King of the Monsters
King of the Monsters was a game series created by SNK in which you can duke it out with gigantic monsters, hence its title. You can also bash buildings and other obstacles for power ups and health. The game play has a 2½D style of controls in which players can stroll up and down the arena as well as the basic forward and backwards.
The series only consists of two games. The first one is available for The Neo Geo, Sega Genesis and SNES which has a wrestling kind of game play in which the goal is to pin down your opponent for three counts.
The second game was available for the Neo Geo, SNES and Genesis. The game play of the first two is a side scrolling, cooperative Beat'Em Up while the Genesis version featured a tournament like fighting game in which you must defeat every monster in the game one by one in order to reach the boss at the end, YOURSELF.
The first game consists of 6 characters which are
- Geon: A giant dinosaur (no monster brawler is complete without a giant reptile of some sort).
- Woo: King Kong's cousin.
- Poison Ghost: A monster covered in toxic waste.
- Rocky: A giant golem.
- Astro Guy: A giant humanoid superhero.
- Beetle Mania: A large beetle-like creature, suggested to be an alien.
All but 3 did not make it in King of the Monsters 2. The other three are now powered up versions of the previous ones.
King of the Monsters 2 has 10 playable monsters.
- Aqua Slug: A giant slug.
- Eiffelyte: A giant human with an orange blob attached to his head.
- Huge Frogger: A giant space helmet wearing humanoid Frog.
- Claw Head: A large green monster with two heads that has a big horn on each. It also has large mouth on its belly and uses its arms as feet.
- Lavicus: A blue monster with a big severed mouth and a small serpentine body. It has bat like wings on the back of its head, an odd tube with sharp teeth on his forehead, three eyes and long skinny arms. It also has a large eyeball inside his severed mouth.
- Beetle Monster: A large scorpion monster with four legs, an eye on his belly and a sideways mouth between his legs. His brain also shows, but it's protected by a helmet.
- Farmardy: A gigantic green blob with four eyes, lots of teeth and an orange head. It also has arms sticking out of its midsection. He is the unusable final boss for the Neo Geo version.
Returning Characters:
- Atomic Guy: A powered up version of Astro Guy.
- Super Geon: A mutated spiky form of the previous Geon.
- Cyber Woo: BEHOLD, a giant robot King Kong!
These three are the heroes of the series.
- Balloon Belly: Aqua Slug can turn its foes into parade balloons by blowing odd glops of goop at them.
- Strangely, the victim does not pop. They would just appear back to their normal size and falls down.
- Body Horror: Pretty much all of the characters.
- Boss Game: The sequel.
- Captain Ersatz: Nearly everyone.
- The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard: The computer-controlled monsters have all the advantages. You get one free "power struggle" and then can forget about winning any more against that opponent.
- Crossover: Cyber Woo made the cut for Neo Geo Battle Coliseum.
- Dead Line News: The ending of the first game.
- Divergent Character Evolution: The six monsters in the first game had the same movelist, with the only difference being what their projectile attack is and how they did certain moves. The three returning characters in the sequel have much more unique normals and specials.
- Eldritch Abomination: Famardy, plus several of the weirder monsters such as Lavicus. Many of the disembodied heads and eyes that serve as minor mooks might also qualify.
- Kaiju
- Mirror Boss: How awesome is it to fight your clone?
- Nintendo Hard: Neither games are exactly easy, but the original Neo Geo version of the sequel is perhaps one of the most brutal, unrelenting and merciless quarter-muncher ever made. Gaming Hell sum it ups pretty well.
- Player Versus Player
- Sequel Hook: The ending of the sequel clumsily states that "In 800 years, a few survivors will have powers."
- SNK Boss: Well, this game was created by SNK.
- Spiritual Successor: The GBA Godzilla game is very clearly modeled on this series... with most of the cheating elements removed. It's a Cult Classic.
- Stuff Blowing Up