Edit 2: battle situations, balance. COTW is a good fighting game, but as an overall package, lacking, in an age when fighting games need to provide more than simply fighting. Do not coddle SNK, they need to do better.

Edit 3: I just realised that there is indeed another hamper on Smart Style, you cannot guard cancel. But it also seems like there is more hit stun! Cool lol

7/10

The gameplay is great, the graphics are good, the presentation is a mixed bag, the accessibility is limited, the story mode could be better, and the community response has been mixed, to say the least. I’m a bit furious about certain things, but I guess it won’t be fatal.

Edit 1: added a note about overheat and attack flows.

Part 1: Gameplay

If you’re a fighting game enthusiast, you’re going to love it. It’s a traditional fighting game, with no comeback mechanics, just raw guessing games at a frenetic pace, with lots of buttons to press and inputs to execute.  Really, at the core of it, it’s either block or attack, and these choices need to made in split seconds, nay, within a frame.

Watching EVO Japan matches, you’ll see how the offense of certain characters is insane with break cancels giving only a tiny gap for the opponent to do something, sometimes with only one option of an invincible reversal, with of course baiting and predicting being a good part of it. Those who loved the universal mechanics of Third Strike and Mark of the Wolves will be at home here.  Throw is performed via a button, along with overhead and dodge attack.  There are lots of things to do in battle and it’s clear that SNK wanted to make a real (traditional) fighting game, to continue the legacy of MOTW, and at the same time, somehow, bring in new players.  The latter point is really the bane of developers and the probably the main issue in this opinion piece.

The balance in the launch of the game seems skewed towards the main players in the story, Rock, Kain, Billy, Terry plus the arguably Japanese fan-favourite Hotaru and the gue$t character Ronaldo.  It’s early days of course, so a balance patch is probably coming with the arrival of Andy. However, unlike what they did with KOFXV, I hope SNK doesn’t change that tier. The most played characters right now are Terry, Rock, Hotaru & Kain. In my opinion it’s not good to change the characters that people are having fun with. Just buff the others. Or just leave it.  There will always be a top tier, and this rank makes sense lore wise and popularity wise. Nerfing them would turn players away and SNK can’t afford that right now.

Unless you use Tizoc and gave up after his bug throw got nerfed, you start the match, go for an attack, or try to just-defend, dash and break guard with a crouching attack, or throw.  Seems pretty simple, and the game rewards the fastest player with the accurate read.  The more practiced player will be attacking with strings that involve multiple buttons presses  (for example, special move, break, extra special move, rev cancel, extra special move, juggle, move or special move, break, special or super), which can be quite exhausting, yet exhilarating.  To stop or interrupt this flow of attack, the opponent needs to find the gap or simply block, and that’s where the mind game begins.

The properties of these moves have been changed to spice things up, so KOF players will be surprised by not being able to punish familiar moves, and especially REV specials, that now have reduced recovery time.

Even with Smart Style, there is no real coddling, and this may come as a surprise to many players after the SF6 experience.  There is no throw protection in this game, throws are 1 frame, the rev blows (reminiscent of drive impact) will mostly lead to knockdowns rather than free combos, and there is no wall splat of death.  There are no throw loops of course, but there is a bit of casino in the wake up game, or when you’re trying to escape rev moves.

Raw full powered supers (called Hidden Gears) will take 40% of your life.  A combo with rev moves and a hidden gear will take about 60 due to scaling.  You can just-defend an anti-air and even though the bounce back seems annoying, you are rewarded with a life energy bonus.  Even with the highest of pressures, there are ways to stay alive such as Rev Guard (which negates chip damage), so one wrong choice will usually cost 40%, but arguably the game gives you two chances to survive combos, the rest involving exchanges of throws and rev blows.  It’s good, and most players say it’s fun, but personally I find KOF is more fluid and less demanding on the fingers. KOF players may not even notice there are hops in this game, for some reason not called small jumps, which are good for punishing grab attempts.

The mental stack is quite high and then there’s the SPG (aka TOP) system which gives you that guard pointed maneuver for the duration of 33.3% of your life, which you can select.  The SPG also unlocks your hidden gear, so if you have two bars, you can then do your ultimate super.  This brings an element of strategy to the game, so you could for example put SPG in the first third of your life bar, save all your meter with the intention of winning the first round, then unleash your hidden gear on a jumping opponent and clean off 40% of the opponent’s life.  The rest of the round will be spent trying to land pokes and ‘normal’ combos.

The balance of the match is well thought out, however, it’s not really a progression from the first game, in fact, there’s no new original system mechanic, and some would say that’s to allow MOTW, SF3 and SF6 players to jump in with ease.  For me it’s a little bit disappointing, but it is true that I don’t find anything alien in the game, it’s just the mental stack that is hard to manage, but it’s not as stressful as SF6.  Note that you have to think about how many moves you can do, as too many will cause an OVERHEAT.  This is an interesting balancing act, preventing players going on the full offense and giving opponents a chance to breathe.  Is it fun though?  Arguably it brings more fun for both players, rather than one.

Even with less stress, the stack is what brings us to the first pressing issue with the game: does it really need to be so difficult to play?  How are new players supposed to catch up with the veterans?  Will Smart Style really level the field and is that fair?

If you’re not good with quarter circle motions, or your reactions are a bit slow, you’re going to be frustrated with the experience, as with every fighting game. Ah, you say, but you’re not frustrated with those arena fighters and platform fighters, ah indeed, good point, one of the big debates is now whether SNK, and other companies, are gatekeeping fighting games, through their control systems.

Even when you select the accessible simple mode entitled “Smart Style”, you’re going to find that you can’t do what the full mode players can, and your experience will be reduced to something like Street Fighter 2, or Fatal Fury 2, which isn’t bad, and is quite enjoyable, but it’s merely the tip of the iceberg in terms of the depth of combat that is entrenched within the heart of City of the Wolves. And so, you don’t feel smart, you feel condescended. The adults have patted you on the head, here you go little one, play with this, then when you are ready to play with the adults, come see us in arcade mode.

Smart Style is certainly a fun mode, and players should be encouraged to use it, especially if you’re a casual enjoyer on a Friday evening with a few beers.  As for ranked mode, it can arguably get you to around rank A but anything above that requires patience and mind reading.

The evolution of an SS player’s gameplay will look something like this:

1. mashing the special button
2. Finding the sweep button
3. Finding the Rev blow button and not understanding why it doesn’t work all the time
4. Quitting and playing a different game
5. Stop mashing and start blocking (not many get to this stage)
6. Poke poke special and anti-air if they jump
7. Dashing and throwing
8. Learning combos
9. Just defending into Rev Blow
10. Realising that you can’t feint or break and this may have been a waste of time

When players do decide to embark on the journey that we shall call Arcade Mode, they will see how the gameplay switches from Smart Style’s basic 1990s fighters punch kick special move style into ‘holy shit I can’t move, where is the gap, should I press a button here or use my invincible reversal?  Oh wait I don’t have one, I need to switch to Rock Howard.’  When a smart style player fights an arcade mode player they will notice they will be faced with a long string of attacks, with feints and breaks, and realise they need to go back to training mode and pay close attention to the plus and minus frame data.  They will need to sit and learn how to just defend Hotaru and Billy Kane’s multi-hit attack and even then, adjust their timing depending on the ping when fighting online.  Try hard?  Try very hard.

And there we’re back to that debate of gatekeeping: simple controls versus requiring a high level of skill, getting gud, as it were.

The mental gymnastics of fighting games is a sore point for most casual players. It’s also a point for battle designers, as they try to find a middle ground between fun and depth. However, is depth even necessary? Do we really need more than punch kick and a few special moves?  I’ll answer this after explaining the system, which some might say is overly complicated, while others would call it deep and satisfying.

Everyone reading this should know that in fighting games the basic objective is to find an opening, the easiest example is jumping over a fireball. The next level is breaking an opponent who can block, like seeing someone put their dukes up and therefore kicking them in the shins. At the highest level it becomes a rock paper scissors. The latest games have been trying to expand on this with a pentagon, or the devil’s star, lol, again, it’s a matter of perspective.

As the opponent stands up:

• Attack beats jump
• Hop beats grab
• Grab beats block
• Meaty beats attack
• Rev blow beats attack
• Throw beats rev blow
• Super beats rev blow

It’s really no wonder why some prefer a simple game of Street Fighter 2, and the casual player doesn’t really wan’t to go further than that. The average gamer still can’t execute a quarter circle forward. This has never been so evident that watching the vtuber and celebrity matches. They didn’t (or it didn’t occur to them to) select smart style. Like, what in the fuckery fuck is the point of simplifying controls if people don’t even use them. It’s doing my nut in. I’m trying to remember which game made control schemes clear, but even looking at CVS2, it’s overly complicated. As for  COTW, you click on ONLINE, then Arcade Mode, then choose a character, and if you don’t press down to change your colours and SPG etc, you will start the game not knowing that Smart Style exists.  It’s the same for the other modes, but we’ll talk about how bad the menus are in another post.

Smart style allows you to mash a button to get a light or heavy combo. It’s always the same one. Once started, it is locked. You cannot press a direction to get a different result and there is no ending with a different special or super (unlike KOFXV).  Smart style feels so limited, but in fact there is another way to use it, as the mode allows for some inputs to be used, and special moves can chain into each other, just not from the auto combo starter.  So, with a little work you can unlock some cool stuff.  Work, you say? Why did the battle planner decide to punish mashers?

Update about Smart Style: you cannot guard cancel, as in just defend and then guard cancel into a special move using the shortcut button.  However, you can guard cancel if you actually input the traditional input.  Hotaru is an absolute menace in this mode, while others like Billy Kane can’t take advantage as their moves are very slow.  Wow.  They really want you to put in work.  I’m not sure this will.  There’s still some other things to find out, and some characters like Preecha really benefit from the mode.   I can’t prove it right now but it feels like moves have more hit stun which makes it very easy and fun to play in Smart Style.

There are two ways to look at the smart system: a noble gateway to playing properly, to actually stop stupid mashing, to make players smart. Or it’s a stubborn battle dev who decided that they know what’s best for casual players. Because of this mindset, it’s arguably gatekeeping casuals from having fun. If you don’t learn to stop mashing, you will never see a super move.  And this is what I was talking about before, I think the real reason that Smart Style is limited because if it enables players to do everything that Arcade Mode allows, there is no more reason to do quarter circle forwards, and it marks the end of the traditional era of fighting game inputs, perhaps the end of fighting games as we knew them, to be replaced by controls similar to Smash Bros, an accessible  fighting game played and watched by millions and millions.  Is that really so bad?  Wouldn’t that mean a ton more people joining the game? Well, it looks like SNK doesn’t want to see it happen like this, at least, not yet.

Mashers aside, using smart style has been great fun and I’ve been able to climb to B rank, against players who can do break combos and special moves feints. It makes me wonder if there is additional frame advantage in smart style because I can confirm a hit very easily, considering my age and lower than average response time.  I’m pretty sure my opponents feel outraged, as they made efforts to learn combos while I mashed, however, I hope they will understand that the max damage I can do using smart style is limited – I can’t do anything more than say 10% from a crouching attack.  In a high level match, I won’t be able to capitalise on such openings when it’s vital and scarce.  So what’s the point?  Well, apart from panicking and instinctively pressing hard punch when I should be pressing the special button, it’s simply less effort and fun.  I’ve been able to try different characters and simply adapt the same gameplay: random special move, get in close or go for crossup, poke, anti air or dodge attack, run close, overhead or crouching attack or throw,  build meter, pressure them into jumping and do hidden gear.  Rinse and repeat.

Interestingly, SNK knew that SS would benefit certain characters more than others, which is why Hokutomaru cannot finish his smart style combo with two SPGs. Fortunately you can enter this command yourself (mashers won’t realise this), but you can’t do it from the light punch auto combo!  SNK won’t spoil players, but this may alienate players in the end. Their aim is to get players to learn arcade mode, but as sales show, not everyone wants to try hard.  We’ll look at the other parts of the game next.  I’ll leave you with the actual trailer for the game, which arrived … a little bit late.