KOF XIV Demo Impressions

[solidshark]

Who'd you play?

How did the game feel/look/play for you?

After playing it, which KOF(s) would you strongly compare XIV to?

Tell us everything you'd like about the demo.

[gloomycoin]

Heres my impressions from first time kof player

Graphics and music are really, really great. Not as technically impressive as something like Street fighter 5 but the design is fantastic, the characters remind me of 3D versions of old snk artwork (forget the artists name, they drew all the capcom character portraits in cvs2). Everything looks nice and clean too, none of the horrible stippling that Street fighter 5 has. Special move and system effects look nice too. Counterhits are easy to see due to that weird noise they make (not sure how important counterhits are in kof)

I was doing flashy stuff within 20 minutes messing around with Sylvie. Although I still had to concentrate to keep the combos consistent I didnt feel like anything was closed off to me (my execution isnt the best)

Footsies felt more important than I was expecting, as a street fighter/cvs2 player I enjoyed that. I will say it almost always seems to be better to do a max mode combo after a confirm, rather than just super-cancelling.

Training mode has some nice modern options although recording actions is still awkward.

Overall im super impressed, Ive had no interest in kof ever and i wasnt interested in this, but after playing the demo ive gone and preordered the game lol

[Custle]

I just copy the message I did earlier in another thread.

Played some demo.

It certainly looked better in person than on video. Good use of color, in action looked smooth and effects looked fantastic. While raw graphical prowess isn't better than SFV, GGXrd or upcoming Tekken 7, style makes up a lot. This might be good thing, PlayStation 4 doesn't have to work that much to push graphics.

Musics sounded good. I've only heard these on videos while usually someone is talking over them. The themes I've heard already trumps over XIII soundtrack in my opinion. So far my favorite is K' team's theme. Might've been television speakers, but I couldn't hear character voices that well.

What about the gameplay? I'm liking the concepts and they certainly require more excecution than you think, but not XIII levels fortunately, I think. I would've liked, if SNK included some combo trials, so I can get some hints what character could do.

Game felt responsive and smoother than XIII. I could actually do the whole tutorial with arcade stick, but that could be because I've played DOA5LR with it, so I'm better with it. XIII was first game I tried stick with Jump in attacks felt easier to do compared previous entries, so maybe timings aren't so strict?

Some UI things could be better though. Getting to command list was kinda hassle. It usually has been Select button, but PS4 has Share button instead of that Now I have to press start, select command list, then slect character I want to look at and then go back. Touch pad reset was nice though. I'd like if I could select three characters for training mode and switch between them, so I don't have to spend so much time on menus, but that's exclusive to 2003 and XI sadly.

Overall, game felt promising. I can see me spending time learning stuff and maybe even playing against real people. I hope there's lots of unlockables and that netcode is good. Promised online features sound good on paper, so I hope SNK can deliver.

I mostly tried out Sylvie. Personally I would've included different characters, but that's just me.

[the7k]

Spoilered because I'm a Negative Nancy. Can't help it, I really wish I could.
[spoiler]

Who'd you play?

I played Mai, Kula, Maxima, Clark, Mui Mui, Bandeiras, Hein, King of Dino and Sylvie at CEO.

I've played Kyo, Iori, Mai, Shun'ei and King of Dino on the home demo.

So far, I'd say I've put in about 10 hours, about 2 in PvP at CEO where I literally knew nothing about the title exclusive mechanics, and about 8 on the home demo purely in training mode.

How did the game feel/look/play for you?

I know a lot of people hate the way it looks and I certainly feel it's far from perfect or even acceptable for a physical PS4 release, but it's the least important aspect of a game to me. I do feel that the way characters animate is really jarring though.

The game feel is the biggest issue for me, movement feels really disconnected, it's hard to explain but it just doesn't feel nearly as responsive as past KOFs. Walks feel slower than before and jumps feel off - I feels like you hang in the air a bit just before you come down, at least I think that's what is going on.

I think execution is going to be extremely important going forward. Just in the past 24 hours, we've gotten some incredible combos coming out all over the place on social media. Unlike 2002 or XIII, many of these combos are based on linking moves together rather than cancelling - you can't cancel specials into specials anymore, everything is going to require extremely precise timing. This need for very precise links and extreme muscle memory just to be considered competent at a competitive level are exactly the reasons I stopped playing most other popular fighting games out now and from the previous generation. XIII was pretty much the only game I played for about 3 years as a result outside of older games like Third Strike and Vampire Savior.

After playing it, which KOF(s) would you strongly compare XIV to?

None of them. I really enjoyed '98 vanilla, '00, '02UM, XI and XIII, but this doesn't really feel like any of them. I'd say it feels like Street Fighter IV with a slight speed boost. I understand that the MAX mode is clearly trying ape KOF'98, but in terms of 'feel' it just doesn't feel anything like that.

I don't know if I'm even going to pick up the game now. I'll definitely not pick it up on release and instead wait until I hear definitive word about the netcode at least, but even then I dunno.[/spoiler]

[KrsJin]

Answers within the quote. Long story short, really impressed, I think this game has a bright future overall. Some minor gripes, mostly cosmetic.

Who'd you play?
Primarily Nelson so far. Side dishes of Iori/Kyo/Shun'ei

How did the game feel/look/play for you?
Feel was a little jarring at first, having been playing GG XRD and SFV mostly lately, but a few hours in it felt good actually. Fairly snappy for a 3d modeled 2D fighter. My only gripe is normal jumps either feel or look very floaty to me but hops feel good. Play feels good but I haven't played against people yet to really say.

Character models look way better than I initially thought, as does the rest of the game though I agree with some others that some of the animations look janky. Perhaps due to trying to keep attack speeds the same but rather than 2D models they're now 3D. Stages look amazing to me. More so the newer stages not shown in the demo. They have an oldschool look and feel to them but with updated visuals.

After playing it, which KOF(s) would you strongly compare XIV to?
I only really put time into 11-13, so I can't compare it properly to others.It has elements of XII and XIII in terms of feel and strategy but definitely feels unique from both.

Tell us everything you'd like about the demo.
I'm surprised at how polish the game ended up being. The look, sound and feel are all better than I imagined from the earlier trailers and footage. I'm actually really optimistic about this title. Especially knowing the team is willing and able to support it post launch unlike XIII really.

Got some offline versus in with people. Game is way fun to me already but very different than XIII as a whole. With everyone's normals being so strong, the neutral game and 'footsies' are much more prominent. This won't just be a game of exchanging combos. Single normal hits will be very important. I like it though, just will take getting use to. Zoning seems infinitely stronger in XIV compared to XIII, too.

[Shiranui_ninja]

Who'd you play?
Mai. I planned to put on the labs Sylvie or Shun'ei but I don't have the time right now.

How did the game feel/look/play for you?
I think at first sight it looks quite out of date. I remember my partner saw it and said "what is this? Is a Ps4 game?? OMG". But when you start to move your character and play, you suddenly feel like "Home, sweet home". Regular jumps feel slower indeed, walking is slower too I think, but is something you just get use to it quickly, not big drama. You have to force yourself to use rolls, dash/run and mini hop, medium hop or triangular jump more often.
I think that despite graphics are not very "ultimate gen" and animations aren't perfect, the game feels like an old KOF much more than XIII and its 60fps smootheness is just great.

After playing it, which KOF(s) would you strongly compare XIV to?
Obviously there's a lot of stuff coming from XIII. You can't stop thinking about XIII while you play, at least in my case, because Mai is more or less the same with some changes. But gameplay, in fact, feels very different. It makes you to remember old games  like '98 or even XI. But even with that I strongly compare XIV to XIII, yes.

Tell us everything you'd like about the demo.
The removal of Drive Cancels and limiting EX moves to MAX mode mode affects drastically the gameplay and makes the game feels very different from XIII. In XIII you had more long combos, in XIV you have to activate MAX (which is harder) or gameplay becomes very basic and a bit boring. So I would say that while in XIII combos were too crazy and long I think it felt more noobfriendly. In XIV if you really want to have fun and be damaging with a nice combo you have to activate MAX mode and this can be too hard for a noob/beginner. Also I found cancels are very strict, much more than in XIII. At least in Mai's case.
On a side note, I think Shun'ei needs some rebalance.

[shinefist]

I'm very surprised with this iteration of kof. It's a bit overwhelming at first, as the need to figure out how to play, which means we are in the dark again. The larger combos are their to be discovered thanks to good combo makers already showing us the potential and direction the game is heading in.

All I can say is if all the characters have this much attention put into them. Then we have a huge game on our hands. A game that feels very accomplished I hope.

Have you noticed when your character starts a run there is a small delay at the beginning. I take it this is one of the ways to help make it playable online.

I'm down with this. If they can Ballance a competitive game and make it play well online then that is an extraordinary feat.

Hope they can pull it off.

I know I'm not on topic but just wanted to share my opinion. Cannot wait to see the full cast.

[Mr.Minionman]

I spent all my time in the demo figuring out Max mode combos with the 3 anime protags (Kyo, Iori, Shun'ei). I'm really impressed with the new system, and hopefully it'll get the friends who wouldn't play 13 because HD was too overwhelming for them off my back. I found a bunch of fun combos to do with Iori, some efficient, some not so much. Uploaded one I was proud of here: https://youtu.be/2fmWjT_lRoQ

Shun'ei has a very polished design too. I was having a ton of fun finding niche uses for the air dash. I agree they could have chosen a better roster for the demo but you take what you can get. I'm sincerely surprised Terry wasn't in it, that's the character I point new players to first. I set up a demo side tournament for a bunch of smash players and it was entertaining watching them get hype mashing buttons with Dinosaur and Shun'ei. Noone picked Mai or Kyo surprisingly.

But besides that I'm just really eager to get back to my gal Vice and find out what she can do :o
and there are just so many characters I want to try now so hyyyyyyype.

[Hermanito77]

Who'd you play?
I Played Kyo and Mai the most they all looke tha same not too many changes at least for kyo only boost more rekkas it looked realy unsafe to me

How did the game feel/look/play for you?
The game still looks like a KOF game to me the graphics are not that bad yeah some charachters have some bad models but some are  great hope that in the futre they can fix it is by playing it the game he s  not that fast pace and the jumps are more slower it looks like they want people to have a more grounded game and jump less

After playing it, which KOF(s) would you strongly compare XIV to?
After playing it it looks more lke Xiii

Tell us everything you'd like about the demo.
The Max Mode system he s great it looks you can play the game in 2 difrent ways by the looks of it by my prespectice  some charachter will benefit more with combos to hd  and some with Ex Moves
From the new charachters only Shun'ei took my attention love the charachter design but the move set not that much

Im happy with the game a good net code and this game is great