The King of Fighters All Star (phone app game review)

 By Mark Rodriguez

I've always been a fan of the King of Fighters series since KOF 94 and one game I play almost every day is KOF All Star. Produced with Netmarble in association with SNK, the game hit smartphones in Japan on July 2018 but didn't go worldwide until October 2019. Let's take a quick look at it. 

Most of the game modes play like a beat-em-up. You can choose any KOF character you have at your disposal for  a team of three and a striker character for each. The characters can attack, block and roll to dodge. In some modes you get a special guest striker that can only be used once and usually deals the most damage. Everyone gets 3 special attacks and a desperation move attack. If you can find the Special Battle Card of the character's super desperation move, you can equip them with it so they can use it in the fight. Most of the time you fight on your own but on certain stages or modes you can use your team of 3 at the same time. You would control the leader while the CPU controls your teammates and you have the option to switch between which character you want to control.

The game's story mode deals with a group of game developers, called Tuners, that created a game that will let you play through every KOF game from KOF 94 to KOF 2001. You play as an unnamed protagonist (which you can name after yourself or whatever) that somehow got stuck in the game and lost your memory. You run into a mysterious girl named Noah who figures if you enter the KOF tournaments, someone will be bound to recognize you. When the Tuners find out about you, they consider you a bug and send in-game enemies and bosses after you to either steal your KOF invite or flat out destroy you.

King got smacked but it's difficult to play and screenshot on your phone at the exact same time.

While you're fighting your way through the game, you're also playing through the stories of the actual KOF games. You run into and fight with several of the KOF characters themselves such as Kyo Kusanagi, Terry Bogard, Ryo Sakazaki and Mai Shiranui to name a few. You'll be dealing with things like the Orochi Clan and the NESTS Cartel at the same time as you're dealing with the Tuners sending enemies and traps after you. 

After you beat KOF 97, it turns out that Noah was actually evil and she betrays you and the rest of the Tuners. From here on out, now Kaya (one of the Tuners), sides with you as you help you not only play through the NESTS story but also get to Kaya. 

There is also a sequel story of sorts called Epic Quest in which your character joins Kaya in trying to get to Noah. In this story you face corrupted versions of Blue Mary (Envy), Rugal (Greed), Chizuru (Wrath) and a robot version of Goenitz. Considering that Epic Quest is available before you can play the KOF 98 story, this will be a huge spoiler for you. On the other hand, it's recommended you have your characters leveled up a lot before playing this one or the basic enemies will stomp you flat.

Other than story mode you have all sorts of things to help you unlock more characters, their battle cards for their specials and level them up. You have a Power Up Dungeon with several modes to gain extra EXP, extra gold (in-game currency), Cores (which are used to further unlock special moves) and item and skill cards to level up your battle cards and such. There is also a Soul Quest mode where you fight on one one with a random fighter. If you win you can earn Soul Cards for your character.

The fighters can get up to level 50 on their own. Then you can Limit Break to make them reach level 60. After you get to level 60 you can use Multiple Limit Breaks to go up to level 90. Once you're there you can Awaken your fighter to get a pink star level. At this point you'll also need your character's Soul Card to fully Awaken and reach the pink star level. 

One you have a pink star you can get to level 10 to then Awaken to get a 2 pink star rank. From there you'll make it to level 10 again and earn the 3 pink star rank and so forth reaching up to 5 stars. Once your fighter is Awakened (1-3 pink stars) they can also be equipped with several gemstones that grant them more powers. Those also have to be unlocked and they can also be powered up. 

There are also several challenge modes to unlock more items where you face all sorts of bosses, both from KOF and new to this game. There is also a League mode to play against an online player as well. Every day you also get missions to earn more items and game's most valuable currency, the rubies. Rubies can used to unlock new fighters and add them to your collection. They can also be used to unlock new cards including Special Battle Cards.

When it comes in terms of characters, this game has a lot of them. Not only can you collect every fighter appearing in KOF 94-2001 but you also different versions of the same character from the different games. In other words, you can get KOF 94 Terry Bogard and form a team alongside KOF 95 and KOF 96 versions of the Lone Wolf. You also get special variant versions of the characters based on different themes or holidays, like a Winter Holiday Yuri, a Baseball Shermie and a Swimsuit Mai. There are also extra versions of the characters based on the in-game stories you can unlock like the alternate versions of Blue Mary, Rugal, Chizuru and Goenitz from the Epic Quest. You even get genderbent female versions of certain male characters like Billy Kane and Geese Howard.

Now of course the more interesting characters are the several limited-time crossover characters that have appeared. So far KOF All Star has had crossovers with characters from The Seven Deadly Sins and Seven Knights anime series, as well as characters from other fighting games like Samurai Shodown, Guilty Gear, Tekken 7, Dead or Alive and even Street Fighter. The craziest crossover most people remember is the one they had with the WWE in which Seth Rollins, John Cena, Becky Lynch, Kofi Kingston and The Undertaker all joined in on the action.

In between crossover events, there are other limited run events in which new versions of the fighters are also released. As of right now the most current event is getting to unlock Duo Lon from KOF 2003 and the new Omega Rugal which recently appeared in KOF XV as free DLC. This event will still be going for another ten days as of this article, and it's still too soon to know what other franchise KOF All Star will have a crossover with.

My thoughts- 

Like I mentioned earlier, this is one of my favorite games which I play at least once a day to get those daily missions in and rack up rubies. Like most mobile app games, the game is a bit of a gatcha game, especially when unlocking random fighters. There is also the option to purchase more rubies and special cards which give you 10 random fighters. Even during the special events, if you buy the special cards it's not a guarantee that you'll get one of the limited fighters from the event, so it really is up to chance. I never like spending money on these games, so I just grind away on the daily missions and rack up rubies in preparation for the next big event. 

I love the huge cast of characters and all the different versions of them. I also enjoy the story mode and it gives nostalgia to play through the stories of the older games. I needed to level up my characters to get past the KOF 99 stage, but now I'm all set to play through KOF 2000 and onwards. The music is also a collection of several KOF games as well as themes from the crossover events. The characters look good and they get to yell out all their attack moves and catchphrases. The Special Desperation Moves also get cool cinematics and every character gets a cool intro before they fight. 

Of course with games like these, the fun lies in collecting all of the characters. I might never 'catch them all' but it'll always be fun to try. KOF All Star is a fun little time-waster and I'm anxious to find out what other crossovers are coming their way. They've been going strong since 2018 and still show no signs of slowing down, especially since now they have KOF XV to draw from. I'm expecting to see KOF XV versions of the characters eventually.

Such a crazy mix, the cameo characters seem to outnumber the actual KOF characters.

If you like mobile games and beat-em-ups and want to check out KOF's extensive history, be sure to give this game a shot. Even though the game has in-game purchases, the game in itself is free to download.