Now that we have Capcom’s Street Fighter V and SNK’s The King of Fighters XIV I wanted to digest both games to see which one is the better fighting game because you know there has always the discussion of which is the better fighting game series so let’s find out shall we?
Street Fighter V has been out for about seven months and still adding a couple more features. The King of Fighters XIV has been out for almost a month.
To start things off let’s talk about the Graphics. Were now in the age of 3D fighting games on a 2D plane. Capcom was the first to do this with Street Fighter IV and now SNK has joined the trend with The King of Fighters XIV unless you want to count Maximum Impact. In a lot of fighting games graphics aren’t the most important thing. It’s mainly the roster and gameplay. You sometimes forget about the graphics if the gameplay is awesome. Now most 2D fighting game fans don’t like how certain characters transform into their 3D models but if we're going to pick who has the better graphics I would have to give to Street Fighter V. Now not all characters look good in their 3D model (cough cough Ken….) but most of the 3D models look really good such as Cammy who I really love and Chun-li. Karen looks beautiful as well it almost seems as though i’m in love with the female models than the males.
Now The King of Fighters XIV graphics aren’t the best. It’s definitely a slight improvement from the announcement trailer. Now I always wasn’t the biggest fan of The King of Fighters sprites except for the The King of Fighters XIII I did like those character sprites. But bad character sprites never stopped me from having fun in a fighting game.
The second thing that I want to get into is one of the most important thing in a fighting game is the gameplay. Both games followed its traditional gameplay with a few tweaks. Street Fighter V is still a footsie game and a bit slower than its predecessor especially when it comes to projectiles… The V trigger is definitely a huge game changer that makes the game different from Street Fighter IV.
The King of Fighters XIV gameplay is a little bit more tougher than Street Fighter V. The King of Fighters is more offensive. You can still play a little bit of a footsie game but you really want to put pressure on your opponent. Max mode is the biggest feature in this game. To be successful at this game players need to use Max mode to extend their combos and deliver powerful combos.
Combos are the biggest thing in fighting games. It’s really hard to say which game has an easier combo system to perform. They are both different in their own way but I will say Street Fighter combos aka links are a little more patient meaning that you can’t perform these actions super fast. Sometimes you to pause. The King of Fighters XIV combos aren’t the easiest to do. It requires great execution and you have to be fast too especially when you enter Max Mode during your combo.
Now I can’t really say which has the better gameplay. I like how both of them are different. It depends on what type of player you are.
Third topic is another important feature is the roster. When Street Fighter V was released it only featured 16 characters. Now for me I wasn’t really happy because 16 characters isn’t enough for a fighting game especially in this generation. DLC characters were being released every month players could buy them or use fight money that they earn by playing the game but in my opinion I believe these characters should’ve already been in the game on it’s release date.
The King of Fighters XIV roster is huge. I was really surprised that it would feature 50 characters but it was a great idea. The King of Fighters is a team based game so you would expect a huge roster but 50 was perfect I definitely hope to see more DLC along the road.
For the roster I have to give it to The King of Fighters XIV. I mean you have 50 characters to choose from it can sometimes be overwhelming. It’s not to say that Street Fighter V roster is bad but it can definitely have more than 22 characters. Now I will say that the character roster from both games that all characters play different no one really plays the same and that's what you want in a fighting game. And I will say both games seem to be missing some classic characters which we hope to see in the future.
Next we’ll talk about the modes they feature. When Street Fighter V was released it was missing a good amount of modes. There wasn’t a whole lot to do offline. There’s a character individual story mode that only had about three fights. It’s pretty short and confusing. Of course players have training mode to practice their combos. Another offline mode is the frustrating survival mode. There are four difficulty levels of survival mode. Players would play this mode to gain more fight money and unlock character colors. This mode annoyed a lot of players. At times you get closer and closer but tend to lose in the final match. There’s of course versus mode. Challenge mode wasn’t available at first but it was available the next month. In challenge players complete trails for characters and also learn more about their favorite characters moves and learn the advantages and disadvantages. General Story mode wasn’t available until the summer.
The King of Fighters XIV had a good amount of offline modes when released. They have Story Mode which is basically the Arcade Mode with endings. There’s Versus, Training, Mission that features Trail (same thing as Street Fighter V minus character playstyle), Time Attack and Survival. All these modes were available when it was released. As far as I know SNK didn’t say anything about more features coming in the future.
When it comes to offline modes I have to give it to The King of Fighters XIV mainly due to the fact that it has a good amount of modes when it was released. Street Fighter V was really lacking modes when it was released. I mean it’s good that now they have a trail and story mode but these modes should’ve already been in the game when it was released and they are still missing an Arcade mode. Now it’s not to say The King of Fighters isn’t some features too. Their Story Mode is pretty much an Arcade mode. So I guess you argue that they have both but it would’ve been better if they had both Story and Arcade Mode just like in The King of Fighters XIII.
Now the last part I want to dive in is the Online Mode. Online is another important feature in fighting games especially if you don’t have a friend to play it with on the couch.
Street Fighter V features Ranked Match where you battle players to improve your rank, Casual Match where you battle players that don’t affect your rank and Battle Lounge is where players can host rooms that can have up to eight players. For the ranked and Casual matches players have to go to battle settings and pick their character because there is no character select. Once you pick your character in battle settings they become the character you will use in both ranked and casual matches. Now at first Battle Lounge could only hold up to two people which was a problem. Capcom fixed this problem the next month after its release. In that same month Ranked and Casual match made the option to have a rematch best two out of three which was a great idea. I guess Capcom wanted to make it more like tournament settings and sometimes you just want revenge against certain players. Connection wasn’t bad it was more of a loading time before the match which was annoying and another problem was the rage quits. Capcom will finally fix this problem soon.
Now The King of Fighters XIV online is quite interesting. There’s ranked match and free match. Just like in Street Fighter V players have to register their favorite character before playing a ranked match. I’m a huge fan of Free Match. Free match is where players can host rooms that can have up to 12 people. Players can either choose to do single matches or team matches. One of the things I really love is that in the rooms people don’t really have to wait for other players to get done their match. They can go to another empty slot in the same room and wait for another player to join them. SNK really thought ahead with this feature. Another great feature is the party mode where six players can fight each other controlling their own character. Now let's get into the connection. At first the connection was slow and sometimes the connection can be good. It really felt random but SNK fixed that problem in a short amount of time. It took them about a week and a half. I was really impressed with that because most companies take a while to fix these problems and now the connection runs great.
In the end with giving all the features from both fighting games it's time to choose which is the better game. I have to choose The King of Fighters XIV and the reason why I choose this game because when this game came out on it’s release date you got what you payed for. You got a full game. You have a couple of offline modes, 50 characters and a good online mode where six players can fight against each other.
Whereas Street Fighter V I didn’t get a full game at the beginning of it’s release. Players want a full game when you buy it. Now granted Capcom did have an option that players can purchase things with their fight money and not use actual money but like i said before these features should have already been in the game at the start.
I like both games. Both of them are fun but I have to be fair. Let me know what you guys think in the comments. Which do you think is the better game.
