The latest character from Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is a tall blond guy with a baseball cap. Old fans of fighting games cheered, but many others had a simple question: Wait, who?
The call rang so loud that the serial producer and well-known SNK fan Masahiro Sakurai heard about it, and decided to offer a crash course in neo-geo history in addition to his video presentation on the cult developer’s mascot, Terry Bogard.
“Who?” Is not an unreasonable question. SNK and its Neo Geo platform, available both in gaming arcades and as a home console, have never achieved the visibility they have enjoyed in other parts of the world in North America.
SNK made its best arcade games after the American arcade was already life sustaining. Consoles of the day failed to capture the detailed 2D animations of SNK’s best games, resulting in ugly ports that did not live up to reality. The publishers stopped releasing Neo Geo console ports outside of Japan in the late 1990s. The developer was therefore so obscure that he might also be invisible to players who were not already part of the fighting game cult.
However, SNK’s American ignorance does not negate either productive production or its influence on the genre. At its height, SNK released three or four fighting games in a year, and the fans ate it. There were several combat franchises at once, including a flagship series, The King of Fighters, which hit the market in 1994, encompassing a host of characters from across the company’s entire squad while reinterpreting certain characters from its older arcade games.
The King of Fighters could have laid the foundations for the Super Smash Bros. concept, though that’s only my guess. But it is not just an idle theory. Even the invitation envelope from Smash Bros., featured in so many promotional videos, directly references The King of Fighters.
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Despite its incredible performance, SNK has never worked its own job at all. it continued to experiment. Neo-geo-fighting games introduced the developers of SNK in a very short time, from weapons to tag team matches and interactive arenas. When these ideas clicked, the competitors lent them out. Even the sacred Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo has refined the concept of super moves from the first experiments of SNK.
Super Smash Bros., though a great experiment in itself, is no exception. While some smash fans were hoping for a more recognizable character, Smash Bros. as a whole has borrowed so much from SNK games that Terry is a natural fit. In fact, an SNK sign would probably have had to be inserted much earlier.
Smash Bros. is not just a way for Nintendo to remember modern characters, but also to engage new players in classic characters, games and even music. The series has a lot to thank SNK and The King of Fighters, and I would like to take you on a tour to those inspirations, if you have a minute or two left.
Smash Bros. moves like King of Fighters
Super Smash Bros. is well known and loved for its sturdy motion systems. The controls are easy to learn for everyone and it is immediately enjoyable walking around on the screen. The Basic Movement options also give advanced players the freedom they need to perform tricky, precise moves.
While Smash’s jumps and aerial actions are more likely to be due to traditional platform series such as Mario and Kirby, the freedom of movement on the ground has much to do with The King of Fighters.
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In contrast to the slow, intentional tempo and mixing in Street Fighter, the King of Fighters series has introduced a fast movement that allows players to run, roll, jump and jump across the screen in angles in which the opponent can guess , To do justice to the running and jumping of Mario and his friends, the creators of Super Smash Bros. have probably turned to the high-speed fighting game for at least some of his motion ideas.
Short hopping
From The King of Fighters ’98.
The King of Fighters offers players four different jumps with their own speed and trajectory, making air strikes hard to predict. Of these, Super Smash Bros. lends the short jump. One of the techniques that makes The King of Fighters a singularly aggressive game is that players can make a short jump with a quick tap and immediately attack from the air, forcing the opponent to switch between high and low at any time To advise attack.
Note the very similar trajectory of the hop in Super Smash Bros. Although there is no “High Guard” or “Low Guard” in Smash, short hop is used the same way as in The King of Fighters: tacking fast from the front is a difficult angle that avoids minor attacks. Smash players regularly use short hop combined with fast attacks to capture an opponent and guess what’s coming next.
In Street Fighter 2 and its contemporaries, jumping is a predictable action that is easily penalized and causes players to spend most of the game on the ground. With the introduction of an unpredictable air movement – and especially the short hop – the King of Fighters laid the groundwork for the kind of intense air combat Super Smash Bros. would later master so well.
Dodge and roll
Both the evasion and roll mechanics in Super Smash Bros. are identical to those in The King of Fighters. These movements avoid instant attacks if the player stays open afterwards.
This clip shows the standing dodge in The King of Fighters ’98. Although King of Fighters games have abandoned the standing evasive maneuver for the dodge maneuver throw, the original idea behind the standing evasive maneuver works perfectly for Super Smash Bros., where it remains to this day.
Even the dodge attitude in Super Smash Bros. is similar to the way characters shift their weight away from the camera in The King of Fighters. The train is functionally identical between the two series. Dodge at the right time and you are safe. But if you do not dodge in time, you will be hit.
Although the Dodge Roll has become an integral part of all action games, its implementation in Super Smash Bros. is again identical to that of The King of Fighters. This highly effective escape brings the fighters out of immediate danger, but if you predict and wait for a toss, the opponent is wide open during the recovery.
While The King of Fighters expects players to instinctively understand the dodge, Super Smash Bros. shows players this moment of vulnerability. The character stops flashing at the end of a throw, a sure “hit me!” – Character.
In particular, the throw-away gives players a sense of security and freedom. This ensures that a player is not completely excluded from the game by a persistent offense by the opponent, as was often the case in the Street Fighter series. Part of the user-friendly appeal of Smash compared to other fighting games is simply that players can easily get out of trouble. Without the evasive maneuvers that Smash borrowed-and, in my opinion, The King of Fighters-the Smash series would be a different beast today.
Super Moves: an invention of SNK
It is no longer enough to have only “special” moves in a fighting game. There must be constant attacks, with the most noticeable special effects causing overwhelming damage. From Dragon Ball FighterZ to Mortal Kombat, the Super Move may have become a compelling selling point if you want to present your game to a mainstream audience.
Excerpt from Fatal Fury Special, the update / extension for Fatal Fury 2.
One of the earliest games, whose move was more impressive than the standard attack, was 1992’s Fatal Fury 2 with Terry Bogard. (The inventor of the super-move is SNK’s own Art of Fighting, released a few months earlier.) When a player’s life bar is low enough to flash red, he gains access to an unusually strong “desperate move” that he executes can use as often as you want.
If that sounds familiar, it’s because the Smash Ultimate developers brought the Fatal Fury 2 “Desperation Move” system for Terry directly to Smash Bros. The Terry player, who repeatedly uses Power Geyser in Smash, has an age-old power.
The Super Smash Bros. Brawl introduced Final Smash fits perfectly. Although you activate it by chasing an object instead of charging an electricity meter, the overcrowded attack definitely follows the old tradition initiated by the game designers of SNK.
Wutmodus
A mechanic that was introduced in later Smash Bros. games and states that these inspirations have taken place over time is anger. In simple terms, the more damage a player takes, the farther his attacks will make the opponent fly. This effect has been greatly reduced in Smash Ultimate, but you will still see it when the damage mark gets redder and redder.
Finally, the character has blown steam from her body. If both players suffer high damage, each hit will cause the other fighter to fly noticeably, bringing them a little closer to the knockout. It’s a great way to create excitement at the end of a game and push the fighters for a decisive final strike.
From Samurai Shodown 2, 1994.
In the Super Special Moves of Fatal Fury introduced Samurai Shodown of SNK in 1993, the anger mechanics. As characters score, their complexions turn redder and a “rage ad” at the bottom fills. When the display is full, the fighters receive a powerful damage booster and have access to their most powerful technique, which shatters the opponent’s weapon and makes them defenseless.
Years later, Tekken 6 also took on rage mechanics, and when Bandai Namco began working on Smash in the Wii U generation, mysterious anger also surfaced there.
Squad Strike is the King of Fighters mode
Bandai Namco Studios, Sora Ltd./Nintendo
The three-on-three screen in The King of Fighters 98: Ultimate Match.SNK
You may have discovered a new mode in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, where teams of three or five fighters compete against each other in a knockout format. This is exactly the format used by the King of Fighters series!
To illustrate the core idea of the characters from Fatal Fury and Art of Fighting, SNK came up with the idea of three-on-three team fights. Not only has this knocked the KOF off others, it has also meant that the battles last slightly longer than the traditional best-of-three bouts, making them quietly one of the best values for your quarters in the gambling hall.
Even before Terry was working as a Smash Bros. character, Ultimate developers decided to add a mode that directly copies the format of The King of Fighters, even though nobody really noticed or used it. The influence is profound.
Terry is fine!
Choosing Terry Bogard for Smash Bros. is more than a fan selection and more than just an allusion to the history of video games. Sakurai and his team had the opportunity to integrate Terry into Smash and to thank a variety of games by a developer who has helped shape the world’s most popular fighting game.
It has never been easier to play SNK games in a way that remains true to their arcade originals – and at a much lower price. Most of the Neo-Geo library, including masterpieces such as Mark of the Wolves and Samurai Shodown 2, is currently available on the switch.
“Who?” Was a reasonable phone call a few months ago, but I assure you that finding out about Terry Bogard is much more fun than asking. And if you want to see Smash become a fighting juggernaut today, you can do much worse than dive into the history of SNK’s fighting games.
Do not think of it as a homework assignment. These are still some of the most entertaining fighting games on the market. And after trying one or two times, you may feel embarrassed if you make the fighting game look like you’re saying the Pixies sound too much nirvana.
