When you think of The King of Fighters I am pretty sure the last thing that comes to your mind is a side-scrolling beat ‘em up for mobile devices. But here in 2019, that is what we have gotten thanks to Netmarble. Say hello to The King of Fighters ALLSTAR, a quick-paced beat ‘em up that pulls from the series 25-year history. I got to demo the game back at E3 this year and I am excited that the final release is now upon us!

Story

You wake up with no memory and are confronted by a shady figure looking to beat you down. As this person approaches, a girl named Noah jumps in to save you, or so you thought, as she immediately calls for your help. You take the form of a powerful fighter and defeat the adversary. Noah then concocts a plan to have you enter the King of Fighters tournament so someone might be able to recognize you. Maybe this crazy plan will work!

Gameplay

The King of Fighters ALLSTAR plays like classic beat ‘em ups of yesteryear. You start by defeating enemies on one screen, then proceed to the next, then the next, to finally defeat a boss at the end. Being a mobile game, the levels are only three screens long, letting you beat them in under 3 minutes. This length is fine to me for a mobile title and it gets enough action packed in to be satisfying. There are a ton of levels, so there is no shortage of fights that can be had. The story of the game has you replaying story events from The King of Fighters franchise, starting with ‘94 and moving through to XIV. As you progress through the game, your character begins to regain their memories. For anyone who hasn’t played a KOF game, it is a pretty neat cliff notes version of events!

Navigating your fights is a very important aspect of the gameplay. You can move your currently selected character around the screen using a virtual thumbstick in the bottom left of your device’s screen. Movement allows you to move up, down, left, and right. In the bottom right of your screen are various action keys and one of them is a handy dodge-roll you can use to avoid attacks! Getting a feel for movement won’t take too long, but again it is very important to stay alive. The King of Fighters ALLSTAR lets you choose up to three fighters to take into each level. The first fighter will be your leader who will give buffs to the rest of the team, then 2 backup fighters. There is a rock, paper, scissors type of weakness/resistance system in play, so having fighters of different elements is ideal so you can swap between different characters as the need arises.

Now, no good beat ‘em up is complete without awesome attacks and The King Of Fighters ALLSTAR has plenty of them! There is the basic attack button that will let you nail enemies with combos. As you whittle down enemy health you can also employ special moves that are based on selected fighter’s specials from the fighting games. These attacks deal much more damage but require a cooldown period so they cannot be spammed. When you first start out with a fighter, there are only 2 of these attacks unlocked. As you level up you will unlock a 3rd as well as 2 finishing moves. Finishing moves are nice, flashy, damage dealers that are very satisfying to use! As you unlock more fighters to use in the game, you can use them as support fighters to call in and do a quick attack on enemies for extra damage. 

Unleashing a full assault with your team against the waves of enemies is very satisfying. Each enemy has a different behavior, so combining a good defense and offense is key to success. The weakness/advantage system played nicely and I found myself swapping in team members for different missions as the need arose. Boss fights are definitely my favorite parts of each level and as you progress through the game they become increasingly tougher. The difficulty curve of the game is pretty low, so it will be a minute before you begin to get your butt handed to you by the bosses.

After each level, your characters will receive experience and level up increasing their stats. You will also earn other rewards like experience boosts or gold to help unlock additional skills. After certain stages, you will unlock a summon card that will let you unlock more fighters. These cards can vary in the range of fighters they will unlock from the lower tier 4-star fighters up to the more impressive 6-star. There are numerous special events going on at any time to unlock even more limited fighters, so checking back often is ideal. You also get those nice daily login bonuses if you come back every day!

There are a ton of different characters available to unlock, with variants from all of the KOF games and even some new versions of these characters built specifically for this game. Unlocking them all is a bit of a grind as the game is free to play. It wasn’t too long before I had a nice selection though, which I appreciate. So far I haven’t spent a dime and already have around 40 unlocked. If getting them all unlocked quickly is a priority, you can always go the paid route if you desire. 

Visuals

The King of Fighters ALLSTAR is a very pretty game. It uses a stylized art that fits the theme of KOF well. All animations and movements within levels look smooth to me and very flashy depending on the attack. Again, they are very satisfying to use and extravagance is a contributor to that! During story sequences, the game transitions to more of a visual novel-style scene. Characters look great here and have a small animation loop to make things seem more alive.

What It Could Have Done Better

About the only turn off for The King of Fighters ALLSTAR comes from its free to play nature. Things are going to take a while to unlock and getting the fighters you want to use will mostly come down to luck. It isn’t as bad as it could have been, thankfully, but there will definitely be a time investment needed to unlock everyone.

Verdict

For fans of beat ‘em ups or King of Fighters, The King of Fighters ALLSTAR is a fun game. It has a great combat system combined with bite-sized levels to get you right into the action. Reliving the events of The King of Fighters timeline is also a ton of fun. The game gradually ups the difficulty as you play at a good pace so you don’t feel like you are just going to die right away. Unlocking some of your favorite fighters is also a fun moment! Again, it is free to play, so you will sadly have those moments of randomness and grinding thrown in. Overall though, I think this one is worth a download!