SNK

The King of Politics

  • Reading time:4 mins read

Okay, so the story with Eolith is that at the time they initially signed their contract with SNK, Eolith was the number one game company in Korea. Of course, they’d only made a couple of really dinky-looking arcade games, so I guess an earlier rumour (that I’d forgotten) about them being the first game company in Korea doesn’t seem all that unfounded. (There have been several to follow in the last couple of years, but this is generally all very new to Korea.)

SNK’s games have always, always been popular in Asia and South America. Those have traditionally been their biggest markets. This is why it was such a big deal for Megaking to get that distribution deal with SNK somewhere near the end. Megaking was another aspiring Korean game company, and being associated with SNK did them wonders.

The same goes with Eolith. Since SNK’s R&D staff was all gone, and the King of Fighters series was “ended”, so to speak, it was left for someone to pick up. Aruze were cleaning house at the time, raping SNK of everything which might have made them a passing profit. So there would never be a better opportunity.

And so Eolith jumped the gun and picked up the license. And that’s what it is — a license. In other words, Eolith were officially making their own game, based upon SNK’s characters and designs. They just felt it wisest to continue in the tradition and make this game the next chapter in the established series.

Of course, Eolith… are not skilled game designers. Which is why they hired Brezza — SNK’s old R&D staff — to design the game for them. They wanted to make 2001 as close to an official KoF game as possible, only with their name on it.

And then Sun popped up and offered to publish the game. They were also made of ex-SNK staff. So the game would be developed by ex-SNK staff and distributed by ex-SNK staff. And Eolith would get the credit (especially since no one knew who Brezza or Sun were at the time). Everyone seemed okay with that.

But then what happened, of course, is Playmore grabbed up all of SNK’s properties and started organizing things. There was a period toward the end when Aruze just sold or licensed out SNK’s properties to whomsoever offered. Playmore put an end to this, and made sure it was well-known that they owned all of SNK’s material and effectively now were the new SNK. They were in charge, and would appreciate all of their property back now.

So the nature of their relationship with Eolith became a little strange. Because Brezza and Sun (along with Noise Factory) became part of the Playmore group, the game essentially is being designed by Playmore now. Eolith are contractually involved, and theoretically are in control of the project — this is their game, not SNK/Playmore’s. But for the most part it’s just a show. Eolith get the right to be a figurehead, and the less they do to muck things up the better. Luckily, they know enough to keep their mouths shut.

Megaking’s involvement with Metal Slug seems similar, except for a couple of factors. One, they actually seem to be doing some of the work along with Noise Factory. Two, they’re a lot more important to Playmore than Eolith ever could be. Megaking and Playmore together are who formed the various SNK NEOGEO branches, with the idea that Megaking would be intrinsically involved with the main Korean branch. So they’re not just cashing-in, as Eolith are. They want to be a part of things.

I’ve a feeling these kinds of deals are going to be very limited in the future, what with Playmore in the picture. After 2002, I don’t see why they have any need to renew their contract with Eolith unless Eolith agree to some sort of funding scheme. Otherwise they’re not really adding anything. I can see how Playmore might throw Megaking a few bones, but the thing is, Megaking are already involved in SNK NEOGEO Korea. So they’re in the picture anyway. And yet on the third hand, they actually helped in development. So if they were to continue developing for Playmore, that would save on some Brezza and Noise staff and resources.

It’s just lucky that Eolith were intelligent in how they chose to exploit their license. Actually, it’s astounding that things turned out as well as they seem to have done, all around. Playmore jumped in quickly enough to keep the wolves at bay and to make sure everyone who already had claims to some of SNK’s properties, was behaving.

I’ve not yet eaten today. This situation will now be remedied.

This is how I spend my days. No matter whether I plan to or not.

  • Reading time:4 mins read

Galloping deities. I just realized that I’ve spent seven and a half hours doing nothing but staring at the screen, researching one random bit of stuff after another. The only constant strain was that it all tended to be centered around SNK in whatever manner — filtering out precisely what the intricacies of Eolith’s contract was with SNK when it was originally signed, what the Crystal System really was and why it’s never been used aside from that one soccer game out of Evoga (too complex to get into here, but I think I understand now). Rediscovering the names (which were mentioned to me dozens of times in the past, but my mind is a sieve for details like this) of all of SNK’s primary artists aside from Shinkirou (Tonko, I remembered at least). Sifting through the details of SNK’s bankruptsy and how it happened as it did. (Aruze is the scum of the earth, that’s how.)

And I am exhausted. If only I could put this kind of focus to work for the forces of good.

One slightly more entertaining-to-someone-other-than-me item, though, than other things I’ve learned today; the art to KoF2002 is apparently being done by the team of Hiroaki and Nona.

Okay, so that means nothing to you? It didn’t do a lot for me at first, either. I knew that Nona was the artist from KoF2001, and I mostly dug what he did for that game even if it rubbed a lot of other people the wrong way. So, fine. But who’s this Hiroaki? I learned he did the art for Bukiri One. That also didn’t mean much to me, although I knew one of the Another Strikers from KoF2000 had his origin there.

Finally I remembered the SNK art book that smiley13Shepard sent along with his other game stuff. I flipped to the end, and looked through the Buriri-One illustrations. It’s then that an earlier comment hit me. It hadn’t entirely registered, or maybe I wasn’t yet entirely sure whether to believe it.

This is the guy who did the art for KoF2000. And he’s fantastic. I mean, I thought that Tonko’s art for Last Blade and Mark of the Wolves was great. Heck, Tonko’s art was some of the first SNK artwork that really appealed to me. But Hiroaki is… I mean, jeez! (If my head weren’t throbbing right now, I’d look up a few examples again — but all of those windows are now closed. I might do so later, if I remember.) If you’ve seen KoF2000 (particularly some of the pictures in the art gallery), you’ll know what I mean.

So. Nona is still doing the character art, although he’s evidentially been instructed to tone down the weirdness quotient a bit. This is all fine by me, as his art has a certain grittiness and malease which I feel suits KoF perfectly and which the series has been lacking for a long while. His art is frankly just a little disturbing at times. I don’t think I want to know what else he draws in his free time. But aside from his style, he seems to understand, and do a great job at capturing, the personalities of the characters. His freehand art is kind of hit-and-miss, but at least it has personality and life to it. And again it’s certainly distinctive.

Meanwhile, everything else is apparently being handled by Hiroaki. Keep in mind the intro and ending sequences to KoF2000 when I say this. Yes? Yes.

This is the perfect team. I’m eternally grateful that Shinkirou decided to jump ship and move over to Capcom. We’ll never have to deal with his dated, grotesque mannequins again. And yet neither do we have the sharp anime look of ’99 and 2000 — which was nice, but perhaps not entirely appropriate for the intended tone of the series. I’m now really looking forward to seeing how the game turns out from a visual standpoint, as I don’t think there’s ever before been this much potential for the series.

I guess I can live without King. Gripe time is over; now let’s just see what the game does has to offer.

The King of Fighters 2000 – Review

  • Reading time:20 mins read

A very good port of a pretty good chapter of an excellent series

These are my extensive impressions after having spent a day with the game.

I never expected this game to be announced, and up until the time I held it in my hands I had trouble entirely believing the story. The whole Playmore thing from the outset is more like some kind of a fairy tale than anything I expect to be able to touch. But no, Playmore does apparently exist. SNK is alive again, sort of. And for some reason they’re still supporting Sega’s hardware. And the packaging is neat-o.

Really, this is just like all of SNK’s packaging in the past — well, their Japanese stuff, anyway. Actually even in the US, SNK were one of the few publishers to print full-colour manuals for their Dreamcast games. It’s just that their packaging and advertising was incredibly tacky — and Agetec picked up on that, destroying the beautiful Mark of the Wolves cover art in the region 1 release.

My point is, it’s really well-done. It’s along the lines of what SNK were doing toward the end of their life; KoF’99, Mark of the Wolves, Last Blade 2, etcetera. Nice cover art; nice disc art; nice tray art (both sides), well-made manual. Very clean, classy, and elegant.

That evaluation, I could pretty much extend to the entire production. The DC port of 2000 is essentially what you’d expect it to be, only a little bit better in most places. It’s not anywhere as good as the ports of KoF’98 and ’99 (Dream Match 1999 and Evolution, respectively), as a lot of work went into each of those to make them native Dreamcast games and more than just a couple of ports. But I think it’s safe to say that there’s more here than in any of SNK’s other Dreamcast efforts (Cool Cool Toon aside).

In both earlier KoF games, SNK added 3D backgrounds. ’98 had a new — and long — animated introduction added, drawn, apparently, by the person who did the character art in ’99. While ’99 lacked this extra touch, it was generally a much more, well, evolved package. The concept of ”Another Strikers” was pioneered here, and a store system was set up where one could purchase a large handful of additional striker-only characters, from most of the remaining cast of ’98 who got left out in this chapter to Fio, from Metal Slug. ’99 also got a snazzy new interface and an incomplete-but-still-useful inline move list which could be brought up at any time (as in Capcom’s recent efforts).

This port of 2000, meanwhile, hovers a little closer to MotW and Last Blade 2 in terms of overall effect and apparent effort. As with every other Neo-Geo game ported to the DC (aside from KoF’98), there’s a long pause at the outset while what must be a large part of the original Neo-Geo ROM set is dumped into memory. After that, unless one exits Neo-Geo territory (such as to the art gallery and puzzle mode), there are virtually no load times at all after startup. And as usual, Playmore have removed the typical Neo-Geo ”How To Play” introductions to every play mode in the game. Why this is seen as a necessity for every Neo-Geo port, I don’t know. I find that they add a lot of personality to the game; just watch Kyo’s and Shingo’s demonstration in ’98 to see what I mean.

Also as with every other Neo-Geo port (and this was a bit of a surprise to me), Playmore were kind enough to lace an arranged soundtrack into this new port. One has the option to switch back to ”original sound” — as with Mark of the Wolves — but I wouldn’t advise it in this case. Somehow in the transition, the excellent Neo-Geo music has become muffled and tinny, and has aquired a slight, yet (to-me) disconcerting reverberation. The sound level is also below all of of the sound effects and voices, somewhat killing the drama in Kyo’s theme, for instance.

I’m a little annoyed with these developments, as the original Neo-Geo music has a certain coarse, gritty edge to it which is almost entirely absent in the arranged score — and I think in some ways it fits the game’s visuals somewhat better. Nevertheless, the arranged soundtrack is fantastic on its own merits. There are details to the music which I never picked up from the original soundtrack, and it’s a lot more obvious what the music ties are to the score from ’99.

While I think overall ’99 has the more interesting score, 2000 certainly has one of the three best soundtracks of any King of Fighters game. It’s similar in style to ’99, and is in many ways more polished — think of the music in Sonic the Hedgehog 2, in comparison to the first game. Some people might disagree with me on both counts, and figure that the more polished music in the second game is superior. I’d be in no place to make claims against them, as the music is still terrific all around.

(One thing over which I think there will be zero debate is the new Garou theme. This marks the first instance where the Fatal Fury team’s music actually blends into the rest of the score — and it’s just fantastic. It is, by freakin’ Flea Man leaps and bounds, the best theme this team has ever had in a KoF game.)

And in this case, the mix is very crisp and clear — and each theme goes on for far longer than I’d expect. I think most major tracks must be at least three or four minutes in length before the loop. This is especially impressive when one looks at the travesty which is KoF2001’s soundtrack. But we’ll face that monster when we get to it.

I don’t think the voices and sound effects were resampled for the Dreamcast version, as they obviously were in ’99. It’s not that they’re of a poor quality, but I think they must have been directly lifted off of the Neo-Geo cartridge rather than from the original recordings. They sound fine; the acting quality is of typical SNK standards, and the effects are varied. I’m just saying.

In terms of what’s unique to this port, the most ballyhooed new addition takes the form of a whole bucketload of new stages which have been added to the game. One of the largest complaints I keep seeing about the original version of KoF2000 has to do with its backgrounds. For one, people seem to feel that there aren’t enough of them. People also seem to generally agree that the stages in 2000 are a huge step down from what we saw in the previous game — washed-out in terms of palette, and generally uninspired.

I’m not sure I agree with this evaluation; although ’99 certainly had some of the most stunning backdrops in the series, I’m not sure what that has to do with 2000. As it is, there are several native stages in this game which I find entirely impressive. The thing is, the ones which strike my fancy are the ones others tend to point out as lame while the ones which bore me are the ones which seem to amaze everyone else. I guess that’s pretty typical.

Nevertheless, it is true that some more variety is needed — and if nothing else, variety is what we now have. The new stages are all in fact old ones, rehashed from everything from Fatal Fury (all three subseries) to every previous edition of King of Fighters even to Samurai Spirits/Shodown in one instance. (Beyond this, for some reason the VMU save/load screen is taken (I believe) almost directly from Mark of the Wolves. If you didn’t know, you wouldn’t know. But I knew. So I did.)

The rationale for these stages is that they’re all tied to various ”Another Striker” characters present in the game. For those not familiar with the more recent KoF mechanisms, a ”Striker” is an extra team member who can be called in at any point to contribute a single attack of some sort during a battle — very much like what one sees in the Marvel vs. Capcom games. Usually this striker will consist of one of your standard team’s members. For instance, if one were to choose the Hero team (K’, Maxima, Ramon, Vanessa), one could choose the first three characters as fighters and Vanessa as the Striker. Or, since she’s neat and Ramon is annoying, thrust him into the Striker role instead.

In the DC port of KoF’99 and in any version of 2000, there are also what are known as ”Another Striker” characters; they serve no purpose but to be strikers, and aren’t actually playable within the game. They’re more of a fun addition than anything really useful, as they allow cameos of all sorts of odd characters from SNK’s arsenal who don’t otherwise get a chance to show up in the game proper.

In the DC version of 2000, whenever one is fighting against an opponent who has an ”Another Striker”, a particular background stage will generally be tied to that striker. For instance, I mentioned Samurai Spirits a couple of paragraphs ago. The reason that there’s (apparently; I’ve not yet seen it — perhaps it needs to be unlocked?) a stage representing that game is that Nakoruru is one of the extra Strikers present in the game.

I’m not sure if this means that when Awakened Kaede is chosen as a Striker, the background will switch to a stage from Last Blade, but it seems likely. The thing I’ve noticed is that none of the ”odd” characters — the ones from other series not immediately related to King of Fighters — have any of their stages available from the outset; when they’re chosen, the round defaults to a random native level from 2000. I’ve read, however, that there are more stages to unlock later in the game — so we’ll see, I guess.

Anyway, the new backgrounds do help a lot in terms of spicing things up. The only problem is — well, problems are, I should say — the varying sources of the original rounds. You see, some of the backgrounds are really dated. I mean, really dated. Fatal Fury 1 dated. It’s not uncommon to see highly-shaded, bloated, brightly-hued cartoon characters cheering the fighters on. Often the scales are all messed-up (consider how large the character sprites are in the Real Bout games, in comparison to KoF), and invariably all of the neat line-scrolling and interactive background elements (including round intros) have been removed entirely. This leaves a lot of the early KoF and most of the FF levels looking a little flatter than I remember them. Beyond this, the earlier KoF backdrops were often framed to take into account the ”benched” team members on each side, standing off to the side, cheering and jeering at the ongoing battle. Since this detail has been oddly removed from the series ever since ’99, the backgrounds again are left looking a little more bare than they were probably intended.

Still, it’s kind of neat to have the stages around. I just wish SNK had at least kept the silly line scrolling. Would it really have taken up that much more space?

There’s one other addition to the game, which hasn’t received a lot of attention; a new puzzle mode has been added, in the gallery submenu. There are three separate galleries for the game, containing Shinkirou’s annoying character drawings, promotional art and posters, various sketches, and so on. More art (and perhaps other secrets) are unlocked by completing a series of sliding-panel puzzles. I realize how lame this instinctively might sound, but I actually find the puzzles to be kind of entertaining, in a Minesweeper-ish way.

It’s a neat escape from the redundant nature of the various fighting modes, and it’s actually executed a little better than I thought it would be. There are satisfying sound effects accompanying every action, and tiles can be rotated to the left and right as well as shifted in any direction. When the final tile is slid or rotated to its right position, there’s again an entirely satisfying flash and fanfare — and from then on, that piece of art will be viewable in the gallery. I’ve only completed about a dozen puzzles so far, so I really don’t know what else (if anything) is hidden in there. But I’m glad Playmore decided to add it, even if I can’t figure out why they would have.

Something else I could have mentioned earlier is that the game seems to be entirely in English now, save the plot and ending quotes. The menus and striker names and everything. I guess I can just turn to a FAQ if I want to know what’s going on in each of the teams’ endings, but I’m glad to see how navigable everything else remains. The only bit of Japanese I’ve even seen in the game, aside from the above, is in the aforementioned VMU management screen. At first it’s a little confusing whether one has saved the game correctly, as there isn’t even a VMU chirp as a signal — but that only takes a few moments to figure out.

One annoying omission, coming off of ’99, is the lack of any sort of a movelist within the game itself. The manual, again, is great — but even as incomplete as the lists were in the previous game, the fact that they were there was incredibly helpful. I have no idea how to play Ramon, for instance. I could look up a FAQ, or try to decipher the kanji in the manual, but it would just be nice to be able to press two buttons and pull up some help, y’know? I suppose the original Neo-Geo game didn’t have one, and it was more of a bonus that one was ever included in Evolution — but darn it all.

Beyond an analysis of the game itself, there are only a few more random details to mention. First off, I’ve played King of Fighters 2000 pretty extensively in NeoRageX. The romset is a little corrupted, so none of the menus or ending quotes are legible — but that just makes it all the more compelling to pick up the Dreamcast version, as if I wouldn’t have jumped at it anyway.

The thing is, for some reason Mai’s chest received a makeover from ’99 to this game. In ’99, she was still as boingy as ever — perhaps even more than before. In 2000, however, something was wrong. It took me a while to figure out what, aside from that she seemed stiffer than I remembered. But then it dawned on me — her body might as well have been made out of wood during its idle animation. Her bounce was kept in all of her other movemets, but when she stands still in the US Neo-Geo version, her boobs might as well be painted on. Her entire body is stiff. I just assumed that the designers intended to change her animation a bit, but due to a rushed schedule forgot to add the frames back in before the game was yanked from their hands and they were disbanded.

This tiny detail left the game feeling incomplete to me. It could have been any character’s animation sequence, but how could they forget Mai’s bounce? And what’s more, why did Eolith forget to put it back in in KoF2001?

Well, see what I really know. After playing this version of 2000 for an hour or two, I realized that Mai was boingy once more — and how. I think she’s trying to compete with the Dead or Alive girls now (I’m speaking of the original game here). At first I was even more impressed with Playmore’s attention to detail than I already had been — but then I had a thought. I went back into my emulator and I switched it to emulate Japanese regional coding. I booted up KoF2000, and lo and behold — all the boing one could ever need.

All I have to say now is that this is perhaps the most retarded bit of censoring I’ve seen yet in an SNK game. The white blood I can understand, though it seems needless to me considering how cartoony everything is anyway and what the nature of the game is. The removal of all of King’s references to alcohol has seemed a weird to me, considering the fact that Chin exists — but again I’ve more or less understood why the changes were made, as little as I agreed with them either aesthetically or in spirit. But — just, why?!

A disconcerting change, in its small and harmless way, is the removal of all previous instances of SNK’s logo in the introduction and menu system, and its replacement with that of Playmore. Now, I’m not sure what to think of this — as KoF2000 is not a Playmore game. They might own the rights to it now, but it was developed by SNK. They deserve the credit, I think. And what’s more, Playmore’s logo is strangely-shaped, and it’s mostly green and yellow. SNK’s logo is simple, sleek, and blue. It’s icy. It’s stylish. It blends into almost anything. Playmore’s logo pops out like the packaging to a Fisher-Price toy.

KoF2000 has perhaps the keenest intro sequence in the series, and there’s one key moment (in an intricately-timed orchestration of images) where the screen fades to black, save a small, quiet, subtle ”SNK” logo — which then quickly vanishes. This has now been replaced with ”Playmore Presents”… and, well, it’s jarring. I almost laughed the first time I saw it, as it was so unexpected. I guess it’s not a big deal, but it seems little strange to me.

Lastly, I never actually made it through the game on my emulator — so I’d never seen the credit sequence before. Just to mention, KoF2000 has a really neat set of credits. Perhaps I’d best not get expectations up too much, but they mirror the opening sequence pretty well in how they’re arranged. And then…

Hmm.

Remember how at the end of Sonic Adventure 2, there’s that quote? How does it go… something like ”Another day brings a new dream… But for now… Rest easy, heroes”. Seeing everything that was going on with both the series and Sonicteam and Sega at the time — this is a kind of a poignant way to end things.

Well, after the obligatory ”CONGRATURATION!” (Really, I think they must do this on purpose) — most SNK games end with the same message: ”THANKS TO: ALL SNK STAFF”. And then, sometimes, there’s another bit tacked on — ”AND YOU!”

This time, there’s just a pause and a black screen — and then the game prints out ”Thank you all with love.”

…

Now, consider this. This is the final game by the original KoF team. They were disbanded immediately afterward. I don’t know if SNK made another game in-house after this. And it was released in late 2000, after the US, European, and Asian branches of SNK shut down. After the NGPC was pulled from the market. After they’d filed for bankruptcy. They continued to taper off for a little under another year before closing last fall. But this was really the end.

It might sound a little silly, but this final message kind of touches me, in a way. I’m not really going to say any more about it, but I thought it worth throwing out there.

Now for the game: It’s NESTS-era King of Fighters. It doesn’t play as well as either ’99 or 2001, in my opinion. It’s a little unbalanced, and the teams are set up kind of strangely. It’s an in-between game, in the series. But it’s still King of Fighters, so it’s still better than most stuff you’re going to find in the genre.

It’s probably the pinnacle of the series in terms of presentation. It just doesn’t get any better than this; 1999 was a step in this direction, and 2001 was several steps down. The art style is great, the interfaces and atmosphere are highly polished; the music is (as mentioned) terrific, and smooth.

A few new characters are introduced; some of them neat (Vanessa!), some of them useless (Hinako) or annoying (Ramon). Many characters have received some large alterations to their movelists, for better or worse (Kyo, Iori). And the last boss, Zero, is typically cheap although — notably — perhaps the least appealing KoF villain I’ve yet (at least, as far as I’m concerned).

The Armor and Counter modes, I find even more annoying and useless than in ’99. I far prefer the old styles of power meters from ’98 and before, and I’m glad Eolith chose to ditch these modes in 2001. They’re just not needed so far as I can see, and yet I keep feeling guilty for not taking more advantage of them. The striker system is a bit more useful than before, though not nearly as refined as it will be in the next game. Everything else feels as it should, to the best I can tell.

Although, unless one has a large and quickly-accessed mental resevoir of kanji, there’s a lot to be missed a lot in this edition, there are a lot of interesting plot developments in 2000. Again, it’s a middle chapter — so nothing really important happens. But we see the introduction of Kula, some important developments with the Psychic Soldiers team, and one of the most shocking turns of events in the series (even if it lacks the drama that perhaps it deserves, in the short time it’s given).

For a rundown, the game has the best SNK presentation you’ll get short of Mark of the Wolves; it’s pretty, it sounds good, it’s got good variety. It’s a little unbalanced, and the teams are set up strangely. The gameplay is as solid as ever, though the mechanics aren’t as evolved (for my brain) as in either ’99 or 2001. The port is perfect in nearly every way, and has several nifty additions. Playmore didn’t put as much work into it as SNK did with the other Dreamcast editions of KoF, but they did a much better job than I expected and better than SNK themselves did with their other Neo-Geo ports.

Playmore are real, and they seem to at least be competent. Now that I have this game in my hands, my respect for them, and what they’re doing, has been solidified. And now I’m really looking forward to what they can do with 2001. Heck, maybe they’ll even be able to fix the soundtrack. I can’t imagine it getting a lot worse…

Rating: 8/10

More SNK sorting

  • Reading time:4 mins read
Okay.

Developers:

Who Megaking is to SNK:

    They’ve only been around for a few years. They made a name for themselves by being the sole distributor for SNK’s games in Korea for a while. They converted many of SNK’s MVS games to the PC in 2000. Now they’re designing Metal Slug 4.

    They also have had partnerships with Tecmo and CSK (the parent company of SEGA and ASCII and ISAO) in the past, just to mention.

Who Eolith is:

    One of the “bright rising stars” of Korean game development. They’ve also only been around for a few years. What they have to do with SNK besides development of KoF 2001 and 2002, I’m not sure.

Who UNOTac is:

    I have no idea. King of Fighters Online seems to be their first and only project, so far.

    This is an interesting quote, however, from Madman’s Cafe:

      The company’s human resources have a long-term relationship with SNK: Fatal Fury’s “Kim Kap-Hwan” was originally named after the father of UnoTac’s current president from his contribution to the growth of NeoGeo in Asia. Unotac’s current president- the son of Kim Kap-Hwan, is named Kim Jae-Hoon.

    Perhaps that explains why an adult Jae Hoon Kim is one of the main characters of KoF Online. Hrm.

Who Brezzasoft is:

    … I think this is the company formed by much of SNK’s staff once they left or were eventually fired. I’m not certain, though.

    Anyway, they’re now the main SNK developer. Eolith and Megaking seem to be perhaps designing their respective games, and pulling together and managing the appropriate resources, while Brezzasoft appear to be doing the bulk of the actual development. This might not be completely accurate, but that’s how it seems right now.

Management:

Who Playmore is:

    Um… I really don’t know. I can’t find much information about them, aside from the fact that they’re now the owners of all of SNK’s properties and that they ultimately are in charge of the whole new operation. The company might be one formed from ex-SNK staff members, but this is just speculation. They’re a mystery entity, at present.

    They have a logo, though!

    UPDATE: Oh, duh. They’re another pachinko company. I knew this; I just forgot it entirely. I’m not sure why SNK holds such interest for pachinko corporations…

Who Sun Amusement is:

    Oddly, once again I can’t seem to dig up much of any data on these guys. Toward the end of SNK’s life, Sun took up the job of distributing their final few games. Now they seem to be continuing that deal as SNK’s official distributor. They also manage SNK’s Neo-Geo Land arcade chain and help with testing.

    But as for who they really are, beyond this, I have no leads.

Who SNK NeoGeo (Korea/HongKong) are (and aren’t):

    These companies appear to have been jointly created by Playmore and MegaKing, in order to manage this mess. I’m not too sure about the HK branch, but it makes sense that the main branch is in Korea given that this is where most of the development teams (UNOTac, MegaKing, Eolith) are.

    SNK NeoGeo isn’t a developer, and I’m not sure how much power they have. It seems like they were created mostly to act as a hub for everyone else, and to keep SNK alive as an overall name for this business.

My question, now: Does all of this add up to one entity? Are MegaKing, Eolith, Sun Amusement, Playmore, Brezzasoft, and UNOTac now all committed to being limbs of SNK, or do any of them have other agendas? How is all of this organized? The fact that two branches of SNK NeoGeo were formed to manage this mess, is a positive sign. Sun does at least seem pretty deeply involved with SNK affairs for now. Both Eolith and MegaKing seem to be very enthusiastic about their new games — but are they now SNK subsidiaries, or are they just using the licenses for the moment?

I’m not too sure what to make about UNOTac. The whole concept of KoF Online is dodgy to begin with, and its execution looks… strange. I hope some tight reigns are kept on them, and Playmore didn’t just fling out the rights because they were offered enough money for licensing.

I guess that’s my biggest concern. Does all of this add up to something bigger? If so, it could be very promising. Or is this all just a fragile web of contracts and licensing? If so, I’m a little nervous.

I hope everyone is committed to actually making games rather than milking the properties. And I hope everyone is intending to cooperate.

We’ll see what happens, though.

Madman’s Cafe is back!

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And here they finally outline exactly what the heck is the current status of SNK.

I’m… not completely sure of how things might go, but I’m actually a little bit encouraged by all of this. Beyond SNK still living on in one form or another, it seems they’re actually larger than ever before, with several development teams. If they could only sort things out in a more permanent manner… It looks like there’s at least the potential for SNK to be healthier than ever before.

Never doubt the power of the undead, I say.

Deep Bang Blade

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I finally got a chance to play Bangai-O and Last Blade 2. Both were quite worth grabbing hold of, in their own particular ways.

Bangai-O is essentially everything I thought it would be, only more addictive and weird.

Last Blade 2… I really wasn’t sure what to expect here, but I got more than I was looking for. The animation is very nice, and the voices are some of the best I’ve heard in a fighting game. I’m actually liking some of the characters who I hadn’t noticed before (though the names aren’t sticking just yet), and I think I am going to like the fighting system. It’s quite complex in theory, but somewhat simple in execution. The characters also have a nice sort of a feel to them — more limber and mobile than the SF/KoF style and somewhat tighter and easier to deal with than the likes of Darkstalkers. The game’s minimalistic use of music in favour of background noises is quite interesting as well. I think I’m actually going to spend some time learning how to play this properly. It’s not often I think this about a fighting game.

On the way home I saw The Deep End, a smallish film I’d been wanting to see for a while. If I can do the research to refresh my brain on peoples’ names, I’ll talk about it some more. As it is, I’m feeling a bit dumb saying much. It was, however, something to see.

As for the whole Sega situation…

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Hum. I’m really not sure what to think. Perhaps I’ve just been numbed by all of these neverending rumors, but up to a point this does seem like the best way to go. As long as the DC stays, that is. As long as it gets games first, and as long as it gets games that no one else gets.

Space Channel 5, though? The only reason I can see that Sega would choose this as its first title as a third-party publisher would be to attempt to get it the attention that it so deserves. If they can push Ulala to a wider audience, I know she’d catch on — and so perhaps this is what they’re doing. It’d be great advertising for New Space Channel 5, certainly.

What I anticipated was arcade ports, rather than ports of home games. As long as Sega keeps Shenmue and Phantasy Star and Arcadia and Sonic (the GBA doesn’t figure here), the less-iconic fare can go where it needs to fund what really matters.

Hum. It’s better that Sega do this, and do it strongly, than to go bankrupt and fade away quietly. This doesn’t necessarily have to be defeat, as long as it’s done with pride. I shudder to think of Sega’s market dominance if they do this well…

But why do I keep having disturbingly analogic thoughts of SNK?