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King of Fighters: The Orochi Saga is one of only a few fighting games available on the Nintendo Wii right now, but that's no bad thing, because as a series, Kong of Fighters has a good solid history, so for it to be ported to the Wii is good for old school fans of fighting games as well as newcomers to the genre. The price of the game is fair, but with this being a compilation of somewhat dated games, it is initially a little on the expensive side, although for fighting game fans, this does provide a decent amount of game playing time for the price, and if you've ever enjoyed a King of Fighters title before, there is a good chance you will get a fair deal of pleasure from this collection. As a 30 something, I have to say it has brought back some very fond memories and will get plenty of play time, as a simple beat em up type press and go style fighter.
For anyone who is new to the King of Fighters series, The Orochi Saga is a compilation of the first 5 released King of Fighters games, from 1994 through to 1998. The King of Fighters series started out by taking the best characters from a variety of other titles, such as Samurai Showdown, Fatal Fury and Art of Fighting, matching powerful opponents from those games against each other, usually taking the biggest characters from each of the games for the biggest battles. However, over time King of Fighters evolved and became a great game in its own right, in fact in case becoming a better game than those it borrowed from in the early days.
The first thing that springs to mind when it comes to 2-D fighting games is of course the old classic Street Fighter series and when the series first started out in 1994, you'd have been forgiven for mistaking the two. But while there are some real similarities between these series, King of Fighters stand it's own ground and is a very good series. It was one of the first fighting games to implement the tag system for example, which was made popular through such titles as Marvel vs. Capcom 2, where you pick a few fighters for each match and switch between them when you felt the need, making use of their individual life bars and requiring your opponent to defeat all three players before the round would end. This may seem a bit basic these days, but back when these games first came out, it was quite a big thing.
To be honest, to those used to playing games such as Dead or Alive and Soul Calibur, this series may seem a little dated, but as a collection, this is a massive achievement throught the eyes of anyone old enough to have enjoyed the games first time round. For nostalgia reasons alone this game is well worth having and for addictiveness and playability, it is streets ahead of a lot of the more modern fighters, especially llayer versus player, which offers hours of scraming and ranting between mates.
What you get with this collection is a near perfect replication of the original games, with all the original moves being included and with each version offering little improvements from it's predecessor, with new characters added, better graphics, but the same great gameplay. Obviously there are some differences between the original series and this compilation though, for a start the controls on the Wii are completely different, but much more familiar feeling than you'd imagine and of course you can mix and match the controls on the Wii anyway, so if one setup doesn't suit you, you can change it to what fits you best. By default, the nunchuk and A & B buttons on the control the movements, which felt a little awkward, but hey, you can always plug in a trusty controller, which feels much more natural.
One word of warning though, don't expect sexy smooth graphics if your playing the game on a 42" HDTV, because you will be a little dissapointed, these games where never intended for such big screens, therefore blowing them up so big causes pixelation. Using a 21" computer montitor however has been plenty smooth enough for my purposes.
The Wii version of King of Fighters: The Orochi Saga is undoubtedly still the same great playing experience that is available for the PS2 and for the older gamer looking to relieve those past coin-op arcade glory days this will be a great experience, but of course, most will probably be sickened a little by the less than stimulating visuals. But as has been said many many times, there is much more to a game than eye candy and this series has it in abundance, the playability seriously makes up for lack of modern graphics.
Scoring Details For King of Fighters: The Orochi Saga
Graphics
The graphics are no let down for a game series that spans 15 years back, but by comparison to todays games, they do look dated and do pixelate on a larger screen. They do not stop the games from being thoroughly enjoyable though as you soon forget about the visuals and get into the action.
Sound
The sounds are great in places and pretty poor at times. Some great original voice overs will send a shiver down the spine of fans of the series and there are a few pleasing tracks playing along in the background.
Gameplay
When these games came out originally, they were the type that would always get played, over and over again, because of the simple concept and easy gamplay, nothing has changed, the series is just as playable and fun and therefore is going to be getting played lots, even if for short periods.
Lastability
The differences between each of the different games is not particularly noticable, except fans of the series who will instantly spot them, but that does't matter. You can pick up the disk, put it in and be fighting very quickly and for a bit of casual fun, that alone gives this a very good chance of being played time and time again.
Overall
Worth having in any collection, but a must have for fighter fans and old school gamers.
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