The King of Fighters 2001

When SNK was purchased by Aruze in late 2000, the continued development and publishing of their intellectual properties were sold to the highest bidder. The King of Fighters series went to BreezaSoft, a small company formed by former SNK staffers. Development duties went to Korean based Eolith as the King of Fighters series was wildly popular in Asian countries at the time (and still today). The arcade and AES distribution of the game was handled by SUN. 

Despite SNK's tumultuous financial situation, King of Fighters 2001 released in November of 2001 as the second highest grossing arcade game in Japan during the final months of the year and sold over 6000 copies in its first week on sale on the AES console a few months later - which is a very respectable number for this period in the hardware's life. Fans were split on this release due to its somewhat off-putting character art, middling presentation, and abysmal soundtrack. Still, the game plays very well and even changed the Striker format from the prior two games to what I consider its ultimate form. Let's dig in. 

King of Fighters 2001 picks up where the prior game left off in the NESTS saga by revealing that the prior year's tournament sponsor, Zero, was a clone. NESTS officially sponsors the tournament and all hell breaks loose (surprise!). K', Whip, Kula, and K9999 (pronounced K-4-9) discover they were all artificially created by Igniz (this year's boss) as his guineapigs for experiments and testing left over from the Kyo cloning project first hinted at in King of Fighters 99. K' and the other team leaders, including Kyo and Iori, defeat Igniz which both puts an end to the NESTS story arc and NESTS itself as an organization. 

Due to a smaller development staff and limited time and budget, King of Fighters 2001 doesn't feel too different from the prior game in the series - yet the developers at Eolith crammed in multiple new characters and somewhat simplified the gameplay from the prior year's entry. The Striker system was retained in this release, but it is now a ratio system similar to Capcom's 2000 release Capcom Vs. SNK. Like the prior two years, players choose a four person team but in your team edit you can choose how many characters are playable and which ones are Strikers. The fewer characters that are playable, the more damage and defensive buffs you receive. For example, if you choose to have one "ratio 4" character and three strikers, your lead character will be very, very strong and have high defense while the other three characters can be called in as assists only. 

The Striker system was also integrated with the Max meter. Rather than having separate stocks for Strikers and Desperation (super) moves, these two mechanics use the same meter and you have to strategically choose which is the most appropriate in the situation. Additionally, the fewer characters in your playable line up, the smaller the Max gauge. Again, if you have a "ratio 4 character" (only one playable fighter) your Max meter will be very small leading to more immediate access to your three Strikers and/or your desperation moves. Unfortunately you cannot choose which striker you want to use in the moment. Rather, the strikers come out in rotation each time they are called upon. Super Desperation Moves can also be done using two Max meter stocks and pressing both punch or kick buttons depending on the input of character's normal desperation move.

Also new to the game are the wire attacks. When you land a counter hit, or do a CD counter, this creates a wall-bounce state that can be capitalized on with further juggles and combos. All other mechanics are as they were in prior games with returning characters being rebalanced and some with new or tweaked special moves. 

King of Fighters 2001 has a gargantuan cast of 40 playable fighters and introduced some of the most popular characters in series history. The NESTS team, comprised of Kula and new commers Foxy (Kula's bodyguard), Angel ("Ann-hell" a Mexican secret agent working for NESTS), and K9999 (a failed Kyo clone who's power is unstable). The only other new character is Mae Lee, a taekwondo apprentice of Kim Kapwhan who replaced Juhn Hoon on Kim's team. When the first screenshots of K9999 appeared online and in gaming publications, fans immediately called out his uncanny resemblance to Tetsuo, the antagonist of Katsuhiro Otomo's classic anime/manga Akira. This is not incorrect as he was directly inspired by (read: copied) from this template and includes many of Tetsuo's signature moves like his mutated arm and force-field like desperation move. K9999 appeared in King of Fighters 2002 the following year but was missing from all subsequent KOF games until the most recent entry in 2022 where his design was changed to be less like Tetsuo and name changed to Krohnen to signify his individuality after the fall of NESTS in this game. 

Despite playing very well, and having a decently balanced roster, King of Fighters 2001 is not a pretty game. The character portraits in the select screen have very odd proportions, the backgrounds are pretty bland (save the Italian bridge scene which is quite lovely), and the overall presentation uses large, flat colors that give a darker vibe to the game than what came out of Classic SNK. Still, it's serviceable just not exactly the caliber of pixel art we were used to seeing in this franchise which immediately turned off many players. The music isn't much better here, with weird samples and small melodies on loop every 30 seconds or so rather than the outrageous rock and jazz ballads that had become series staples up to this point. I mean, it's serviceable video game music, but it won't be anything you listen to outside of the game. 

As one of the more divisive games in the series, King of Fighters 2001 plays well, looks awful, and sounds worse. Still, it's somehow my fourth favorite KOF game overall due to the excellent changes to the Striker system and a fun, mostly balanced roster. It's a joy to play - just make sure to mute the music so you can add your own soundtrack. 

So, how should you play it? The AES release has never really dipped much in value over the last 21 years and a decent used Japanese copy can be had for less than $450 in today's retro game market. Paying anything more than that is not recommended. The US AES release is sitting right around $2000 or so. Of course the Neo CD was completely dead by this point, so there is no cheaper version other than the MVS release - which can be had for less than $100. 

The ports of the game are quite solid, with the PS2 port being the most common. It's a mostly faithful port, although SNK Playmore changed the character portraits in the select screen to the versions created for marketing - which is and isn't a good choice. There are no modern ports with online play like some other games in the series, but it can be had on the ACA Arcade Archives series for $8 digitally on all modern platforms. You can also check out the game on Fightcade if you have a PC for spot-on netplay with some of the best players in the world. While it's not a terribly popular game on the Fightcade client compared to other KOF games, it still sees some healthy play. 

Despite it playing very well, your milage will vary. I highly recommend passing this one up in favor of the more popular King of Fighters games and more important releases on AES. If you want a full set, have at it. Still, with so many amazing 2D fighting games on the platform, there are much better games you should get first if you're paying multiple-hundreds of dollars per games.