last october, six months before the game had to be ready to ship, is when things started to shift around

after tweaking, the intro animation must have been locked in by early october, under the assumption that the base cast was settled aside from maybe a question mark over ronaldo

so what happened in those few weeks to make them suddenly bump up dong and announce him next?

they had rapidly announced eleven of the seventeen base characters, then there was a long gap after mai in august—with the collabs teased halfway through—before suddenly dong was in, and no longer as dlc

clearly ganacci was already quietly happening before the shakeup, though i’m gonna guess he was the final character settled on in the “original” version of the game as it sat prior to late september.

so by late september that leaves gato, kain, ganacci, hokutomaru, and mr. big to finalize by april

realistically they had six months left before they had to tidy things up for initial release, and five characters they still needed to complete—with a single character taking about two months to finish, drawing board to locked code.

of course this isn’t sequential, and they’re spinning many plates.

before late september, i’m guessing the devs felt despite the late-ish addition of ganacci they had things pretty well under control; they knew what work they had left, and had it all scheduled out and allocated and accounted for

then after the collab announcements, it would seem, late-stage chaos

it strongly appears to me, over just a few weeks there was this abrupt pressure to make ronaldo happen for launch if they could, which they didn’t have room to worry about this close to release with this much still left to complete.

so given what they had already promised, they had to reprioritize.

i think they realized that to add this fucker at this point meant they needed to look at what was now physically possible to do, to meet the letter of what they had publicly committed to.

mr. big, i guess, they had yet to really work on much—but for whatever reason, dong was closer to complete.

like, maybe someone was getting a head start on the dlc characters since they thought they knew how much time and work they had left. whatever the reason, he happened to be further along than others so they must have chosen to finish him up next because they had no more time to fuck around

realistically they needed to cut a character to squeeze in this surprise soccer fucker, but they couldn’t cut a character because they had just announced how many characters the game would have.

so they must have stealth-cut mr. big right then, and pushed back everything else that wasn’t crucial.

by mid-february—four-and-a-half months after chaos hit—it feels like they had reached a new security over what they could crank out before an april launch, as they stopped vaguely gesturing at blank spaces and publicly committed to the full season 1 dlc roster, same day as they announced kain.

a month later they first showed off ronaldo’s rough-as-fuck make-do character model, so basically by mid-february they must have concluded that, yeah, they technically can fit this guy in without making themselves into liars about either the release date or number of playable characters at launch.

notably, after dong hwan was rushed down the assembly line without time to figure out a custom stage or anything, the last few characters took absolute ages to announce, almost like the work pipeline devoted to the rest of the game as planned had been halved since october.

gato trailer around christmas, kain about two months later, and hokutomaru only two weeks before launch, within days of salvatore ganacci 😬

assuming they were contractually required to have ganacci complete for launch, it must have been up in the air for a hot minute who else they could manage.

like, maybe it wasn’t immediately clear that mr. big in particular had to go, since it looks like gato, kain, and hoku were all a ways off when the bomb dropped in late september, early october. maybe it was simply obvious that raw numbers were now more important than specifically who made the cut.

so with dong incidentally far enough along for them to rush him out the door, i expect that meant a choice on which of the other planned four was the right balance of less immediately crucial and in need of the most work.

gato is probably the least important—but also probably needed the least work.

that narrows it down to kain, hoku, and mr. big. kain is kind of difficult to manage without here, and though big is central to everything that’s going on in the story, i imagine hoku was just deemed more appealing in a direct comparison, and probably had at least some work already in progress.

i think it’s probable the final decision on which of hokutomaru and mr. big they ultimately would focus on came sometime between finishing up gato around christmas, and the season 1 dlc announcement that came alongside kain.

well, obviously before the latter—but i get the sense, not that far before

load-bearing personalities

  • Reading time:3 mins read

terry bogard may be the only main character of any fighting game whom i’ll gladly spend a significant time playing.

ryu? lol, no. akira yui? the kazamas, sophitia alexandra, kasumi mugen tenshin, haohmaru, amongst my last choices.

(weirdly, morrigan isn’t the central darkstalker until game 3. 🦇🤓)

even kyo kusanagi, i enjoy his shitty personality and the bleary antagonism he bounces off everyone in his life—iori, chizuru, shingo, saisyu, even yuki. it’s fun for a long-suffering central character to actually be a total asshole who needs to be dragged into doing anything that could look heroic.

i like how drastically his moveset and play archetype have changed over time. i kind of like the overly complicated, distinctive core of his move list since 1996. i like his changing outfits. the musical evolution of “esaka” is one of my very favorite Video Game Things to go back and fuss over .

i like how deep kyo’s original actor masahiro nonaka’s voice slowly grew, year after year. i liked seeing his character teeter toward totally losing himself over the course of the nests saga; how he began to borrow iori’s moves, a darkness would fall across his face, and his animations grew alarming

as with morrigan and darkstalkers, kyo’s popularity has long been eclipsed by his rival iori—and iori is my precious grumpy snarling gumdrop, who first got me interested in kof, snk, and fighting games in general back in the neogeo pocket/dreamcast days. i absolutely will play iori.

but kyo? ih. 🤷🏻‍♀️

i’m all over his successor kaydash, and take a fae sort of delight in ash crimson, both of whom technically count as central characters even as kyo, like ryu, remains squarely in the middle of things, anchoring each new era in familiarity and kind of taking the steam away from whoever it up for lead

it’s like, “main character energy” tends to exert on me this unconscious magnetic repulsion. why on sub-con would i pick mario, when the princess and toad are *right frickin there*, you know.

it’s not a thing i think about or intend; it’s just, my mind bounces right off any sort of guided decision.

terry, though?

he’s terry. he’s the guy. why would i not want to hang with such a good bro? one with such a strange yet effective playstyle, at that.

he’s just wander around, doing his thing, and we can come along if we want. or not. no biggie.

the same goes for the wolves games, despite rock.

Support Strikers

  • Reading time:4 mins read

So here’s a hot take.

The King of Fighters has always carved out a queer-friendly space. It has an enormous cast, defined more than anything by personality dynamics—representing a huge array of gender expressions and unconventional relationships. The team dynamics in this series are akin to found families. With a few exceptions, no one in KoF is ever fighting alone. Personal support systems are the norm.

Of the fourteen main games in the series, The King of Fighters 2001 is easily the queerest—with ’99 as closest runner-up. (That whole K’/Krizalid storyline sure is something!) Those bookends to the NESTS saga (the second story arc in the series, with KoF 2000 in the center) are the most I-don’t-give-a-fuck, expressive chapters in the series, unconcerned with expectations, with fitting into forms. Instead they spend their time grasping and scraping the margins to say what they feel they have to say, even if it comes off as broken or ugly or annoying.

The preceding Orochi saga had been, to a large extent, about living up to roles and expectations foretold centuries before one was even born. There are queer dynamics within that, but what’s astounding about the NESTS arc is how it dumps the rest and redoubles its attention on those elements.

There is something so essentially queer about the NESTS saga, coming up as it does to shred everything that came before, oust the main character, and refocus the series on this new sci-fi story about finding identity that’s been systemically stolen.

The team dynamics, which define KoF as a sereies, becomes all the stronger in this period, with larger teams allowing a more complete and varied support system and more potentials for character interaction. Part of the story progress is watching the likes of K’ slowly assemble his crew—which takes almost-full form with 2001.

All of the principle cast, during the NESTS years—it’s about discovering who they really are apart from how everyone else views them and all the burdens they carry. Even Kyo and Iori getting dumped from the burden of series leads for a while to focus on each other fits this.

2001 is the least fuckful of the trilogy, both in its astounding-it-even-got-made design and its story and aesthetics. It is what it is. The characters are embracing who they are, the good and the bad. The art isn’t trying for gloss: it’s as straight-up expressive as it’s been. I am on record for feeling the most affinity with this game, out of all of them. I think I’m developing a better handle on why.

King, the most stable presence in the franchise—so named for her gender ambiguity in her first role.

Also, on the EDM/queerness axis, the NESTS era has the best music in the series. Which is saying something, considering the series is known for its music almost as much as Castlevania or Mega Man or Sonic. Into which I stubbornly rope the 2001 AST, yes:

Though given their polish, ’99 and 2000 are a bit of an easier argument:

I mean. If you’re gonna have a queer-coded sci-fi revamp, might as well go full EDM, right?

And Christ, if we’re talking about associated emotional issues, the level of angst the series rises to in this arc:

Teppoman 2 Jumps ‘n Sneaks ‘n Runs ‘n Guns

  • Reading time:1 mins read
Ikiki, an artist new to me yet well-known in some circles (and hugely active between 1999 and 2005), has reappeared from the woodwork to deliver one new major and one minor opus: respectively, Teppoman 2 and Nozumou.

Both games have sort of a covert SNK flavor to them, which comes across slightly in the design and greatly in the soundscape. The music and effects often have a King of Fighters feel, and with its mix of shooting, platforming, and humor Teppoman 2 will call to mind Metal Slug. Yet something about the game also also reminds me of P.O.W.: Prisoners of War — maybe the sounds, or how you recover weapons from enemies, or the limited ammo.

Anyway, Teppoman 2 brings a new perspective to the run-’n-gun by combining some advanced platformer elements and a slight stealth component.

( Continue reading at DIYGamer )

SNK: The Future is… Coming

  • Reading time:7 mins read
by [name redacted]

I don’t know if this report even went live on the site. If so, it’s buried in the infrastructure. If not, well, that sort of thing happens at Insert Credit HQ. Either way, it’s here now.

Although my Wednesday plans called me to ask Akira Yamaoka stupid questions, on Wendesday Brandon called me to accompany him in asking SNK slightly less stupid questions.

We walked a dozen blocks, to a hotel decorated like a Roman bath. The door to the room was ajar; inside milled PR representative Michael Meyers, ensuring all was in place. On the enormous television to the right, the Xbox port of KOF: Maximum Impact; on the reasonable television head, the PS2 port of Metal Slug 4. On the coffee table to the left, a stack of DVD cases, the spine lettering on their temporary sleeves unified in all save size. Amongst these sleeves were The King of Fighters ’94 Re-Bout and Samurai Shodown V, and the new and unfortunate cover for Maximum Impact; to my recollection, all the sleeves were emblazoned with the Xbox logo.

While Brandon was drawn to Metal Slug, I asked of Michael Meyers questions that Brandon and I would again ask each subsequent person who entered the room.

E3 Errata

  • Reading time:1 mins read
by [name redacted]

I really wanted Nanobreaker to be a step toward something excellent — or at least something compelling and odd. Or for it to show that Igarashi knows what he’s doing with 3D games. I don’t think it accomplishes any of this, in the state in which I saw it. I mean. It’s… sort of interesting in the sense that it’s just so damned bloody. Or. I guess Igarashi insists that this isn’t really blood, but oil or something. Whatever it is, it’s red and it’s goopy and it’s everywhere.

( Continue reading at Insert Credit )

KOF: Maximum Impact

  • Reading time:1 mins read
by [name redacted]

From the beginning, SNK has tried to spruce up 2D fighters by incorporating elements of three-dimensionality. With 1991’s Fatal Fury, SNK introduced the idea of multi-planar fighting, where the characters may step along a Z axis, into or out of the screen. The King of Fighters ’94 adapted the idea of a sidestep for a single plane: press two buttons, and dodge into the background for a moment, to avoid being hit. SNK already had the technique down, that was not rediscovered until five years later, in Sega’s Virtua Fighter 3.

All of that I see now, in retrospect.

( Continue reading at Insert Credit )

Inner Dimensions

  • Reading time:3 mins read
by [name redacted]

A bit of reporting for Xbox Nation Magazine, which was actually printed in both the May and June issues. It seemed I had an in for writing more complex material — I notice a bunch of notes for further articles — but then the magazine folded. A shame.

As relative newcomer to the console scene, Microsoft arrived in the silence after the storm. Those who were present recall the trials of the mid-nineties, as Sony squeezed the industry through a macabre cleansing operation. Developers were forced to convert to 3D development or not only risk public dismissal, but risk disapproval from Sony. Without Sony’s OK, games go unpublished — and Sony has its own agenda. Crushing to many smaller houses, this policy continues even today.

Even so, some studios, like SNK, refuse to surrender.

Attack Patterns

  • Reading time:1 mins read
A couple of observations.

The “Mars People” from the Metal Slug series strongly resemble the top-row aliens (second from the bottom, here) in Space Invaders. This doesn’t seem like a coincidence to me.

Samus Aran’s space ship, from the Metroid series, bears a close resemblance to the enemy ships in Radar Scope — the early Space Invaders clone from Nintendo (which flopped and was later reworked into Donkey Kong). This is probably a coincidence. Maybe, however, not!

EDIT: HA HA

“‘Warners is afraid that Revolutions won’t sell very well because of the word of mouth on the movie. The only way to make the money on sell-through is to package it with the other two.’ The retailer went on to say that the number of requests for the film have dropped significantly since the film’s opening day.“

Samurai Stream (as poured onto Shepard)

  • Reading time:5 mins read
[As follows: I continue in my mission to populate the most egregious void in my personal SNK lexicon.]

Samurai Spirits remains perhaps SNK’s oddest fighting series. This fact does not diminish.

I now notice that it was updated every year, for four years — and that with each installment were abrupt leaps in quality and gameplay style. Then SNK… stopped. For seven years, if we ignore the 3D games — and let’s do that, for the moment

The games themselves… I have trouble grasping on first glance. I need more time.

It’s blatantly obvious that the second game just makes the first one obsolete in every sense. It’s the same thing, only better. The third and fourth games, though — they’re not so easy to interpret.

SSIII is of a notably different style from the other three games (in a general sense), and yet it lends some key elements to the fourth game. SSIV seems like an attempt to retreat to the level of SSII, while it retains a number of the elements introduced in III. A not-entirely-succesful attempt to recapture the feeling of the older games.

SSIII — immediately, I like it a bunch in comparison to SSII. It makes a bunch of changes — for the more palatable, from my current vantage point. It’s prettier, and it’s as enjoyable as it is attractive. It’s got some great animation and backgrounds. It introduces some interesting, personable new characters.

It’s a big step to the mainstream, admittedly; the new characters are cuter. The overall tone isn’t nearly as somber. It’s faster, more powerful. More kinetic. Less cerebral. More appealing, on a surface level — yet without nearly the poise and elegance of II. It’s hard to tell how deep the waters run.

A lot of people really hate SSIII, because of how radical it is. I don’t know about that; it’s got a lot of potential. I’ll need to dig, to better understand what it’s doing.

Something else of note is that it seems that the Slash and Bust modes are introduced here. That is to say: we’ve got Rasetsu character variants, for the first time.

I think the evil Nakoruru first appears in SS2, although she remains little more than a palette swap in that game. The reason I say this is that her expression changes to a more wry one when you select the Player 2 colours. In SS3, however, she’s got her wolf. And the rasetsu Galford is Poppy-free. So we’re into the big time, as it were.

Even in SS4, however, the distinctions aren’t as strong as they’ve more recently become. Sougetsu and Kazuki are in the game (for what it seems is the first time), yet their rasetsu variants are again just palette swaps (cosmetically speaking; for all I know at this point, their move lists could be entirely different) — whereas we now know their rasetsu variants as bare-chested, tattooed, shabbier alter egos.

From what I see here, I’ll hazard to assume that all of the serious separation must’ve occured in the Hyper NeoGeo 64 games.

Speaking of SS4 — again, I’m not sure yet what to make of it. Some people love this game; others loathe it. More people like it than SS3, though. I can see where the trouble lies, but I’m not ready to decide what it means.

As I mentioned, it’s basically a step back to the style of SS1 and 2, away from the weirdly energetic gaiden flavour of SS3 — yet it retains a bunch of straggling elements from 3: the slash/bust distinction; the control scheme; some other bits of gameplay.

And there are a lot of gimmicks — even more than in 3. Like a time limit; you have to beat the game within a certain timeframe — or else? I assume the worst.

That’s… interesting. Perhaps it’s too clever. I don’t know yet. The same goes for most of the features.

It seems — on the surface, again — to have a bit of an identity crisis. It wants to do everything in the previous two games. And to be taken as seriously as 2. It’s not 2, though. It can’t go back.

Further: the backgrounds also aren’t nearly as pretty as those in 3. They’re all right, so far. But the ones in 3 — as with the whole interface — were just gorgeous. With 4, I get the sensation that the stages are unfinished. This might not be right. Perhaps there’s something I’m not yet prepared to appreciate. Again, more time needed.

I just have trouble figuring out where the game’s mind is. I’m reserving the possibility that it could be ingenious underneath the apparent mess.

The thing is — immediately, it seems to me that both the lovers and the haters are loving and hating for rather shallow reasons. There’s something else going on, I think. I don’t know what.

This will take some effort.

SNK through the years

  • Reading time:1 mins read
Break it Down!

1978-1984 = early years
1985-1989 = Famicom era
1989-1990 = breaking in the NeoGeo
1991-1993 = breaking in the versus fighting genre; experimenting with form and style
1994-1995 = start of the SNK style; refinement of gameplay and presentation
1996-1998 = classic era; perfected SNK aesthetic and gameplay
1999-2000 = new experimental era; generational turnover with most major series and hardware
2000-2001 = Aruze takeover and dismemberment; bankruptcy; scattering
2001-2002 = confusion; reformation
2002-20?? = SNK Playmore era

News bulletin: Samurai Shodown 2 is not a bad game.

That is all.

Call me Criswell.

  • Reading time:1 mins read
Ha-HAH!

Playmore has now changed its name to SNK Playmore.

Can I call ’em or what?

Whee…

Metal Slug Advance (GBA/Playmore)

  • Reading time:3 mins read
by [name redacted] and tim rogers

I don’t know if this report even went live on the site. If so, it’s buried in the infrastructure. If not, well, that sort of thing happens at Insert Credit HQ. Either way, it’s here now.

Good gracious! How did this slip through the cracks?

At E3, SNK had a nonplayable demo up of their upcoming Metal Slug game for the GBA. For whatever reason, it seems I’m one of the few people to actually get a solid look at it. (Brandon didn’t even know what I was talking about.)

Bigger, Badder, Back!

  • Reading time:2 mins read
Yes, that’s Vince’s aborted title. I needed to use it somewhere.

So. I’ve not yet finished transcribing the interview, but for those of you who downloaded the .mp3 — recall that question that Brandon asked Ben Herman & Co., regarding Playmore‘s future now that they’ve got back the rights to the SNK name?

I wondered, based on what Mr. Herman told me earlier, whether Playmore intended to revert their name to SNK since they’ve now got the opportunity. When Brandon asked (in my absence), they were… immediately and suspiciously quiet. They weren’t allowed to comment.

As it turns out, Playmore remains Playmore. It’s Sun who’s now become SNK NeoGeo (to match the US, Korea, and Hong Kong branches) — the Sun who publishes all of Playmore’s games; the Sun who manages all of the NeoGeo Land arcade centers; the Sun who recently absorbed Brezza (as I had guessed), making them an in-house team; the Sun who, as a result, was now responsible for developing most of the material that they were publishing.

Sun is Playmore’s main practical division. They handle pretty much everything. And now they’re SNK again. Take a look. If you recall, a year ago the Playmore group was a perplexing web of names. I devoted several entries, just trying to work out what was where. You had Playmore at the top, and then Sun, Brezza, and Noise Factory jointed off of them on the one end. SNK NeoGeo Korea, USA, and Hong Kong stretched out in the other direction. Megaking was more closely involved; the Korean branch of the company was a joint venture between them and Playmore. Evoga and Uno Technology also seemed pretty closely tied into things; it was hard to sort out who had a share in what.

Now, Brezza and Sun are one unit; Sun is now SNK. We’ve got two US branches (arcade and consumer). Aside from Noise Factory and Playmore prime (as it were), everything’s SNK again.

So. Yeah. Some more confirmation for my intuition.

I’m going to go finish that transcription, now. Seems about time.

Compile, SNK, and Toaplan? This ain’t your kid brother’s game collection.

  • Reading time:1 mins read
Acqusitions for the day:

NES
Tengen Namco Rolling Thunder
Broderbund Compile The Guardian Legend
Capcom Capcom Section-Z
SNK SNK Athena
Genesis
Sega Toaplan Truxton

Yes. All I’m missing is Technos. If you throw in my copies of Kabuki Quantum Fighter, NES Fantasy Zone, and Solar Jetman from the LA trip, I’m becoming extra-specially equipped!

HuzYAH, I say.

And I do, too. Wait for it. There. Did you hear?

Okay. I lied. I wouldn’t say such a thing.

Or would I?

I’m just so mysterious.