the king of fighters

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:

Corrosion and Sparks

  • Reading time:5 mins read
(The following is based on my portion of a Twitter conversation with John Thyer, Amandeep Jutla, and Thom Moyles.)

Weirdly, I think The King of Fighters is another half-decent example of this sort of design. There is a huge, multifaceted story underneath each game, going back years; dozens of perspectives. Most of that comes out through the way the characters animate, how they respond to each other, and little bits of action and dialogue scattered through the series, with only scant exposition.

As with Phantasy Star II or Riven, your part is to take what you’re shown and work out all the implications; figure out how we got here from there, and what that may mean for the future. Thinking about the logistics of who is paired with whom; who has stayed out this year, and why… It’s this really complicated, dramatic scenario that actually is in there, yet just barely narrated.

All of it is told by your looking a character in the eyes and saying, “Whoa, what happened to you?” And then you look for the evidence, and you find it. And it’s this whole, intense thing that feeds back into how you read the game, and how you look at the next character, and the next. Which may in part why I find The King of Fighters ’99 — which clears the decks and introduces a new story, new hero, at the expense of the old, now-resolved plotline — so rewarding, and… why it may have irritated others. Because the answer to how we got here is so intense, takes so long to work through successfully.

This may also be part of why a game like its follow-up KoF 2000, though very well-made, fails to satisfy me as much. The answer to how we got here is… well, a few more (very cool) characters have joined, and things are moving along. Its intricate web of endings provides a deep well of speculation for the future. But the past? It’s basically, “Okay, you’ve played ’99? Well, good. You’re up-to-speed. Here’s another game.” Which may in turn partially explain why other people tend to like 2000 so much more than ’99 or 2001. It’s giving them what the average person who plays fighting games, even SNK games, is looking for: stability.

I am a weirdo in this regard, I guess. There are many things that I like about (the third and final game in that arc) KoF 2001 in particular. One of them is where it brings all of this. You read into (the old protagonist) Kyo’s psychological state in that game — what his moves are, how they parallel with (his rival) Iori. Knowing what he’s been put through the last few years, it’s kind of chilling to see. Nothing talks about it overtly, but you see him coming apart, turning into something dangerous. There is a sort of dramatic culmination in so many aspects of the game. It’s chilling in how logical, yet messy, it all is.

I just want to soak in the world of 2001, and what it means. Right off the bat, there’s so much coded meaning. One of the first things you see is (current hero) K’ putting his red glove on. This is really important. Later on, you see (new rival) K9999 coming out of his cloning chamber. His first action? Show us his glove. The game makes an immediate parallel and contrast here, showing their relationship; the glove is his identifier, whereas K’ has to make the conscious decision to put his back on in order to meet this new danger.

In 2000 it was a mark of victory for K’ that he ripped it off, no matter the pain he felt. What he’s faced with now is that important, that he’s choosing to wear it again on his own terms. Whereas before, he decided that he’d prefer to burn uncontrollably than to be defined by the thing and all it represented.

Granted, future games don’t really follow through on the stuff in 2001. But that’s nothing new. Likewise 2001 doesn’t follow up on all of the interesting implications of 2000‘s web of endings. But in it own right, taken as an independent thing, 2001 is just so heavy with significance.

Even the game system in 2001 follows this. It’s a brutal, simple logical conclusion to the disjointed scraps introduced in ’99 and refined without question in 2000. It’s not balanced well, but, what do I care? I’m not playing it competitively. I’m just appreciating it. The systems are violently elegant in their conception, which, considering, every other aspect of 2001, is so appropriate. The way it looks, the way it sounds, the way it plays — it’s all part of the narrative.

The crude, jagged-sounding, obsessively repetitious music — it’s overtly ugly, and that enhances the message. It sounds angry, dangerous, a bit deranged. It makes you uncomfortable to hear. Whereas ’99 is all chrome and gel lighting and blippy electronica, 2001 is corrosion and sparks. It’s like… we’ve come to this, now. Flesh is decaying. Metal is decaying. Minds are decaying.

And look at this; we now have a NESTS team, led by K9999. And Kyo and Iori are back for real now? And can you even tell the difference between them anymore? Everyone is falling. All is going wrong. With all of this happening, of course all of the character portraits are going to be grotesque. How could they not be?

But… I suppose most people don’t approach a versus fighting game the way that I approach Riven. If people who actually like Myst are so upset by Riven, I suppose I can see how SNK fans view 2001.