King of the Monsters 2: The Next Thing

The sequel to SNK's original kaiju-themed fighting game brings a new beat-'em-up campaign as three large monsters must defend their dominance of Earth from an alien invasion.

Overview

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King of the Monsters 2: The Next Thing (also known simply as King of the Monsters 2) is a kaiju-themed belt-scrolling fighting/brawler hybrid game developed and released by SNK for arcades (running Neo Geo MVS hardware) on May 25, 1992.

The sequel to the original King of The Monsters, The Next Thing eschews the wrestling game mechanics (making it more like a traditional fighting game) and makes the story mode more like a traditional beat-'em-up (with two-player co-operative support).

Set three years after the events of the original game, the story involves a new group of giant alien monsters (known as "The Next Thing") that are invading Earth. Three successors of the monsters of the previous battle (Super Geon, Cyber Woo, and Atomic Guy) must fight to retain control of the planet.

The game was released for the Neo Geo AES on June 1, 1992 and was ported to the Neo Geo CD (in Japan only) on September 9, 1994 (as a launch title). The game was ported by TAKARA for both the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (on December 22, 1993) and Sega Genesis (exclusively in North America on 1994). The Genesis version removes all beat-'em-up elements, making it a traditional one-on-one belt-scrolling fighting game.

Gameplay

The mechanics of the game allow for basic punches and kicks, but the biggest damage comes from throws. When a player approaches a similarly sized opponent, this will result in the two grappling. The winner of the struggle throws his opponent. Against the computer, the grappling system is rather unbalanced and it is difficult to come out of a grapple victorious, especially against the later bosses of the game. Each stage of the game must be completed within a set time limit and every stage has a boss characters at the end.

Game Modes

  • Player vs. computer - The single player story mode; a second player can join in.
  • Two players vs. computer - Two players team up to cooperatively play through the story mode.
  • Player 1 Vs. Player 2 - Works much like a one on one fighting game. The first player to win 3 out of 5 rounds is declared the winner.

Characters

Protagonists

Bosses

Only playable in the Genesis version.

  • Huge Frogger (Huge Keal in the Japanese version)
  • Eifflelyte (Horn Du Out in the Japanese version)
  • Clawhead (Yam A Mordon in the Japanese version)
  • Beetle Master (Kili-Kili in the Japanese version)
  • Aqua Slug (Sack Eyes in the Japanese version)
  • Lavicus (Eat Wow in the Japanese version)
  • Famardy (King Famardy in the Japanese version)

Endings

In the SNES and Arcade version of King of the Monsters 2 there are two different possible endings. Once the final boss has been defeated, he will divide into many smaller versions of himself. If all of these small versions can be defeated in the time allotted the good ending will be shown. Failing to kill all of these miniatures in the time limit will result in the bad ending being shown.

Bad Ending

  • The Earth shook wildly and everything upon it sank into the ground, the Earth then fell silent. There was finally peace on Earth, but at what price?

Good Ending

  • The playable monsters exult in the good ending (Arcade version).
    The playable monsters exult in the good ending (Arcade version).
    The players chosen character shoots out of a volcano and up into the air. As the character is falling the screen freezes and the player is given a screen stating they are the king of the monsters, a point bonus of 100,000 is also given. The heroes have defeated the enemy from another world and now they are the strongest!