Doodle - KOF 2000 Athena Asamiya (Patreon)

 Oh boy, this game. Let me tell you, if I was a KOF fan before, this game made me an absolute KOF junkie!

I drained every single bit from KOF99, and I fell in love with the new characters and story, I NEEDED to know what would happen next and how the new game would be. I checked ever piece of info about the upcoming game from the websites I visited back then (That was the moment when I doscovered "The Fighters Generation", probably the best website about fighting games, and after almost 20 years this web is still a must see encyclopedia for fighting games fans. You should totally check it). I met the new characters, the new designs, the new artwork, EVERYTHING! I HAD to play that game now!!. Then, on a glorious Saturday at the arcades, I saw a bright new KOF machine: The King of Fighters 2000!!

As soon as I could, I bought some credits and I tried to complete the story, then I remembered 2 things:

1. I SUCKED AT FIGHTING GAMES!! (Msotly because I can't fight with joysticks and I was used to play with a D-pad back then... and now).
2. It was a brand new KOF. Of course they were going to be a lot of new pro kids wanting to play it.

Obioulsy, I didn't last that long. So I had no choice but watching the other kids playing. At first it was awesome to see them doing those combos, but after a few days I was sick of them. Why? well they always used the same characters (Iori, Ralf, Clark and Athena) and nobody gave a sh*t about the story mode, so They never tried to beat the game with an official team. "Oh well. Guess I'll have to wait for te console version"... oh silly stupid me. KOF 99 was the final KOF for the PS1 and there wouldn't be a console version for  KOF 2000 in a long time. So without having any other option I had to check the story via screenshots (remember that back then watching videos in the internet was really hard). 

KOF 2000 was my "platonic game". so close to play but so hard to do it. I dreamed every night that I had the console version. I was so obsesed with that game that I improved my art drawing those characters (mostly the gals) every day, heck I even created a lot of fanfictions with my best friend about KOF. I finally got the chance to play the game (guess kids got bored of playing it with the same teams everyday) so I beat the living sh*t of that game and I felt in love with the gameplay, graphics, ilustrations and soundtrack and it became my favorite KOF for almost a decade.

Needless to say that after this, I was over hyped for the upcoming KOF 2001... Little I knew that this game was the last one made by the classic SNK and that the company went into bankruptcy. Oh, we got a KOF 2001, but what did I think about it?, well you'll know it next time with my "KOF retrospective featuring Athena doodles".