The King of Fighters EX2: Howling Blood

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The King of Fighters EX2: Howling Blood
Koextwohowlingblood.jpeg
Cover of The King of Fighters EX2: Howling Blood featuring Kyo Kusanagi
Developer(s) Marvelous Entertainment (GBA)
Hudson Soft (Extreme)
Publisher(s) Atlus
Series The King of Fighters
Platform(s) Game Boy Advance
N-Gage
ReleaseGame Boy Advance
January 1, 2003 (Japan)
December 11, 2003 (North America) [1]
N-Gage
January 31, 2005
Genre(s) Fighting
Mode(s) Single-player, multiplayer

The King of Fighters EX 2 Howling Blood (KOF EX 2) is a fighting game developed by Marvelous Entertainment for Nintendo's Game Boy Advance. It is a spin-off of SNK's The King of Fighters series and acts as a sequel to The King of Fighters EX: Neo Blood . Despite taking graphics, characters and audio from The King of Fighters 2000 , the game features an original storyline that focuses on Kyo Kusanagi and his allies in stopping the revival of the demon Yamata no Orochi from Heavenly Kings. [1] It was announced for a 2003 release in the same console. [2] The game was also ported to the N-Gage under the name The King of Fighters Extreme. [3] Hudson Soft developed the game, and it was published by Nokia in Europe. [4]

Contents

Critical response to The King of Fighters EX2: Howling Blood and Extreme has been generally positive as a result of its accessible and improved content over the previous GameBoy Advance game. However, critics still found issues with the presentation and lack of innovation.

Features

The game is modelled after The King of Fighters 2000 but without the NESTS narrative and instead focuses on the Orochi arc. It was developed by Marvelous Entertainment. [5] Atlus published the game in Western regions. [6] Similar to most The King of Fighters titles, the game fights using special moves and combos to defeat the enemies. The player uses team of three members to defeat the opponent's teams. The player is also assisted by supporting "Strikers" to defeat the enemies. For the Extreme version, defeating the final boss requires using only one character. [3]

Plot and characters

Set after the events of The King of Fighters EX: Neo Blood , a new tournament is formed with the host being one of Orochi's assistant, Sinobu Amou, who wishes to revive Goenitz. Kyo Kusanagi and the rest of the Sacred Treasures Teams in charge of sealing Orochi in The King of Fighters '97 participate in the tournament to stop Goenitz's revival. The game features 21 playable characters, an arcade mode, a story mode, a single player and two player mode. [7]

The cast includes:

Hero Team
Fatal Fury Team
Art of Fighting Team
Ikari Warriors Team
Psycho Soldiers Team
Korea Team
Yagami Team
Boss

Reception

Critical response to the game was "Generally Favorable" according to video game website Metacritic. [1] GameSpy found an improvement in regards to its visuals and characters' models. As a result, the reviewer recommended it to every The King of Fighter fan. [8] IGN gave an 8, finding it as a major improvement over the first EX game citing more responsive controls. [9] GameZone said the game would appeal to fighting gamers fans in general but noticed its tendency on button smashing despite its fastpaced combat. [10] GameSpot gave it a 8.5 out of 10 for standing up to The King of Fighters's reputation in handheld consoles, praising its presentation and the amount of dialogue but still critcized its poor audio. [11] The King of Fighters EX2: Howling Blood the best Game Boy Advance game of January 2004 by GameSpot. [12] Despite noting its exclusive characters and improved controls, GameInformer saw Howling Blood as a port of The King of Fighters 2001 and thus lacks proper innovations. [13]

GameSpot also praised Extreme for being identical to Howling Blood but criticized bugs and while finding it nearly identical to EX, it was still improved in terms of control. [3] IGN scored it a 7.2 out of 10 for expanding the audience with this port with its deep control but noticed it suffered frame-rate issues and expressed mixed issues in regards to the presentation. [14] MeriStation gave it a 8 out of 10, praising its large content, its gameplay and retaining all of the famous characters the series is known for. [15] GameSpy gave positive comments to the controls for being easy to follow and still perform as many special moves as in the original games while still acknowledging there are issues when compared to other games. [16] Jeuxvideo said the to the fighters' lamentable animations make the fights slow and that the franchise deserved better treatment when being released on N-Gage. [17]

References

  1. 1 2 3 "The King of Fighters EX2: Howling Blood". Metacritic. Retrieved June 2, 2025.
  2. ↑ Thorsen, Tom (October 30, 2003). "Two more Atlus games for USA GBAs". GameSpot. Retrieved June 2, 2025.
  3. 1 2 3 "The King of Fighters Extreme Updated Hands-On". GameSpot. October 14, 2004. Retrieved June 2, 2025.
  4. ↑ "King of Fighters: Extreme (NNG)". GameSpy. Archived from the original on September 3, 2006. Retrieved June 3, 2025.
  5. ↑ "KOF EX2: Howling Blood". IGN. October 4, 2002. Retrieved June 2, 2025.
  6. ↑ "Atlus Grabs King of Fighters EX 2". IGN. October 30, 2003. Retrieved June 2, 2025.
  7. ↑ "Acclaim snags KOFEX2". IGN. February 27, 2003. Retrieved June 2, 2025.
  8. ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20040110021720/http://gamespy.com/reviews/december03/kofex2gba/
  9. ↑ "King of Fighters EX 2: Howling Blood" . Retrieved June 2, 2025.
  10. ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20040301040218/http://gameboy.gamezone.com/gzreviews/r23094_GBA.htm
  11. ↑ "King of Fighters EX2: Howling Blood Review". May 17, 2006. Archived from the original on October 9, 2018. Retrieved June 2, 2025.
  12. ↑ Staff (February 1, 2004). "GameSpot's Month in Review for January 2004". GameSpot . Archived from the original on September 1, 2004.
  13. ↑ "King of Fighters EX2: Howling Blood". GameInformer. Archived from the original on September 17, 2004. Retrieved June 2, 2025.
  14. ↑ "King of Fighters Extreme". November 24, 2018. Retrieved June 2, 2025.
  15. ↑ "The King of Fighters Extreme (N-GAGE)" (in Spanish). March 27, 2012. Retrieved June 2, 2025.
  16. ↑ "King of Fighters: Extreme (NNG)". Archived from the original on August 19, 2006. Retrieved June 2, 2025.
  17. ↑ "The King Of Fighters". Archived from the original on January 26, 2005. Retrieved June 2, 2025.
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