My Played Video Games Review: King of the Monsters 2 for the Sega Genesis

King of the Monsters 2 is an arcade fighting/wrestling game released by SNK of Japan in 1992. It is the sequel to the first King of the Monsters game in 1991. The game was later ported to the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive by Takara in 1994.

A fighting game featuring giant monsters based on Japanese giant movie monsters sounds like great fun. Unfortunately, the popularity of the Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat games made this underrated gem being largely ignored by gamers during the early 1990s.

The Story

Here we go again and they are meaner than ever! The alien Super Monsters have now invaded our world.

Our 3 heroic Super-Monsters must fight to maintain control of the planet. These alien creatures have nasty powers never seen before. With your help, these heroic Super-Monsters must destroy all in their path, while battling these monstrous aliens, and avoiding the pesky nuisance of human military intervention.

Use each Super-Monster's abilities as well as their new Super-Attacks to destroy each damn alien, destroy each city, and be crowned as the ultimate King of the Super Monsters!

The Graphics and Sound

The graphics in this game is good but outdated by today's standards. All the monsters are detailed as well as the surroundings. The lava kind of looks good as do the explosions. The animations are not many but not bad. The colors are a bit bright though, and most of the buildings look boring. All in all the graphics are just decent.

The music is pretty good. The sounds that the monsters do get old fast. And there is not much variety to them.

The Gameplay

Unlike most fighting games at the time, you have the freedom to move around like a beat-'em up like the Streets of Rage games. It adds a different taste to the gameplay. But can prove to be irritating at times when your attacks do not line up well enough with your opponent.

You only have 3 buttons to work with so they are only the "punch", "kick", and "jump" buttons.

Within the game, there is the option of turning on power-ups. Power-ups give more health, change your monster's color as well as unlock the hidden moves. Turning the power-ups option off unlocks all your special moves and leaves you with your original color. Some special moves require more than one power-up and attacks can do anything from damaging your enemy to reversing their controls, slowing them down, or even handicapping them to be unable to use special moves for a time. This variety gives each character a unique trait making some more effective than others.

More often than not, you will find yourself doing punches to stun your enemy in order to land a special move or use projectiles from afar. The fact that it is so easy to dodge in this game demands a bit more skill and precision than your average 16-bit fighting game,

You can learn combos by observing the computer A.I. do it if you allow it the chance to beat you up.

Replay value is good to anyone who enjoys giant monsters fighting, it will add immense replayability to them. Each monster is unique from the others, so mastering each monster can be a lot of fun.

My Verdict

King of Monsters 2 is is a very fun game to play. So, if giant monsters fighting each other sounds good, then you should enjoy this game.

Have fun playing it on the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive console or play it on your chosen emulator.

Let's keep on gaming in the free world!