The King of Fighters Neowave

Overview

The King of Fighters Neowave, often shortened as KOF Neowave, or KOF NW, is a 2004 2D fighting game produced by SNK Playmore. It is their first coin-operated arcade game for Sammy's Atomiswave hardware, following the release of The King of Fighters 2003 being the final Neo Geo arcade installment from the franchise. Home ports were released for PlayStation 2 and Xbox shortly after its release in the arcade. The game is loosely based on The King of Fighters 2002, with some changes to the roster and stages, most notably featuring the boss Geese Howard from Art of Fighting 2, replacing Rugal Bernstein.

The game features no narrative. The character artwork was done by Tomokazu Nakano, famous for creating art for Power Instinct. The game uses the common fighting system of the series involving the creation of teams each composed of three characters who compete against one another to decide which team moves on. The two console ports also added multiple hidden characters not present in the arcade. Compared to usual The King of Fighters games, Neowave received a mediocre reception, with several writers criticizing its lack of innovative features as well as being called inferior to previous installments.

Official trailer

Game Intro. Watch on YouTube

Screenshots

Game details

Genres

Fighting

Developer

SNK Playmore

Publisher

Sammy, SNK Playmore

Series

The King of Fighters

Engine

Taito Type X, Atomiswave

Platforms

Xbox, PlayStation 3, Xbox One, PlayStation 2

Age rating

ESRB T

Modes

Single player

Yes

Local multiplayer

Yes

Online multiplayer

Yes

Co op

No

Age ratings

PEGI

12

ESRB

T

CERO

B

Release dates

Playable today

Credits

Publisher

Sammy, SNK Playmore

Developer

SNK Playmore

Released

2005-07-21

Age rating

ESRB T

Region

US

Time to beat

about 0.4 hours