Write a comment
Despite being a rather slow month for major releases, January does, once in a while, sneak in a surprise or two. The oddly titled 2XKO, a fighting game from the makers of League Of Legends and one I’ve called 2KXO more times than I can count, is one of those surprises of the month. Now, I’ll freely admit I know next to nothing about League Of Legends: I never played the MOBA, I never paid much attention to the lore, nor have I watched the Netflix series Arcane. The most I know of the series is the song ‘Get Jinxed’, which I’ll admit is a pretty darn catchy tune, so a lot of the in-game lore and references I won’t be delving into and, instead, will just be focusing on the game itself. Which, spoilers, is quite possibly one of the more fun fighting games I’ve played in a good while.
“Now, can I get me some fightin' room?”
One thing I love right off the bat is how easy the fighting controls are. While there are still some moves I’m not a fan of pulling off and you still get some moves using diagonal directions, it’s surprisingly not as complex as others in the genre and really easy to wrap your head around. I was surprised by how easy it was for me to pull off long combos and do many of the flashier moves in contrast to other games on the market. In fact, I never felt the urge to just button smash and actually took the time to learn the moves. Yes, I know ‘button smashing’ is frowned upon and I have been working to stop that, but you know what they say: old habits die hard. The one thing I wasn’t too much of a fan of was the Fuse system. In practice, these are gameplay modifiers that bring unique elements to fights, like doubling the attack power of special moves by having two characters do their special at the same time. A neat idea, yes, and I’ve done some flashy moves. My issue is that it really doesn’t seem necessary. Most of the fights I was in, I barely used the mechanic and found myself still winning the fight, even after setting the opponent’s difficulty to higher levels. Other times, I found myself accidently pulling a Fuse move off when I didn’t want to and that did lead to a few bits of frustration. That’s not to say they aren’t fun and I did enjoy using the Fuse mechanic here and there. I just feel it’s a bit undercooked at the moment and needs a bit more time in the oven, so to speak.
I also have to say the roster is, while diverse, pretty smallish, consisting of only 12 fighters. Now, a small roster can still be fun and I’ve seen plenty of games make use of a smaller cast of characters. Just that, for how big and diverse the entire League Of Legends universe is, you’d think there’d be at least maybe one or two more characters to use. That’s not to say these 12 are bad by any means. On the contrary, these are fun characters, with each one surprisingly balanced, as far as I can tell as someone who isn’t well versed in the mechanics of these types of games, and well suited for whatever style of fighting game player you are. From the get-go, you get six characters to choose from, with the rest having to be unlocked/bought with either a Champion Token (which can be earned by doing stuff in game), buying them with the in-game currency which can only be bought with real cash (1000 KO = $9.99 USD or your region’s equivalent), or by participating in the recruitment event when a new character launches. The six on offer include Ahri, Braum, Darius, Ekko, Illaoi, and Yasuo, with the ones who can be bought being Teemo, Blitzcrank, Jinx, Ji, the wolf Warwick, and Caitlyn. Personally, of all the characters here? Teemo is honestly my favorite as his style fits my skills as a casual fighting game player perfectly and he’s also kind of a little turd. His move set is all based around what one would associate with Boy Scouts so you have stuff like attempting to make a campfire, digging up mushrooms, using a bugle to attack (though you can’t control what you play ala Skullgirls so no attacking with the power of Black Sabbath), and firing off a blowgun in rapid succession. The latter of which ties in with his one super which causes him to float on a clover and fire his blowgun, effectively turning him into a hatredcopter. This is not to say the other characters aren’t also fun to play. They are and I did enjoy playing as Warwick and Jinx. It’s just that I prefer Teemo as, again, his attacks best suited my fighting skills. Some of the characters, I will admit, feel slightly too slow for their own good, like Darius and Braum, but I’ve no doubt more skilled players will be able to make them absolute tanks on the field. I also really enjoyed the pre-fight dialogues that occur between the characters. While it’s not fully indepth, the little bits of dialogue between the characters you play as are nice, even if some don’t really interact or, in Warwick’s case, I can barely understand what they’re saying. I know he’s speaking as I can hear some faint dialogue but, for the life of me, I can’t make out anything.
“My style? You can call it the art of fighting without fighting.”
This is, quite frankly, one of the best looking fighting games I’ve seen in a while. Not to the levels of Mortal Kombat 1, mind you, but this is still a great looking game. Beginning with the characters themselves, they all have unique looks that helps them stand out from the background and makes it easy to identify who’s who during gameplay, especially when the action gets chaotic. They even have little touches like facial reactions and really good physics on their hair and other accessories, something usually either ignored or given just the slightest bit of effort. Granted, some of the characters are either a bit too busy in terms of design or trying too hard to be “cool”, but it really wasn’t enough to hurt or destroy the game for me. I also feel I should point out that each character has different costumes they can get and, to my surprise, they each have different lore to explain the reasoning for the costume. I don’t think I’ve ever encountered any game that has lore for literally everything to explain why it exists in the first place. I have to commend the developers for that bit of extra work, even if the casual player would probably end up ignoring it. This level of detail also translates to the stages themselves as these are some of the best stages I’ve played on in any fighting game. The bar stage, for instance, has people enjoying a cold one while chatting and watching you fight, including reacting to heavy blows or cheering for whoever wins. Casual players would probably enjoy the little details while those more versed in LoL lore would probably be cheering and pointing out “Hey, it’s so-and-so” in the background on some stages. I do have to admit that I actually got distracted a few times by what was going on in the background and may have lost a fight or two. Not my proudest moment, I’ll tell you that much. Where the artstyle does kinda falter is with the Avatars. While it’s cool you can customize your own Avatar with various bits and pieces, including Warwick’s head and a tail, they seem out of place compared to the rest of the game. They just look a bit tad too cartoonish for the game on a whole. But, seeing as they’re only used in the lobby for minor interactions, it’s not really a big deal and, in reality, it really doesn’t take away from the overall graphics of the game.
But, when it comes to the overall sound, though? This is where the game finally shoots itself in the foot, so to speak. I’m on two mindsets here regarding the sound. On the one hand, the voice acting is very strong and every character sounds believable in their role. Yes, some do come off as slightly stereotypical, like Darius being the no-nonsense knight and Teemo being the wide-eyed little wonder, but it strangely fits the world the developers crafted for the game. The little sound effects are also well thought out and executed, with a few giving me a little chuckle, like Teemo’s blowgun sounding like a machine gun during his special. On the flip side, though, the music is very generic and, dare I say, forgettable. While some of the tunes do have this slight bit of catchiness to them, there weren’t really any tracks in the game that really stood out and made me want to listen to it on repeat. It’s a real shame cause I know LoL has some great music like the aforementioned Get Jinxed song, so 2XKO’s music feeling generic is rather disappointing. I’m also going to say the sound mixing, at times, seems poor, especially when it comes to the character’s speaking. I already mentioned how I could barely understand Warwick, but some of the characters who have normal speaking voices I could barely hear what they were saying due to how loud the background music was.
“Yo Adrian, I did it!”
Despite having zero knowledge of anything LoL, I came away from 2XKO with a smile on my face and that “One more fight” feeling still burning in me. Usually, I play fighting games for a bit and then move back to other games, but 2XKO? Even after I was done playing, I still had the urge to go back for just one more fight. To me, that’s the mark of a good fighting game, if not game in general: If you still have the urge to keep playing, even after you’re done, then you know you got a hit on your hands. While the microtransactions may turn some players off, especially that ridiculous $100 USD Arcane Skin pack, I still say give this game a shot, even if you aren’t the biggest fan of League Of Legends. I just hope this game has a long lifespan, with it being a free to play game, as there is a solid foundation here, and that it doesn’t end up like what happened with MultiVersus.
