November 26 Excellence, KOF AS Stage - A Bloody Fate with Tekken

The King of Fighters and Tekken, two of the world's prominent fighting game franchises, finally meet by fate to see who's the strongest of all. Fighters of the two worlds gather to settle the score in the November 26 update brought to the Global players by The King of Fighters: ALL STAR. Eight characters from the Bandai Namco Games property were brought into the mobile game with various events and items available for acquiring.

This is the second and final part of the post, of which two of my favorite mobile games dropped their collaboration contents on the same date: November 26. EA/Firemonkeys' racing game Real Racing 3 released its new update featuring Formula 1 content, bringing in 10 teams and 20 drivers from the 2019 and the new Yas Marina Circuit in Abu Dhabi, of which I already wrote the short review here. As of this post, the KOF AS collaboration with Tekken is close to ending, of which it included the Rush Event, Roulette Event, and gacha banners for Tekken fighters, both for fighters and Battle Cards, divided into two different volumes each.

THE TEKKEN COLLAB

Jin Kazama, ready to fight!

Starting November 26, the new update of The King of Fighters: ALL STAR brought in the collaboration with Tekken 7, featuring eight different characters, new arenas, and dedicated events to obtain some of the fighters. The collaboration also features a special Tekken UI and announcer voice as well when using any of the Tekken fighters to fully immerse players in the Tekken experience. The fact that the Tekken content comes into the Beat 'em up game reminisces Tekken's Tekken Force minigame which appeared in older installments of the game.

The limited-time Rush Event "Bloody Fate" is a tale of the two worlds' convergence, each consisting of 12 stages for both KOF and Tekken sides of the story, with the EX Stage available once completing both mentioned chapters, fully relying on your owned units. Here, you can also pick between two fighters to kickstart the Rush Event journey: the classic Jin Kazama or '98 Iori Yagami, both of which are protagonists of their respective stages in the event. Daily Rubies available for completing the stages in conjunction with fighter souls, plus a Tekken Lucky Box for completing EX Stage, in conjunction with the Tekken Coins each stage. More Tekken Coins are earned upon possession of any Tekken content, which can be used to obtain Armor King, Armor King's Rage Arts and Fighter Souls, plus the capsules, Tekken Affinity Mystery Boxes, and Gold.

Super Mission events are also available for both fighters, being a special collaboration 7-day mission event where you complete missions to get daily rewards and the grand reward of 1500 Rubies. Completing the first day of the mission rewards players the other protagonist fighter in the collaboration, and the second day grants players a 3-star Ultimate Card which can be used as a Level Up material once the real 5-star counterpart has been obtained. The same Super Mission for the other protagonist are also available with the same pattern as previous and the same reward structure.

Jin Kazama and Armor King

Accompanying the event are the events to acquire some of the Tekken fighters on the way. Four fighters are available through the Summon banners of which they are split into two parts: the hooded Jin Kazama and Ling Xiaoyu for Vol. 1 and Heihachi Mishima and Kazuya Mishima for Vol. 2, also with both of their Battle Card summons available. Aside from their respective Rage Arts Ultimate Cards, special Set and Option cards are available to give fighters a great boost: The "KOF x Tekken" Option Card features an illustration of Jin and Kyo Kusanagi and gives an Attack boost of up to 4%, a Critical Rate increase up to 4% when HP is 50% or more, and a 20% change to gain a 3-second Super Armor upon being attacked, though each fighter only able to equip one kind of this card. The dedicated Set Card, "Two Girls' Rendezvous," features three sets of illustrations depicting Xiaoyu and Athena Asamiya, giving each card an attack boost up to 6%, but a complete set can grant a 10% increase in Critical Rate and 50% increase in Critical Damage, plus 3% additional Power Gauge upon landing a Critical Hit for the active team members. These stat boosts make both mentioned cards a highly sought-after for the Battle Card summon for both Volumes.

Another set of non-gacha fighters in the collaboration are also available: Paul Phoenix can be obtained in Paul's Roulette, of which you can use Rubies for spinning the roulette aside from tickets obtainable through daily missions and Secret Shop. Here, players can win Fighter Souls needed to craft Paul or his Ultimate Card, even Paul himself and his Rage Arts Ultimate Card despite the low percentage. Last but not least, a version of Ling Xiaoyu can also be purchased. The School Uniform version of Xiaoyu can be obtained for a price tag of $59.99 (price may vary in different countries) which also includes 500 additional Rubies.

Those who are curious to test how the Tekken fighters perform despite not having one can go to the Tekken Time Attack, a Time Attack event with Tekken fighters, both Novice and Master. Six fighters were made available to try in the Novice Time Attack, with all characters available for the final week of collaboration. The rewards structure follows that of normal Time Attack events, in which you can win Rubies daily in the Novice level and more Rubies in the Master level as long as you levelled your Tekken fighters enough and give them the winning Battle Card combination. Mission rewards are also available in the Master Time Attack as well, where you can get even better rewards upon completing the challenge in the fastest time possible.

Finally, the Tekken Gift came way later in the collaboration in which players collect points by completing a set of daily missions and possessed Tekken fighters during the collaboration's run. The points obtained in Tekken Gift can be exchanged with a set of items, and each specific exchange milestone will grant players a better gift. The exchange can be made up to 30 times (the maximum number), and it is upon reaching the milestone that players can earn additional 1000 Rubies.

THE EXPERIENCE & VERDICT

The Tekken collaboration does pack a punch. Scratch that, it's actually a pack of Doryahs with some Shock damages. The Tekken fighters can even juggle opponents more than the default KOF fighters do, favoring more offensive-driven gameplay. The free Jin actually packs a punch for a free green element character until you obtain another set of fighters somewhere else. I rarely play Armor King so I can't comment anything but Paul Phoenix has to be one of those fighters worth the hassle and salt, given that he has a small probability in the roulette and the fact that his first Active Skill is a one-hit-kill potential. It's interesting given that, before this collaboration, I wanted a green element fighter and gave myself a shot at Goenitz gacha to no avail until way later (one of the best fighters out there in the game with green element), and then my green fighters roster expanded quickly after the collaboration.

Though I have to admit that I'm a bit sad not able to get any of the additional Tekken fighters. Did a couple of x10 Summons on the Jin/Xiaoyu banner and couldn't able to score either of them and realized that my energy should've been onto the Battle Cards instead, of which I actually had a better luck there: Jin's Rage Arts, the "KOF x Tekken" cards, and the first kind of the "Two Girls' Rendezvous" Set card throughout my run towards the Selector. I actually had four of the "KOF x Tekken" cards and multiple Rage Arts cards for Jin, even one for Xiaoyu. It wasn't until just recently (from the time of this post) that I actually scored my second type of the Set card after a couple of single Summons, and with the fact that I couldn't able to score the third one and decided to call it quits with a reward of the 5-star Guaranteed Battle Card Ticket in hand, calling forth the Selector and finally completed my first and only Tekken set ever. With that, I can finally bid farewell to the Tekken collaboration in style whilst anticipating whatever comes next (sorry XIV Geese...)

Aside from that, the events have been interesting. Even more interesting is that the EX Stage in the Rush Event will have you engage in three-on-three battles, the first in the game. I even tried a 3 vs. 1 fight where I fought the opponent team of three fighters alone, although it might not end that well in the end. The Time Attack is enjoyable although I kept ending up finishing above 2 minutes in every run, but after lots of playthroughs on that mode cemented the fact that Paul suits my play style for the TAs more than any Jin, with Kazuya being in second due to his first Active Skill's "zero cooldown guaranteed" ability, allowing me to use it twice in a span of three seconds or more depending on how I use it. Granted I could do this faster with Paul in the Master Time Attack, even finally scoring sub-2 minutes.

At the end of the day, it has been three weeks full of Doryahs and whatnot. Too much memories have been made with this short collaboration, which I think has been a success of course. Putting two well-known fighting game franchises is definitely something to remember, bonus points for modernizing the spirit of the Tekken Force minigame. The King of Fighters: ALL STAR definitely delivered tons of challenges along the way and put the Tekken fighters' fast-paced rapid fists to the spotlight. I just wish that this collaboration can come again in the future, but at the same time I'm looking forward for whichever the next collaboration will be, most probably Samurai Shodown since it is an SNK game (of course), already had a collaboration event in Japanese and South Korean versions, and Nakoruru is in fact playable on KOF XIV as well.

After all those farming, I can safely say that November 26, 2019 is really something to remember, for me at least. Imagine jumping from one dimension where you're trying to win a Formula 1 Grand Prix as your favorite driver and then jump to another where you're fighting against KOF and Tekken guys. Well, there's no way Sebastian Vettel fight Terry Bogard or maybe Lewis Hamilton against Heihachi Mishima somewhere of course, but at the end of the day it's all about coinciding dates, even better that it's two of my favorite mobile games around. Talk about more reasons to do farming on both games...

~[R]