SNK yanked its King of Fighters stars out of the combat arena to star in a top-down shooter. No, the concept isn’t for everyone (where does Mai Shiranui get all those bullets from, anyway?), but fans of the genre will thoroughly enjoy King of Fighters Skystage for what it is, a moderately likeable distraction.
Robert Workman (RunDLC)
PlayDevil has taken a closer look at the latest shooter from SNK Playmore, "King Of Fighters: Sky Stage".
Can the King of Fighters rule the sky?
Here's more:
"On the topic of characters and stereotyping it is hard to ignore the combat classes of each of the characters. With six characters on offer there is some diversity to the play styles available, but the basic key to understanding each character’s class is simply ‘male = offence, female = defence’. It is an effective shortcut to understanding but again feels slightly lazy in a genre not bound by the more conventional biological rules applied to it parent fighting series."
Console Monster: "When you think of the King of Fighters games you would probably imagine two overly powerful people competing against each other in an arena with punches, kicks and specials but SNK’s King of Fighters Sky Stage sees six characters from their popular fighting game fly through the skies in this vertical shooting game, battling robots and saving the world, of course."
"KOF: SS has none of the elan or poise that an Ikaruga or R-Type Dimensions would offer, and crucially none of the fun either. The overriding feeling of playing Sky Stage is one of asphyxiating banality.Ending up as a game which isn’t for fans of the King of Fighters series, nor those who hanker after a halfway decent shmup experience, King of Fighter: Sky Stage is every bit the ugly abomination that its premise suggests it to be. "
