A playthrough of SNK's 1991 fighting game for the Neo Geo AES, King of the Monsters.

Played through as Woo.

King of the Monsters was a dream game when it came out it let you pick a Japanese rubbersuit movie monster (ok, ok, kaiju, if you want the proper term) and fight against other aberrations like yourself while gleefully laying a trail of destruction across the megalopolis that occupies the entirety of the Japanese southern coastline. In many ways, more modern games like the excellent War of the Monsters, and the more recent and even more excellent Godzilla for PlayStation 3 and 4, owe SNK a large debt for laying the foundation with King of the Monsters.

At its core, KotM is a wrestling game. You wear down your opponent until they can no longer fight back and pin them, all while being shot at by tanks, fighter jets, or any other military fire that was featured in Rampage. For extra bonus points, you can destroy famous Japanese landmarks, like Tokyo Tower, Kinkakuji, the Daikanransha, and the Tokyo City Hall building in Shinjuku, all of which are pretty neat in their inclusion.

This is the original home version, weighing in at a hefty 55 megabits, was one of the earlier releases on the AES when it went released in the summer of 1991, and the graphics and sound really impressed. It was one of many carts that showed off what a leap the Neo Geo platform was over the SNES and Genesis machines. And unlike the cut down ports that those machines had, this one features the same exact content as the arcade version, so you have access to all six monsters and stages.

I played as Woo for this video specifically because he was missing from the more popular 16bit versions of the game.

The gameplay is simple and fast, and it's a load of fun to team up with a friend in 2player coop mode against the CPU. The only potential negative I can come up with is that it feels like an arcade game from 1991: there isn't really enough depth to the fighting to keep it going for extended play sessions. That hardly seems fair, though, since there's more than enough to it to provide an exciting halfhour or so at a shot.

It also has one of my favorite endings from a Neo Geo game!

If you've enjoyed some of the later Godzilla games (like Godzilla on PS4 or Godzilla Domination on GBA), you'll feel right at home with here.

It's classic SNK stuff.

You can find more of my Neo Geo videos here:    • SNK Neo Geo Playthroughs  
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No cheats were used during the recording of this video.

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