There’s a lot of heat passin’ around right now about the new Street Fighter IV that will be hitting home very soon. It’s received a lot of praise about the new graphical approach its taken, and in that respect its well-deserved. They’ve done 3D exceptionally. The primary factor that drives it above the competition is that it doesn’t try to be photo-realistic or gray and brown but instead achieves a wonderfully stylized vision that suits the series’s roots.

However, this post is actually about a franchise that is also being revamped. Granted, it’s a lesser-known series, but it still has a strong following. The King of Fighters has always held a place in my heart, at least. Whether it’s the ever-changing game mechanics that are fresh in each and every iteration, the sheer amount of characters that is ever-growing still, or even the sprites and animation that each have so much care, detail, and attention attributed to every single one, this fighting series has remained a strong underdog in this shrinking market.

With the latest chapter, SNK Playmore has taken it upon themselves to finally update the graphics from the more-than-a-decade old set they’ve been using for the last 11 or so games, in addition to other titles of theirs not a part of this particular series. Rather than going into the details of the full HD rendered sprites and the soft shadow and lighting effects, here is a fat truckload (go to page 2) of videos from the first location test for the game. I feel these three are the best.
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