The zenith of KOF gameplay next to XIII to me. Except this has rollback and XIII's pc port is stuck with poopy delay based netcode. The roster's massive with very few duds (even low tiers like maxima and whip can still hurt plenty) , it's both way simpler to get into than it looks with very condensed movelists and a bunch of universal motions for most supers. The movement always is what sets the series appart from its competition to me with rolling, running , hops and super jumps adding so much more spice and flow to even the best of street fighters. It's not quite anime tier with air dashes and 20+ air hit combos and a lot of characters are geared towards fundamentals and neutral than jumping around like maniacs , and it's that balance and freedom that really just make it click for a filthy casual like me. The (lack of) imput buffer can make supers especially hard to imput on a pinch but aside from that it's impressive how smooth it still feels to play after 2 decades. The presentation isn't as good as og 2002 , 2001 , 98 or XIII , with Hiroaki Hashimoto replacing Shinkiro and NONA's god tier art with kinda generic falcoon-esque pieces , overall UI and stylings of the game definitely feels more utilitarian and basic to accomodate the gajilion characters than prior games. The port also seems to never get the pixel scaling right with some of them being wider or shrunk down on a constant basis , it kinda feels like a bit of a janky early 2000s port but the netcode is rock solid and that's all that really matters.

That's kind of what 02 UM is in essence, a VERY down to business dream match that hits a really good balance between kusoge bs (many special moves are so good or quirky that a lot got turned into supers in future games , the stuff you can super armor / I frame into is also wild) and super solid tight gameplay. I really wish it had more of that golden age SNK style outside of the perfect legacy sprites but as a video game you play and mechanically engage with, it's just the best kof game.

Please bring rollback to XIII so I can suck that game off instead 😔

Tem a Angel então é 10/10.