Doodle - KOF 2001 Athena Asamiya (Patreon)

 Ok, so let's ignore for one second that SNK went to bankrupcy and thanks to a quick reaction from part of the president of the company, this game and the next ones were practically a miracle. After all, back then I had not idea. I was just a regular teen with a huge love for videogames and japanese culture.

KOF 2000 was incredible, and I was more than ready to play the next title of the franchise, which I supposed was going to be the last chapter of the NESTS saga. As soon as the year 2001 began I started checking every single day "The Fighters Generation" (seriously, I really love that site!) to see when KOF 2001 was going to be announced. After some months, the first artwork for the game was revelaed and I was... well, really confused. Compared to the previous titles, this time the artwork was really weird, I really disliked the illustrations. They were so weird and cartoonish. I really was hoping they were just scketches, but after some time I had to accept that that was going to be the new art direction for the game (Nowadays I still don't like the art style, but now I respect how unique and risky they were with this direction). 

Anyway, the game was released, and, as every other KOF game, kids, myself included, were really excited. They loved the game, but I was really underwhelmed. I REALLY dislked the art style and presentation for the game. The new gameplay was interesting but not that special and the soundtrack was pretty bland and forgettable (except for the character selection themes. They were catchy as hell). 

In the positive side, I loved the new characters (except for K9999), the new Athena's design (short hair Athena FTW!) and the end of the NESTS saga was pretty good as well. The funny thing is that NOBODY could beat Igniz. He was probably the hardest SNK boss back then, and the only way I could watch the team endings was, once again, via screenshots. anyway, the game was pretty good, but really dissapointing compared to the previous game... but again, considering the problems SNK was having, the game was a miracle.

^^ Hope you like it.