King of Fighters All Star Review

By RedGaiaMastadon

What do you get when you smash up mobile phone game company Netmarble with the legendary SNK? An addicting gash pawn beat’em up. I know  that sounds like a strange combination, and it is, but this game is fun. When it was announced that SNK and Netmarbel were coming out with a game together I was very nervous about their union. But, when I heard they were getting together for a King of Fighters game, I could not help but be intrigued. 

I play plenty of phone games. Among these are DBZ Dokkan Battle and Netmarble’s  Marvel Future Fight. This game plays very similar to a KOF game. The player gets access to a basic attack combos and special moves. If players upgrade their characters enough, they gain access to a special finishing move that can deal devastating damage. Players uniquely have access to a block, and a combat roll dodge.

Each character has a different up-gradable skill tree unique to them. And yes even though characters that have been recurring throughout the king of fighters game series have shown up in multiple games they gain differing scale trees. Which is awesome, I might add.

Players can form teams of three. These characters can range from KOF ‘94 to KOF ‘99. They also have different typing and sub typing. You can gain bonuses depending on who is paired together. Players can also set support characters called strikers who give power ups and sometimes can provide an additional attack.

There are even mini games that allow you to beat up a car or a stone in order to get more gems. This game far different from many other phone games that are exclusively pay to win. KOF All Stars gives access to important currency early in the game and players can accumulate more of them by completing stages and beating the side missions within each stage.

If  players summon a character that they already possess , they will gain a material called soul which you can use to limit break your character and increase their level cap. Players can salvage this soul and gain points in order to purchase other characters soul. If enough soul is gained it can be used to other characters.

The game offers a variety of different modes as players progress further through the story mode. There are power up dungeons, where people can go to gain additional growth items such as experience, gold and material needed to further upgrade characters and evolve them. Then there are event quests, which give players access to certain exclusive characters or event cards. Finally, there are modes harkening back to fighting games such as time attack, tournament and even arena mode. 

This game is great. I know that there are grievances against phone games that have access to gachapon mechanics, but this one is different. Netmarble and SNK really knocked it out of the park this time. I am so proud of both of them and I cannot wait to see what they do next with this phone game.