King of the Fighters XIV is now available to buy on Playstation 4 and Steam. Strange, considering the franchise made its home debut on a cartridge. Just one of the reasons why SNK Playmore need to bring the King of the Fighters 14 to Nintendo Switch.
King of the Fighters and the cartridge
Rewind to 1994 and SNK had released an arcade-perfect port of King of the Fighters 94, for their cartridge-based AES home console. The new franchise brought characters together from other well-known SNK arcade hits such as Fatal Fury, Art of Fighting, Ikari Warriors, and Psycho Soldier. Although the price of the Neo Geo AES console (as well as the cartridges themselves) were far beyond the financial reach of the average home gamer, the quality of the games were unmatched. King of the Fighters also made cartridge appearances on Gameboy, Gameboy Advance, N-Gage and Neo Geo Pocket Colour.
How King of the Fighters XIV would look on Nintendo Switch
Skip forward to present day and it has been almost 12 years since the franchise hit any form of cartridge (N-Gage in 2005), and almost 13 years since the franchise hit a home console (SNK’s final year of Neo Geo AES software support, back in 2004). Surely SNK should bring King of Fighters XIV to Nintendo Switch? Not only would this move be more faithful to the games retro roots, but would technically count as a return to both handheld and home consoles.
The cartridge isn’t the only reason for King of the Fighters 14 on Nintendo Switch
Cast aside the history and you’re still left with a truly great 2.5D fighter that was only let down by its online play. A huge amount of playable characters and technical learning curve, make King of the Fighters XIV a strong contender against even the better looking and more current fighter releases. The Steam version has added 4 DLC characters, 10 DLC costumes, digital art book and the soundtrack. These can easily be added to the standard Switch release (and we always think extras like manga’s/graphic novels and art books are always going to be better suited to a handheld system).
Online play was an issue with both PS4 and Steam releases, so if SNK could work with Nintendo to improve this, add Gameboy Advance and other classic releases, the Nintendo Switch version could well become the must-own fighter.
There are some amazing super moves in King of the Fighters XIV and even a few comical ones as well. Check out one of Yuri Sakazaki’s more humorous specials:
After bursting into her special, Yuri Sakazaki poses for her fans, gives a gesture to Switch haters and then lets us know what she thinks of a King of the Fighters XIV Nintendo Switch port
Let us know if you would like to see King of the Fighters XIV ported to the Nintendo Switch (and any extras you’d think would light-up the Switch version), as well as any other fighters you’d like to see ported to Nintendo’s new system.
Related Posts
