Yeah, this made my weekend. I have both of the PS2 2002 UM releases, but it's nice to finally have a version of the game that doesn't cause input lag on an HD monitor!
Also this version should be 100% based on the arcade "Tougeki" update. Meaning very, very good character balance.
Anyway, I was just playing the demo and the game is AWESOME. I'm honestly surprised by how much I liked it. The speed and pacing of the matches in particular just seems perfect to me. I'm a huge KoF noob though so I have almost no clue what I'm doing. There's sooooo many characters (52 by my count), it seems like learning the game from scratch at this point is going to take quite a while.
This is a much better XBLA port than '98 UM was. Something was off about '98 UM's controls and this version is super-responsive. In fact it seems to play smoother than the PS2 version. I wonder if they loosened up the inputs a bit to make it easier to do moves?
I'm not sure if they are in the arcade version or not, but there are more characters you can unlock, if they are including everyone from the PS2 versions. The game actually has a whopping 66 characters total. Goenitz, Geese, Rugal, Krizalid, Clone Zero, Zero, Igniz, Another Robert, Another Takuma, and Another Kensou were the hidden PS2 characters, but I think for balance reasons SNK scrapped the bosses being playable for the arcade version, so I'm not sure who is in.
Also if you're new to KOF, the Orochi team (Yashiro, Shermie, and Chris) all have alternate versions with different moves. Just go to their portrait and hold RB before selecting them.
Should be fun, especially if the online play is solid.
If the online play is like NGBC's, I think this game has a good chance of becoming an XBLA mainstay with plenty of people playing, at least until XIII is released. NGBC is completely dead online, but 2002 UM is a much better game anyway, plus people still play laggy-ass '98 UM online. I do wish that they had given UM the same treatment as NBGC, with the widescreen visuals and "HD" filterng on the sprites, but it seems like they wanted it to be exactly the same as the arcade version.
