SNK, a wonderful little company most U.S. and European gamers haven’t even heard of.Those who do know it for King of Fighters or Metal Slug. Even fewer played their excellent games such as Crystalis or the great Last Blade. Their games by and large had wonderful graphics, great gameplay, and a certain charm. Charm like the obscure white.
In SNK games there was the simple charm of the graphics, which even at their ugliest showed that quite a lot of work had been done on them.
Even Fatal Fury 1 looked very good for the time and all the characters had personality. The break dancing Duck King, Billy Kane who would have his weapon broken only to have another one thrown to him from the background. This was a big selling point of SNK games. It was just exciting to go from opponent to opponent because you wanted to see what was next.
Then there was the system of shifting in and out of the background, something very strange and exciting at the time. And SNK took a lot of chances with many of their games, in fact the games where they didn’t were their worst ones.
SNK bosses, regardless of whether they were in a fighter or in a shooter, had tremendous charm that you rarely see today. They had their own music, quotes, personality and most importantly difficulty. Anyone who grew up with bosses like this is bound to get some nostalgia. The thrill of coming to the final boss after playing through a game that actually read your controls as you played.
The excitement that the whole atmosphere of the arena changed. And suddenly there’s this tall but otherwise unimpressive boss, perhaps his name is King Lion or Rugal. You have all these fighters with you and he’s all alone. Something is up and you know it. You go in to attack and he stuffs you, then he beats you mercilessly. He lays you out with specials and supers, before long everyone on your team is down. You’re in awe but you play again and again until you’re out of coins. You can only beat him by finding flaws in his AI script or memorizing all his attacks perfectly.
That’s the SNK charm those games had, something that was incredibly brutal but at the same time completely engrossing. Only a few games have charm like this, Demon’s Souls comes to mind, but even that only has a few charming bosses. Which brings an interesting point. Did any of you enjoy the False King boss fight in Demon’s Souls?
Well, he was basically Rugal from King of Fighters:
Wouldn’t it be a delightful thing if more games were to pick up the same SNK spirit that Demon’s Souls did?
Unfortunately this spirit can’t continue with their company, because the SNK games of old is long gone. While they may have put out some phenomenal games they also made a wide variety of poor choices. From their marked disconnect with American gamers (to this day, some people still hate KoF for no discernible reason) to their complete lack of advertising in some areas. SNK’s business mistakes were massive and wide spread.
Not the least of which being the disastrous Neo Geo Pocket/Color, despite most of their efforts being much better received in Japan. It was bought up by a fellow Kawasaki company, Playmore, in an attempt by the Kawasaki family to save one of their other companies. Unfortunately, Playmore’s offerings have been lackluster. While not terrible, KoF 2003 didn’t have the revolutionary spirit. Worse than that, King of Fighters XII is arguably the worst game they have ever made. It fortunately received the lackluster reception it deserved even among major fans.
And that’s the point, SNK is dead, a shell of their former self. The same spirit needs to be carried on with other companies. Any company can do it if they just think a bit more and try a bit harder. From Software did it with Demon’s Souls, there’s no reason we shouldn’t hold the rest of our companies up to the same standard.
