The power of the Genesis and the fast action of SNK games were a good match for those whom couldn’t afford a Neo-Geo or the ability to pour mountains of quarters into arcade machines. The next best things to the arcade originals are the Genesis ports, and SNK’s King of the Monsters 2 is no exception. King of the Monsters 2 for the Genesis was programmed by Takara, a legendary but obscure porter, and was released the same year as the original arcade game (designed and programmed by SNK). This is the only version with a parental rating: MA-13. This review compares how accurate the gameplay and overall ‘feel’ of this port is to the original. Although it has less frames, color, tones and sprites, the Genesis re-creates the robot monkey tossing, giant snail biting, love hotel stomping craziness quite faithfully. First off, this version is quite unique because although the theme, visuals and sound remain faithful to the arcade, the gameplay has been totally reworked.
Instead of a beat ‘em up/wrestling style, which is a rare combination by the way, this is fighting in a 3-D plane style. The style is similar to ADK’s Aggressors of Dark Kombat. Additionally, there are nine selectable characters, instead of the three default ones in the arcade. There is a versus mode for two players, but no longer a co-op mode. This kinda makes sense since this version is tailored more as a fighter. Combing through the finer details: there is no more pinning ― to beat an opponent, one simply depletes its life bar completely, a la Fatal Fury. The monster that gets best two out of three matches is the winner. Kicking a monster while its down is no longer allowed. The beat ‘em up stroll to the actual monster to beat is also gone. A new feature is the ability to block. Everything else feels pretty true to the original. The Genesis can keep up with the fast sprite movements ― albeit some missing frames ― and screen shakes of the original.
The biggest shortcoming of the arcade version is the frustrating difficulty. Here, it’s no different, even on the easiest setting. It’s understandable why the difficulty would be so absurd in the arcade version, but here, why? The player already has purchased the game, there’s no need for any tomdickery. Whether it’s combos, special moves or grapples, the computer always has priority. In short: SNK Boss Syndrome, and because of this we have a game that is not so fun to play. Big changes were made to this version, but they ignored one glaring issue: the difficulty. The one thing that truly needed to be changed went unchanged. I haven’t tried versus mode, but I imagine that would be the way to go if one decides to play King of the Monsters 2. Sincere effort went into this version, like giving each character its own move set, but ultimately this is just a novelty game, a fan service to those whom want to control the arcade version bosses and see what their powered up versions look like. That’s it. Try Aggressors of Dark Kombat, Pit Fighter or Deadly Moves instead.
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