Can kaiju monsters and pro wrestling mix and still make a good game? Yes, it can!
Featuring 6 fighters, from a Godzilla clone, to a superheroe, to a pile of mutant sludge, all 6 fighters are pretty awesome on screen. they each have different movies, and some special skills.It feature s a wrestling format, since it uses power lines as ropes, and you win by getting a 3 count pin on your opponent. Silly yes, but awesome. You get points based on damage to buildings, attacks, power ups gained, etc.There's a total of 6 cities that you play through twice for 12 levels in the arcade. there's also a time limit that forces that ends your play (until you pop in another quarter for a continue) so you have to watch out for that too.
For a game made in 1991, the graphics the cities are really alive in animation. Things are detailed, and the action on screen is as fun to watch as it is to play.The sound adds to the fun with all the damage sound effects, and background music is pretty fitting and exciting,. Every monster has it's own theme song too.
KOM features 1 on 1 player mode, for monster vs. monster action, but in 2 player co op mode, the game really becomes engaging. As you and your teammate take on monsters, you work as a team to take the baddies down. My only problems with the game is that 12 levels in the game make the game pretty tedious. even though a skill player can go pretty far on a single quarter, it still can be tedious. In later levels it does get tougher, and it gets harder to take baddies down. It's worth it all though for the game's ending, which is one of the best arcade endings I've ever seen to this day.
Even though it's one of the first Neo Geo Arcade machine games, it's still pretty fun today. It's a bit tedious at times, and age has wore away a bit of the awesomeness from then, but King Of The Monsters is still fun to play.