For the life of me I thought there was already a thread about this, and maybe there is, but what small details about KI stand out to you that are just awesome?
While I could probably go on about several things, I’d like to start with Tusk’s outtro, in particular the expression on his face. His eyes speak volumes without him even saying anything. “Oh sh*t, what have I done? Well, no matter, it had to be done.” All in a quick 2 second look. Well done with that animation IG.
I love that navigating the menus plays the KI theme song one note at a time. In a game of brash rock music, fast-paced action, super-hyped announcing, and huge gameplay spectacle, navigating the menus lets you play your own little soft, soothing melody during your downtime.
I dunno if this really counts as “little,” but I appreciate this game for having so many monsters. This is initially what drew me into watching the game. Fulgore, Glacius, Wulf, and Spinal all really got my attention, and when I saw the roster had things like Aganos, Cinder, and Riptor, I fell in love. From a design perspective, this game has the most diverse cast of fighters.
As an extension to this, I also really appreciate the guest choices from Halo and Gears. They could have gone extremely popular choices like Chief and Marcus/Carmine/Cole for those guests, but they picked Arby and RAAM because they fit KI’s theme better.
The particle/visual effects are some of the best I have seen in a fighting game.
One of my favourite visual effects is Hisako’s green static distortion, it is like she came out of a TV screen (similar to The Ring).
This harkens back to the ‘94 original. Some people (often in retrospect) sometimes called the KI character roster “cheesy”, but back in 1994 the diversity of characters was unheard of in a fighting game. I mean, back in those days you had games like SF, KoF, Virtua Fighter, Samurai Shodown, Tekken. All rather cut-and-dried “normal” type of characters. Only maybe MK and Darkstalkers came close. But to have a werewolf, a skeleton, a fire guy, an ice guy, a ninja robot, a friggin’ DINOSAUR!? Just the cast alone got me so hyped.
Hmmmmmmm let’s see…
This.
Different intros and timeout poses. I’m a sucker for stuff like this. I really like how player 1 Jago sounds different from player 2 Jago in the intro. The same can be said for Tusk, Arbiter, and many other characters.
I just noticed when the Tiger guardian is equipped and the player gets hit by their opponent, the tiger makes this funny “oh no!” face.
Some characters having multiple taunt voice clips, and some with the same line going even farther by having multiple inflections of that line. TJ Combo and Cinder could spend the entire match having a taunt battle.
The Big Trouble in Little China references in Kim Wu’s stage.
The musical rhythms in ultra combos stick out to me because it is something I’ve always wanted to see and thought would never get done until KI did and to this day I still love it.
I like the KI community, especially this forum’s active members. Our community might be more little than we think, so I hope it counts.
I like how dynamic the music is.
I like how Riptor, Cinder, and Fulgore all share similar elements of some kind. Same team for sure.
I love Spinal’s Ultra ender animation, after he delivers the last blow with a spectral hand, he uses his sword to predict his opponent’s landing, it’s almost a taunt in it’s own right and is very beautifully animated.
Hisako’s vocal effect during her teleport (seriously, turn all other game sounds off and listen to this, it’s bone chilling.)
The fact that Orchid’s voice changes during her shadow fire cat to sound more spatial and ethereal.
Just how well the characters have been re-imagined, both visually and gameplay wise, and any nitpicks I have are quite small (Orchid having too many accessories/too much going on.)
Looking back at say, Maya, I never thought I’d want to play her, as the jungle bunny trope didn’t appeal to me, (and her design was pretty awful, serious man face and feet) but IG have made her so mechanically interesting I can’t put her down, plus her redesign is beautiful.
The sound Fulgore’s Instinct switch makes, in fact, most of the sounds he makes are pretty damn cool. (There are 1 or 2 KI1/KI2 vocals in there also.)
This game has some really awesome Low End in the audio. Everything is really bass heavy and it gives it an awesome depth to the sound. Every hit, every knock down, every block, even some of the footsteps; they all hit so damn hard! It’s not just “smack smack” it’s like “DOOF DOOF DOOF OOF BANG POW KABOOOOOGHFJDJSKSKDKD”
This extends to the soundtrack, too. Especially Mick’s Season 1 stuff. It just feels so powerful! The tracks just have this chugging, in your face groove to them that make your car shake and your TV rattle. Listening to the music in this game with good headphones and the volume turned up just churns your brains and I LOVE IT!