The King of Fighters 2002

The King of Fighters 2002: Challenge to Ultimate Battle is a fighting game developed by Eolith and published by Playmore in October 10, 2002, initially for the Neo-Geo MVS arcades. Which was later ported to Neo-Geo AES, Dreamcast, PlayStation 2, Xbox, Microsoft Windows (either Steam or GOG.com), Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 & Xbox One.

It is the ninth installment in the main series and the second as a dream match (like KOF98), meaning that the game does not have a plot and only gathers the best from all previous games.

The game is best known for most of the YouTube videos being in either Spanish, Portuguese or even Simplified Chinese. Even more than English.

Good Qualities
WARNING: Do not include any kind of "feature" from hacked versions like Magic Plus II, 10th Anniversary or Super 2004. This article will only cover the legal ("pure") version of the game.

Overall

 * 1) It is very popular in some countries like Mexico, Brazil, China and even South Korea. It even surpasses most Street Fighter games, and there is a reason.
 * 2) The King of Fighters 2002 is a dream match. This means that the game does not have a plot, tries to gather all fighters from all previous games and only mixes the best mechanics the franchise can give.
 * 3) Despite the development by Eolith (due to SNK's bankruptcy in 2000/2001), KOF2002 is a pretty noticeable improvement over KOF2001.
 * 4) Choose between 39 fighters (43, if considering hidden alternate versions of existing ones) to play with! Not including Omega Rugal, which is not playable normally (for the Neo-Geo & Arcade versions).
 * 5) *Between all Neo-Geo era KOF games, 2002 has the largest roster.
 * 6) Just like every KOF game, the battle rounds are turn-based with trios. This gives a difference over almost every arcade fighting game, which is 2 rounds to win for an one-on-one fight.
 * 7) *The Striker system seen from KOF99 to KOF2001 (which consists in calling a reserved fighter to attack) was removed. Said system was responsible for most of the bugs and glitches from said games, anyways.
 * 8) The Quick Cancel allows you to quickly move from a Special Move hit to another one, which is awesome for combos! This is only possible during the MAX-ON state and the timer drains faster when triggered.
 * 9) This is the first time in the series where an guard meter was added, if you see the life gauge blinking, your guard meter is about to be broken.
 * 10) It's the first and only game where you can choose the team you want to face (doesn't apply in the 6 round of the PS2/Xbox versions), this can be useful if you usually have a hard time against some team.
 * 11) Hidden Super Desperation Moves. Enough said.
 * 12) *The strongest moves in the game. To trigger them, you must have 2 stock bars and your health bar must be 30% or lower. All characters have it's individual command inputs to trigger.
 * 13) The game is in English with Japanese voices for all regions (despite the development team being from both Japan and South Korea). The translation is only made for victory quotes.
 * 14) Unique OST soundfont.
 * 15) Decent voice acting, if not in anime level of quality. Highlights for anyone that sounded bad in KOF2001, which were redubbed here. The same applies for the announcer.

Home console versions

 * 1) 3 new characters (Geese Howard, Goenitz & Orochi Iori) were added (alongside with the return King and Shingo Yabuki from the Dreamcast version, somating 5). Now there is a total of 48!
 * 2) *All these new characters are unlockable via challenges like Time Attack.
 * 3) The Dreamcast version has the stun mechanic, which it was removed from the original version for some odd reason.
 * 4) You can play with the boss normally.
 * 5) Interface and portraits were remastered from 320x224 to 640x480.
 * 6) 3D remade stages! 2 of them are totally new and the rest are in a new angle.
 * 7) Just like in the other ports of previous games the projectiles got a transparency / color blending, which reasonably looks good.
 * 8) The Xbox version has a color edit mode and an online mode.

Overall

 * 1) Omega Rugal is back, and worse than ever. With it's ultra-fast Kaiser Wave (and even has 3 forms if delayed), high-dealing Genocide Cutter, projectile-reflecting Dark Barrier and various other moves, frustration is guaranteed.
 * 2) There are some cheap/unbalanced characters like K9999 and Kula Diamond while others were seriously nerfed like Takuma Sakazaki, the reason about this is mainly because some of their moves were removed (e.g. Yuri lost the chou knuckle) or nerfed (e.g. Ralf's Blitzkrieg punch can't damage the opponent when it's lying on the floor anymore).
 * 3) Ugly promotional artwork.
 * 4) K9999 (one of the cheap characters) has a very strong resemblance to Tetsuo Shima from Akira. With appearance, quotes, movements and even has the same voice actor. This obviously resulted in a lawsuit.
 * 5) *As a result, K9999 was changed to Nameless in the Unlimited Match version.
 * 6) Although hard to trigger, there are many bugs and glitches. Just search for them on YouTube and you'll find a lot.
 * 7) Blood is removed from western versions for some reason, though it came back on the home console versions.
 * 8) For some reason there are combos who can't be executed without the use of the MAX-ON state when in KOF 2001 they can be made by default.
 * 9) Some moves like Athena's psycho medley are still hard to execute, that shows that the developers were lazy to change their command from the previous game.
 * 10) Wall bounce was ruined, you have to do an specific move (e.g. the one-inch fist of K') just when the opponent is running to you or as a form of a counter, because of this you can hardly use it to make combos.
 * 11) *On that topic several characters lost this attribute, while some of them like Ramon have sense, some others like Robert doesn't, and depending of the character this can make his overall performance be reduced significantly.
 * 12) The cutscenes in the credits/staff roll is a cringefest.

Arcade & Neo-Geo AES

 * 1) The hacked versions said above (with Magic Plus II being the worst offender) are way more common than the legit "real deal" game. Making some people think that some oddities like in-battle character change (tag), gauge recovering, free HSDMs (no 30% life needed), minimized/deformed characters, etc. are possible. None of these mechanics are possible on the original.
 * 2) There is a rare probability of getting a "TASK OVER !!", depending on what happens in the middle of the fight. Notice that the game slows down during this. If that happen at the point of worsen, the game will freeze. Forcing you to reset the machine. All credits and progress will be lost.
 * 3) May Lee Jinju, although good to play with, enters in a broken state when the opponent does a Quick Cancel without any collision or a Quick MAX-ON. Hitting her fixes the problem.
 * 4) King (the tomboyish waitress) is absent for the first time, considering that she was present since the first game in the series. Thankfully, she returned in later ports.

Home console versions

 * 1) The Dreamcast version didn't have an graphic upgrade or exclusive content aside from the stun mecanic, a far cry from the previous KOF ports and a lackluster way of end the series on the Sega's consoles.
 * 2) Those 3 new characters for the PS2/Xbox versions (Goenitz, Geese & Orochi Iori) are recycled from SVC Chaos, with no visible changes whatsoever.
 * 3) The gameplay's unbalancement wasn't fixed at all, even the exclusive characters weren't adapted or balanced properly.
 * 4) *Geese can make infinite combos without the use of the MAX-ON mode.
 * 5) *Shingo elbow rarely makes the opponent bounce against the wall even if it's done on the mentioned way.
 * 6) *King can't cancel the illusion dance into her SDM version on MAX-ON mode.
 * 7) *Iori Orochi's 8 cups doesn't deal any damage and he's the only character whose CD attack is useless.
 * 8) *Goenitz is still slow and his tornados can be evaded.
 * 9) Due to the add of the new characters these ports have new glitches.
 * 10) For some reason the analog stick is not supported on the PlayStation 2 version. This is a problem, because the game is infamous for command inputs and combos that makes players want to move the arcade stick like crazy. To rub more salt in the wounds, the PlayStation 2's D-pad is allegedly uncomfortable, meaning that sore thumbs are fully guaranteed.