2022 is looking to be a big year for fighting games whether it’s new releases like DNF Duel, information to come such as for the recently announced Street Fighter 6, or simply updates for previous games like Dragon Ball FighterZ. Before all of those, however, we have the first big new fighting game of the year with The King of Fighters XV.

I can’t deny that I fell into the whirlwind of hype the game was generating. Although I’m not well-versed in the series aside from trying to play (and playing terribly) a couple of entries at arcades when I was younger, I was keenly interested simply because of the popping visuals, cool-looking characters, and the positive feedback of its rollback netcode implementation. I won’t deny that the game was daunting at first, but it was worth getting through with how much fun I’ve been having.

One of the biggest elements that set the series (and this entry) apart from other fighting games is its team-battle gameplay. Unlike more recent team games such as Dragon Ball FighterZ or Power Rangers: Battle for the Grid, players choose a team of three for strictly 1v1 rounds. There’s no tagging in or assists and once someone is KO’d, the next member from the team steps in.

What really makes it feel like a team battle is a feeling of consistency and the strategy that comes from it. The only thing that’s reset at the end of one round is the timer and the fighter positions. The accumulated power gauge amount stays the same for a team and a new fighter starts with one extra level. Similarly, the winning fighter in a round is rewarded with a bit of health to help them into the next round. If a round came down to the wire and you scraped by with a sliver of health, the next round is sure to be just as tense as you weigh the options of your gameplan against a full-health fighter.

A normal 1v1 is solely about winning. There may be different gameplay for characters and attributes they excel at, but your focus is to whittle the opponent’s health down to zero. Each 1v1 here is more nuanced because you must consider the dynamics of your team.

For example, players will commonly use a fighter that easily builds up a lot of meter (the power gauge) on point, (first) to ensure the rest of the team has an advantage. A middle fighter might be chosen to build up more meter or to focus on controlling and stopping the opponent from building meter. The last fighter, (the anchor) is usually one that benefits the most from having a lot of meter available to them so they can use stronger super moves.

This composition doesn’t have to be rigid though. Before a fight and after setting your team, you’re allowed to pick the order of your fighters. Your opponent’s team is also important to take into consideration after all and this makes for a fun guessing game of what sort of order they’ll choose and how you might be able to counter them.

Stepping away from those finer details and strategies, other players may find other team compositions in general that work better for them. It all depends on how you like to play. With 39 fighters to choose from, it’s easy to make your own team and find your own groove.

Speaking of fighters, 39 is an amount that’s equally liberating and intimidating. It’s less than the previous entry had, but there’s still certainly enough variety to make new or returning players happy. Each fighter plays differently and has a distinct personality and style.

I’d say it’s that last part that makes a big difference for most people. There are plenty of players who will want the perfect team that checks all the right competitive boxes, but a lot will just want to play someone that looks cool and interesting. I’ve always seen that as a big benefit for The King of Fighters series and the latest entry doesn’t buck the trend.

Part of this is due to the great variety in characters. There are characters outfitted in traditional martial art attire, but they’re more dispersed among the colorful cast of buff mercenaries, a high-school idol, a cyborg, some femme fatales, and a giant wrestler with a tyrannosaurus mask on. Newcomers like Isla and Dolores stand out just fine too, with the former being a hip graffiti artist and the latter looking like they came straight out of a Bayonetta game. Even Shun’ei, the headphone-and-makeshift cape-out-of-a-jacket wearing protagonist looks completely unique.

This leads to my next point though, variety only does so much. What makes these characters shine is their wonderful designs. Whether it’s the sophisticated-looking King or the always popular Mai Shiranui who looks anything but discrete for a ninja, it can’t be denied how utterly stylish every character looks. All the flourishes in their designs, as well as their overall color palettes, help them pop on the screen.

Of course, the most important element for players is the gameplay. In an era where more and more fighting game series are simplifying their mechanics to better appeal to casual and wider audiences, it’s especially important how the 15th mainline entry in the series plays. The game thankfully straddles the line between welcoming new players and satisfying older ones very well.

Previous mechanics have been expanded upon for more accessibility while new ones have been added. Some previously difficult characters to use are easier to pick up while still having a high skill ceiling. The Rush Auto Combo System can let a player automatically dish out powerful super moves by tapping four buttons, although a more nuanced player will be able to combo and cancel into those same supers with more damage done. Veterans of the series will feel at home with their legacy skill and understanding, but a new player can jump in and have plenty of fun.

That doesn’t mean it can’t be a little overwhelming when first playing it. There are a lot of mechanics thrown at you and the tutorial is admittedly pretty poor for a modern fighting game. It took me playing the tutorial, playing around a little bit, and then replaying the tutorial for everything to click. Once it clicked, the game started to feel amazing.

All of the systems directly tied to the MAX Mode in the previous entry have been freed to be used outside of it, which allows for a lot more flexibility. MAX Mode is now used to perform some of those actions without draining the power gauge and also increases your damage. A new addition is MAX Mode (Quick) which can be canceled into from a combo but lasts a shorter time and doesn’t increase your damage. The other new mechanic is the Shatter Strike, which is an attack that can absorb hits and set up your opponent for a combo extension.

Outside of the various mechanics, there’s a lot to learn with the characters. Learning a minimum of three characters might seem like a lot, but it’s not too bad honestly. I would highly recommend spending a lot of time in the training mode with whoever interests you as well as watching character breakdowns online if you want more help.

Missions, (character trials) are unfortunately not too helpful. Each character only has five trials which means the difficulty to successfully land the combos they task you with doesn’t gradually increase as much as it can dramatically spike. These are all much easier in most cases once you understand how useful input buffering is, but that’s a mechanic that isn’t gone over in-game. Again, the online fighting game community has your back with this.

The story mode is pretty bare. There are some nicely animated interaction cutscenes between certain characters that are longer than a simple line back and forth. Otherwise, there are only a couple of scenes personal to pre-set teams along with endings and bonus scenes that are only seen with specific characters. The ending scenes might be a hint of what’s next to come for some characters in the series, but that’s the extent of it.

I do want to mention the incredible character intros that are heard between characters that do not have a special interaction. For one battle the game pitted me against Shermie who the announcer enthusiastically introduced with “Nobody knows the color of her eyes. Talk smack and she’ll rearrange your back.” Every one of these introductions sounds hilarious or hype up the character in an amazing way that makes me think of the 90s’. I wish these were available in offline Versus mode at least, but it’s only available in the story mode.

Outside of the story mode and various training modes, there’s also a versus mode that supports 1v1 or 3v3. Additionally, the Gallery mode allows you to watch unlocked movies or listen to the different sounds that characters make during gameplay.

A mode I always appreciate in fighting games is one that lets you customize the music. For The King of Fighters XV, the DJ Station mode is the answer. It features the soundtrack of the game and unlockable soundtracks from the previous games along with other SNK titles such as Fatal Fury, Samurai Shodown, and Metal Slug. Not only can you freely listen to these 300+ tracks, but you can assign them to specific stages as well as the main menu and character selection screen.

If you are someone looking for a mostly single-player experience, I do have to admit that there likely isn’t enough to keep you interested. It only takes a glance at the main menu screen to see that this game’s primary focus is online play. The typical ranked and casual modes are at your behest and the online training mode is certainly a fun way to train with friends or with randoms.

Room Match is where the fun one-off modes can be enjoyed online and both the 3v3 and 1v1 modes can be played here. A new mode called Draft Vs has players pick characters in alternating fashion. Once a character has been picked the other player can’t use them, meaning you’ll have to improvise with a different character if your opponent (purposefully or not) chooses your main. The returning Party Vs mode is probably the highlight of these alternate modes. Up to six players can control one character each as the opposing team members fight each other in order.

Whether you’re just looking to have fun or trying to rank up, you need precision and stability when playing fighting games online. SNK built up a lot of hype and positivity towards the game when they announced that it would have rollback netcode. I’d been greatly looking forward to trying the game online myself and I am delighted to say that it has felt like a dream.

Nearly every match I had went flawlessly. The only hiccups I felt were when I decided to test out how good the rollback was by deliberately choosing any region and any connection in my search. My first attempt paired me with someone who had a level 1 connection (the weakest) and over 230 ping which legitimately made me shudder as I clicked on accept. To my surprise and hope, it didn’t feel too bad and neither did any other low connection matches. There were certainly some hitches now and then but it genuinely felt pretty smooth for a majority of the games I played. Rollback truly is magical and well worth it for every developer that’s implementing it.

My biggest complaint was that the PC version doesn’t have a lot of video settings and I had to disable V-sync in an ini. file to fix some frame drops I encountered. It seems a lot of people had this same issue, with similar or occasionally more complicated fixes being needed. I hope that an option for V-sync is added in an update to make it easier for players.

That aside, I can’t wait to play more of The King of Fighters XV. I’ve had so much fun playing this with a nearly constant smile on my face. It’s a great entry into the series with plenty of features and I highly recommend it to anyone interested in playing a new fighting game online. Similar to Guilty Gear Strive, it feels like this is the most popular the series has been and that means it’s the perfect time to jump in.

A PC Review Copy of The King of Fighters XV was provided by Koch Media for this review.

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The King of Fighters XV

$59.99

9

Score

9.0/10

Pros

• Easy to Jump In
• Wonderfully-Implemented Rollback Netcode
• Fun Online Modes
• Great Visuals and Character Designs
• DJ Station

Cons

• Tutorial and Mission Modes are Lacking
• Single-Player Content is Bare Bones
• V-Sync Issues