Good evening and happy holiday, gang! Yeah I've been gone for awhile. Long story short I was ill for most of the autumn it felt like and I didn't really have much time nor inclination for blogging as such, but I'm feeling a lot better now, at least.
And, well now, THIS is something that I did not expect to happen. I can't say I'm not pleasantly surprised, though.
Welcome back, K9-ehm, welcome, Krohnen! Consider my expectations fucking shattered.
So some of you might be newer to SNK and KOF, and don't know this character's(due to international copyright law, it's not)rather checkered history, including the fact he actually stopped existing for awhile.
See, our boy Krohnen wasn't always like this. He started life as a complete rip-off of another character, become disappearing, ending up being replaced by another character, and then becoming his own.
For fun, I'll give a brief rundown on what this character's timeline looked like.
So the order of events, as I have managed to gather them up through various sources and books, plus my own memory of remembering the Eolith years:
-Eolith ends up taking over the IP for 2001/2002.
-Eolith makes K9999, a total Tetsuo rip off down to his move names. Just with 'NESTS' scribbled in his background. Like full bore ''Original Character Donut Steel'' sorta levels of it only less shameless. His move names were literally lines from the movie. How they never got in trouble for this was beyond me.
-SNK gets control back, and eventually strikes him from existence. The last time I actually saw him featured in something was a page of the Perfect Reader, which was released in 2005, and then in the Character Encyclopedia, he was struck to a silhouette(sorry for the phone picture, but I don't want to break the binding on these)
You can see him there on the NESTS relationship tree.
-2k2UM comes into play, and they make a new guy to take his place. He's in a DM, BUT he's got a backstory that fits in(which was different than K9999's...who to be frank didn't have too much as it was since he was, again, a Tetsuo knock-off), and it's different from K9999's, so they could conceivably both exist in the narrative, I imagine, with a few tweaks. (Nameless had a small spot in the Character Encyclopedia, putting his creation at probably somewhere around 2007, if I had to guess. You'd have to ask them for an exact date, though.)
Now that basically was the history up to Nameless' creation. However, behind the scenes, the developers acted a lot more hostile to K9999 than they seemingly actually were. I and many others always figured that they could just like, redesign the character, since the fact he was a Tetsuo rip-off was his problem, not the fact he was a NESTS creation. But, Nameless continued to be used in a lot of side material-licensed mobile games, card games, and the like, making it almost look like Nameless was the dude they'd be using in the lore as his replacement(in the actual series, he seems to be, for lack of a better term, Schrodinger's Canon, since he was written in, but has yet to appear in a canon game).
Fast forward to 2016, when during an interview, Oda was quoted as saying, "Maybe one day we'll find out what happened to Ángel's partner K9999." In some of the lore, it seemed that Ángel was used as the NESTS traitor instead, and K9999 wasn't even mentioned.
So fast forward even further-amid rumors that his name was forbidden(which, I mean, was kinda believable among the fact they actually struck him from the books and such)...we suddenly get this trailer dropped on us during the announcement for the Open Beta test on December 17(oh yeah, we're getting another PS4/PS5 Beta! Just an FYI.)
That crouch has entirely too much asshole energy and I love it.
And I couldn't believe my goddamn eyes. Somehow they managed to keep this behind the scenes.
Now, granted, this dude got a hell of a makeover. Which, well, he actually *needed.* His big problem was his overall appearance...move set, voice and...yeah the whole fact he was freaking Tetsuo Shima. There was no way he was coming back in that old form(despite some people insisting he come back in that old form.)
Personally, I think his makeover is about perfect. And it actually shows him as, once again, becoming his own character, rather than be a ripoff cut and pasted into the game.
While I can't speak to the developers' ideas on this, for me, I can say what the redesign says to me:
-His outfit shows his interest in biking and motorcycles(he was shown in a picture on one once back in the day). They took this one aspect about him and turned it into an interest, which really helps his character. His outfit has patches on it(shows interest), though keeps his old color scheme, including some of the tattered red cape(maybe as a reminder?) The goggles? Also biker oriented, and fitting. The leather, the big boots. And in a design sense, separates him visually from the old. (His face changed, too, though I guess that can be an easy enough retcon.) The worn glove shows he's been on the road for awhile(yet the thing is still somehow intact.)
-The long hair is awesome. I know some liked the older style, but besides being a little biased toward the long-haired look, I like how it almost seems like he's trying to differentiate himself from the other clones, who all tend toward having the messy, shorter hair like he used to have. (Krizalid's is more styled, K's has a case of 'clearly doesn't care, takes scissors to it when bored.') It's almost like he's trying to look like his own person too. (And on a meta standpoint, it separates him even more visually.)
-He looks more full cyborg now. I'm not sure how they're going to explain this-did he get an upgrade? Did they retcon him to always be like that? (And this is definitely some cyborg stuff, his arm has actual lights on them). Did he choose to get himself outfit in basically full metal to get rid of the nasty bio-stuff they did/to try to forget? Will be interesting to see his story, but as a huge fan of Shadowrun and Cyberpunk 2020 on tabletop I really love the cyborg stuff. How much of his body is changed over? His legs even maybe look bulkier under those cargos(which can be be bulky anyway), but I almost wonder if those are metal now too? Does he have some eye mods under those goggles? He also looks a lot bulkier than the almost-scrawny predecessor(clothing or not, you can tell) which makes me wonder if he gave his full body over, or if he just worked out a lot more or something.
-His belt, as you can see above in the full model, was the NESTS belt...that's been carved up with a knife, easily showing that he's no longer a part of them nor wants to be a part of him. So he treated it violently like he does with everything(he did still keep the short-tempered, violent attitude, which at least is something that's his and capable of carrying over.)
-Curious to see if his name was chosen by him to escape, or if someone gave it to him and he kept it. (I doubt NESTS cared about naming him.)
Just those few things alone work well. My big question is...why didn't they do this to begin with? How long were they planning this? I imagine due to Nameless' creation, this may not have been on their mind in the late '00s, but maybe around XIV's era? (Since that was there the interview was.) Well, better late than never, I suppose? It just feels so weird to retcon a character, create another character, and then redesign the first character instead of just redesigning him in the first place. (Perhaps there were some leftover feelings, perhaps it was a case of them getting back on their feet, so a redesign of a single character made up when they didn't have the IP was one of the last of their concerns at the moment-I wouldn't be surprised if it was that last thing.
Besides the full cyborg looking set, he also has the fire(instead of the dust/energy stuff), which, of course, fits his status, given he had the fire abilities given to him, fits a lot more(since, again, the other stuff seemed lifted from Tetsuo.) They do refer to him as an 'Exceptional Esper', which generally means someone with weird abilities, but, well, given that's like everyone in KOF...yeah. Right now he seems to look like a 'Technological/Clone Fire User'. Hoping sooner than later we get the deal with him. (He probably controls his arm through a mix of electronics/cybernetics and powers, I'd imagine.)
So Azzy, what's your take?
I'll be honest-I was indifferent on K9999. I wasn't a huge fan back then, but I wasn't a hater either; he was just there for me. I wasn't really into 2001, nor 2002 Vanilla(wasn't really into how they played, their aesthetic and the like, and I think part of me was a little bit sad about SNK losing the game back then), and the character himself, while I'm a big fan of Akira, just was...a ripoff. Again, Donut Steel. Copypaste. Yeah, Benimaru is inspired by Polnareff, and Heidern by the Colonel(Hokuto no Ken), but this was shameless, 'I'm surprised the lawyers weren't on him.' There was nothing there that really endeared me to the character.
But I love his glow-up. As you see above, the little things they did took a character who wasn't even theirs, and turned them into one that was, while still keeping ''NESTS Construct'' as part of his background. Everything I listed above goes into why I really love this redesign.
I enjoy Nameless for who he is(I liked his backstory, his design was decent, and he was fun to play in 2k2UM), but I'm really sold on this guy. I really can't wait to try him this weekend to see how he feels in a system I like to play. His gameplay seems to keep his moves(his drill still hits OTG, and I really hope he keeps his curb stomp since that fits the hotheaded bastard to a T), so I really wanna get my hands on him. He scratches all of that cyberpunk itch for me, where the old one didn't really do anything to really attach me to the character like it did others(I love a good shout-out like anyone, but this just carried over too far into the other direction.)
I admit that I figured a redesign would work, but I didn't think they'd do it, since I figured they already did it with Nameless, but it turns out perhaps they got other ideas a few years later. But I was not only surprised, I was pleasantly surprised, since I don't think I've been so excited about a character redesign since like, ever, almost. Re-designs can be hit or miss(hell, I like everyone have favorite 'eras' of characters, like Benimaru's NESTS outfits, Kyo's Ash outfits, and so on), but I can't think of one that hit so well in ages, to be honest. I hope he clicks well with me(I can see myself using him as a backup at the very least, but we'll see if his playstyle clicks with me enough to push into the Main Crew Level.)
While I'm still waiting for Adelheid(and will be waiting for Adel until I GET Adel, which I imagine will be DLC by now, but I don't mind waiting), I'll indeed be quite happy to check this guy out and hopefully invite him into my main pile. I also look forward to seeing how his story develops. How will the others react to him? How much did he and Ángel miss each other? Why will the 3rd be who they are(if it's Kula, did they retcon the fact he or Angel hurt Foxy? If it's Whip, was she sent there due to Heidern sending her? If it's Maxima, did he join to keep an eye?)
(And to people who wanted his old design; I get it, I get being attached to something at first, but his design was his biggest problem, and without a redesign, you likely never would have seen this character again. He would have been stuck in retconned limbo forever. If you wanted this character back, he needed a new look, a new identity, and I expect some renamed moves, even if he kept them. If you wanted this character back, he was going to need to come with a new identity.)
In any case, welcome(back-ish) to the fold, Krohnen. Congrats on beating the Tetsuo allegations, and may your new, improved cyborg design and asshole energy actually stick around for years to come.
