KOF XIV: Xuan Dou echoes?? (Part 2)

'nuff said.

KOF XIV: Xuan Dou echoes??

Yesterday, SNK showed a new trailer of the upcoming game The King of Fighters XIV, introducing new features and a couple new debutant fighters.

Might be a trained eye but I think probably things come back and forth when it comes to SNK and Tencent relationships, since I identified a couple interesting thing that might be a reference to Xuan Dou Zhi Wang in some senses.

First we have Athena. The psychic schoolgirl is back and while she's mostly the same as always, there's an interesting detail this time: they added her a Psycho Ball supermove.
Athena had never had a supermove like that in KOF, and in the video we see her perform her Super Psycho Ball right after a regular one, by cancelling it:

What might connect here with XDZW is that Kaoru had that supermove first, even thought she was a "clone" of Athena, the Super Psycho Ball was one of her few original elements. The practice of cancelling a regular Psycho Ball into a Super was one of the classic techniques of Kaoru... could have SNK take notice?

Next we're introduced to "Luong", a new character in the series. While her gameplay resembles Lili from Tekken the most, we found an interesting detail: Just before she performs her super, Luong strikes an acrobatic pose just like Ciel from XDZW uses to. See it by yourself:

Finally there's Nelson. This new "handicapped" boxer with a robotic arm has a style that reminds us much about Andrei. His gameplay seems to be based on "target combos", just like Andrei in the game, and we identify some very similar animations and poses on his normals and target combos:

 

 

 

 

Even one of his DMs, that consists, is very similar to Andrei's Charge supermove:

Do you think  SNK could have taken a couple ideas from Xuan Dou Zhi Wang?

Xuan Dou Zhi Wang vs Tian Tian Xuan Dou | Character designs.

Our latest entry on the XDZW Character Reviews series is centered on Tian Tian Xuan Dou ("Fighting Days"), the beat 'em up spinoff from XDZW.

This game can be taken as an alternate universe that still features some of our favorite characters from Xuan Dou Zhi Wang, albeit slightly or -in some cases- drastically redesigned. You can watch the full video here:

A few highligts deal with the differences in design and personality of some classic characters present in the game.
Here you can see some side-by-side comparisons between the XDZW stand sprites compared with the ones of TTXD:

 

 

 

 

 Which ones do you prefer?

Visual references - Xeno

While Xeno is one of the most original fighters from Xuan Dou Zhi Wang, there are a few special moves we can find inspiration of others.

One of Xeno's iconic moves is "Fuel Injection", this brutal tackle, which instantly remind us of the fighting style of Urien (Street Fighter III):

First, this power punch is similar to the one of Shen Woo:

Next, we have "High Suspension", a victorious uppercut which might or might not be inspired in Yashiro's ending punch for his super-ranbu:

Visual references - Ciel

Ciel is a rollerskating girl that might fill the function of Kula from K' Team in KOF, just in this case she's Ryu and Xeno's partner.
To begin with, there are a few moves and animations that resemble the ones Kula. From running:

 ... to a few punches and kicks:

Another big inspiration for Ciel seems to be May Lee, this similarly trendy fashioned character with lots of movement and energy on her legs. They share a similar style of taekwondo kicks:

As well as their particular style of hopping:

Ciel's fighting style has also been compared to the one of Lilica (Arcana Heart). Both of them fight wearing rollerskates and deliver energy-infused kicks:

Ciel's special moves have a couple animations resembling this supermove from Lilica:

Aside from her kick-ass fighting style, Ciel has a projectile move. This one is similar to the one of Poison (Ultra Street Fighter IV), and they share more than the basic color, since they're both short-range travelling and fade within a short range:

The similarities with Poison don't end there. A couple kicks from Ciel are similar to the one of the famous Final Fight character:

And finally, Ciel's Hidden Esoteric move is similar to one of Leona's supermove. Both of them consisting in a ballet-like pose, followed by a roundhouse kick that launches the opponent forward and another one that makes the fighter rotate upside down for a brief moment:

Visual references - King

This new hero for the game is a clear copy of Ryu (Street Fighter) in gameplay and fighting style.
To begin with, they share the same stand animation/battle pose:

Next, we have his moveset, in which even the names for his attacks are highly resembling the ones of Ryu. In first instance, Ryu's classic projectile, the Hadouken ("Wave Fist Surge") has its counterpart on King's "波动拳 " (Bōdòng quán, "Vacuum Wave Punch"):

 Both of them have the ability of shooting a charged "fiery version" of it:

Next, Ryu's famous "rising jab", the Shoryuken ("Rising Dragon Fist") is imitated by King in the form of a "升龙拳" (Shēng lóng quán, or "Spirited Dragon Fist").

You must defeat Shenlong to stand a chance, right, uh? The strong version of King's Sheng Long Fist is highly resembling of Ryu's hard-hitting supermove, the Shin Shoryuken, pose and everything:

The family picture is completed by King's 旋风腿 (Xuànfēng tuǐ, or "Cyclone leg"), ripoff of the last Ryu's move, Tatsumaki Senpuu Kyaku ("Tornado Whirlwind Leg").

Also, both Ryu and King can perform a super version of some of their special moves, including this super projectile:

To be fair, not everything from King is stolen from Ryu. For instance, his command move 浪斩 ("Wave Cutter") is modelled after one of Kyo and Shingo's special move:

"Puncha!"

Visual references - Wuxie

Wuxie is a master of Chinese martial arts.
This characters takes many cues of Yun and Yang from Street Fighter III, specially in the normals:

 

Which include the attack with his hands:

And feet: