KOFXIV Announced for 2016

[Micky Kusanagi]

Geese's criminal expertise combined with Oswald's involvement with the Dragon Pills affair would be superb. Oswald isn't included in the leaked roster, but I'd be happy to see him in XIV. He has such a badass fighting style -I think he has sort of a cult following because of this- and he's great story mode material.

[TrueOrochi]

Only sensible South Town Team is


However, Oswald would still be a good character to add in my opinion.

[TrueOrochi]

Love the Fatal Fury 3-like underwater stage!




Ralf is not looking like himself...

[Amedø310]

Ralf is not looking like himself...

Ralf's arms are long, which is frightening and he's super dark.

[desmond_kof]

Ralf is not looking like himself...

Ralf's arms are long, which is frightening and he's super dark.

Uh, whats wrong with him being dark, sir?

[The Good Loser]

i think what he meant is that ralf usually looks less tan but still tan. He was originally thought as a kind of Rambo character IIRC, so maybe they are trying to move away from the trope by giving him more tan.

[Micky Kusanagi]

Uhmmm...I'm a bit worried about Ralf's orange-ish tan as well, but as you can read in the rest of this message, that's the least of my concerns x'D

I wanna make KOFXIV the first KOF I play competitively (some of you may know I got a LONG road ahead of me). I know my question is far fetched, but could you suggest me what KOFs I should train on in preparation, ordered from the one I should play the most to the one I should play the least? I got that, based on the PSE footage, XIV looks like a mixture of 98, 2002 and XIII. Is the order right? As for 98 and 2002, should I focus on the OGs or the UMs?

[The Good Loser]

02UM i think

[Mr Bakaboy]

02UM and Garou (just defend).

[Micky Kusanagi]

Thank you for your suggestion guys :D
Bakaboy that's right, I keep forgetting KOFXIV is gonna include a Just Defend mechanic :P

[Amedø310]

Ralf is not looking like himself...

Ralf's arms are long, which is frightening and he's super dark.

Uh, whats wrong with him being dark, sir?

Lol. Nothing at all. It's just something different from all the other versions of Ralfs. It can be the side effect of him being out in war-like places for so long or SNK can change his ethnicity, which would be huge for me. One of the american KOF characters representing the minority of modern-day USA.

[Dark Chaotix]

Neowave would be a better option in regards to just defend. It plays like 2k2 (a slightly updated version IMO) and its still kof. MOTW would be taking a detour just for a system mechanic.

[Micky Kusanagi]

I'll take your suggestion into consideration, thank you ^^

Here's MMCafe Professor's summary of the interview Yutaka Noguchi -chief of the gaming division at SNKP- had with Famitsu. It's less KOF focused than the ones with Oda, but still useful to understand some details about KOFXIV and the context its being developed in IMO. Also, looks like nostalgia is a theme going on in the road to XIV, given how Noguchi stresses the involvement of staff from the golden age.

Famitsu.com's posted their interview with SNKP Executive and Chief of Gaming division Yutaka Noguchi.

....He looks young because he probably is. Afaik he's about the only Japanese worker at SNKP that's using modern sites like LinkedIn for example (which btw tells us that he became chief pretty recently in 2013).

http://www.famitsu.com/news/201512/28096392.html

- New Pachislot regulations are one of the main reasons why SNKP decided to switch back to gaming. New releases of Pachislot machines were going to need huge changes, and when they laid down their business plans they decided it may be better to focus their resources back to gaming
- Noguchi: "Even as of now, we're better known as a game company than a pachislot company. People still talk about us (as a game company) when we say our name."
- When SNKP took their IPs into consideration, they decided that going back into the gaming business and taking advantage of their IP would probably be better. Also, their smartphone and Steam stuff were doing well and it helped push things in that decision
- Noguchi's heard from many people that they're happy SNKP is back in gaming. He says it's a market where they can hear the user's voices more directly, but it's also a harsh market that consumers will go away unless the games are actually fun even if it's based on a popular IP. He hopes they'll create fun games with the fans becuase that should be enjoyable for their development staffs as well.
- They're focusing on the PS4 since it's selling well throughout the world. They'll be focusing on KOF at first but want to make better use of their other IPs as well and to further raise their value. They have over 200 IPs in terms of titles
- They've been out of the gaming scene for a while so they're basically starting off from scratch together with returning dev members
- KOF14's main dev members are old staffs from SNK's golden days.
- Noguchi : "A lot of staff are coming back, saying 'hey, if it's a new KOF'....".
- In addition, old game staff(s) that've been working in the Pachislot division have also returned
- They also have talented staff members that've been the fans/players of KOF, and Noguchi hopes the new and old staffs will cause a synergy effect in development
- Right now in terms of console games, SNKP is focusing on KOF14's development. Their contact at SCEA is a fan from the NeoGeo era who's been requesting for some hardcore titles, and so they've been working together which is one of the reasons why some PS4 ports are in progress.
- SNKP released the Hunble Bundle 25th anniversary set because they know their titles are well known overseas
- Noguchi predicts the Smartphone game market will still continue to grow, and SNKP will continue to focus on it. He comments that the Metal Slug series is not just popular in Japan, USA, Europe, but also Middle and South America, and southeast asia.
- Metal Slug Attack is one of the main titles they'll be focusing on in 2016
- In the old days SNK used to develop for arcades and then port to consoles, but Noguchi realizes that times have changed. KOF14 is being developed for console. He says that personally he'd like to release titles for the arcades as well.
- They're going to put more effort into their licensing business.
- As one of their plans, they're going to give out licenses that'll fit the needs of various regions. For example with Asia, they licensed KOF98 and a spinoff-app based on the game's world view was released by a third party (KOF98OL by Tencent). They're also hoping to license out characters, like say if Iori is popular in China and Terry is popular in North America, they'll allow them to come out in those region's games and whatnot
- When asked about any collaborations with Japanese companies like "Capcom vs SNK", Noguchi laughed and commented that they've just restarted their game business and there's still a far way to go.

[Amedø310]

XDZW is cancelled. I wonder if SNK would implement some of the character's styles from that game to KOF XIV. For example, it would be interesting for a character to play a bit like Ell Blue.

[Crazy Li]

As for the Ralf issue, we don't know how much of these screen shots represent final texturing. His skin didn't really look fully textured. Also, I was always under the impression that he was Brazilian-American (basically born in the US but of Brazilian heritage). I mean, there had to be some reason the Ikari Warriors were associated with Brazil in KoF94...