Retro Review - King of the Monsters
Fighting games have never been my favorite genre and that's because I've never been good at this type of videogame. Although I've played many of these games over the years, most of them are classics that everyone has played before and occasionally a few that aren't as well known. I think that the game I'm going to talk about next is not so well known and despite being a fighting title, this is a videogame that I particularly liked due to its aesthetics and the type of "fighters" that we can choose. It's a pretty charismatic title as far as its graphic aspect is concerned and as far as its gameplay is concerned too, since it's quite simple and fun.
This game, as well as many other fighting games from some years ago lack a story, it was as the years went by that in this type of titles a lore was added to each of its characters and a unification between them, but previously that wasn't important, since the important thing was to deal fists and kicks against the game's AI or against some friend.
But anyway, this game as we have to suppose is based on Godzilla and all the creatures related to it, the classic Kaijus, which are big creatures very famous in Japan, even nowadays, since many movies have been made based on these creatures, movies like Pacific Rim or the most recent Godzilla movie, but that's another topic, now I'll talk about its graphic aspect.
The setting of King of the Monsters are clearly inspired by real Japanese cities, so we will see all that aesthetics so characteristic of the Japanese country, these scenarios have a really detailed aesthetic, we can see buildings, roads and any other aspect that reminds us of these cities. These cities are going to be our battlefields, the monsters will fight in them and little by little as we are fighting they will be destroyed. Although for obvious reasons, due to the limitation of the time these cities and scenarios are not so big but they have a correct enough size so that we can fight comfortably and cause the greatest possible disaster, both to our enemy and to our environment itself.
The design of the character sprites is also very well achieved and despite how old this title is (1991) they still maintain their charisma, although of course, each of the character designs are based on other creatures and other existing beings like Godzilla, for example and the other characters are clearly inspired by many of Godzilla's enemies, we will even see a character based on King Kong. But still they look pretty good, even though their animations are not very varied and sometimes they repeat a lot, the few that they have are very well done and give them a good level of dynamism on screen. And on top of all that, King of the Monsters has a pretty striking colour palette, so it has an old-fashioned cartoon style that doesn't look bad at all.
The sound aspect of King of the Monsters is pretty decent, but even though its audio quality is not that good, it is because there is a great variety of them and they fit really well with the monster theme, I consider it a soundtrack that fulfills its purpose. Also, each character has its own musical theme, so in a way because of this, we can imagine how the characters personality is according to how we interpret their musical themes.
When I discovered King of the Monsters some years ago I thought it was similar to Rampage, since the central axis of these two video games are the giant monsters, but it's the only thing they have in common, since in Rampage our purpose is to cause the greatest destruction in the cities in a given time, while King of the Monsters is a simple fighting game, but more than a conventional fighting game this title has characteristics of wrestling.
King of the Monsters is a pretty easy game in terms of its controls, as we have only 3 buttons to perform every action needed in battle, we will fight in 1vs1 combat or also 2vs2 if we play with a friend, although we can also fight in 1vs1 against a friend. As we fight in the cities these will be destroyed little by little, causing the greatest damage to both the city and our enemy. Unlike other conventional fighting games where we only have to reduce the life bar of our enemy, in King of the Monsters we have to weaken him and then be able to subdue him with some fighting technique and after a 3 second countdown where our enemy cannot escape because he is too weak, we will win the fight in pure wrestling style. And in pure wrestling style, we can also use almost anything as a weapon, both pieces of buildings that our character will easily tear down, as well as cars.
King of the Monsters has six characters who, beyond their appearance inspired by Godzilla and kaijus in general, even an Ultraman-inspired character, all characters are controlled in the same way, but each has a special skill. We can improve the stats of the character we choose, so that our attacks will be much stronger, in this aspect it has a fairly simple RPG.
Among the list of available kaijus and characters we have a:
Geon: This kaiju is clearly an inspiration from the mythical Godzilla. In a game where the main theme is giant monsters, a "Godzilla" could not be missing among its characters.
Woo: Clearly he's the lost brother of King Kong, but this giant monkey comes from China. Unlike the other kaijus Woo is good and wants to save people from other monsters.
Astro Guy: This is the character that I had said takes inspiration from Ultraman and I think there's not much to say, the inspiration is pretty obvious. Previously Astro Guy was a scientist who after an experiment using radiation, this radiation made him mutate in such a way that it made him a giant, so now as a giant superhero he is in charge of fighting the kaijus.
Poison Ghost: As we can assume, this kaiju was formed due to the toxic waste of humans. This kaiju is intended to wipe out humans and make them pay for all the pollution that is destroying the planet.
Beetle Mania: This kaiju is a giant insect. That's it.
Rocky: With this kaiju the developers had no imagination in naming it, since it's a giant made of rocks, literally, but at least it has a lore, since it was created in ancient times by the Egyptians.
King of the Monsters encompasses many of the characteristic aspects of the Kaiju lore, which is undoubtedly a rather interesting subject, especially given the antiquity of its origins. Even in recent years a few films have come out inspired by all this about giant monsters and also in the future many films are expected from this universe. King of the Monsters is not a spectacular game, but it is a title that if we play it with some friends, it will certainly give us some hours of fun.
I wonder what analogues such games have today?
For all my love of MOBAs, the genre has one universal problem: teammates. Yes, there are 1v1 mobs, but very few. It's always frustrating for me to lose because of another person's bad play. It's safe to say that any traditional fighting game is 1 on 1, even if the characters will need to choose a few, and in absolutely any fighting game 1 on 1 at least will be present. No random elements in fighting games minimize external factors that could lead the player to defeat. Godzilla victory is achieved only by your hands, and if you do not know the game's mechanics, have not perfected your character's performance, or banal play worse than the enemy, you get your ass kicked.