King of the Monsters

Months later, King of the Monsters was ported to the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. It would then be ported to the Sega Genesis in 1993. It was included in the compilation SNK Arcade Classics Vol. 1, which was released for the Wii, PlayStation 2 and PlayStation Portable in 2008.

• Title — King of the Monsters • Developer — SNK • Publisher — Super NES Takara Genesis/Mega Drive • Producer — H. Hamachi • Designer — Mitsuzo I. Tomomi M. Toshiaki Joe • Artist — Sakai Goma • Composer — Kazuhiro Nishida Toshikazu Tanaka • Series — King of the Monsters • Platforms — Arcade, Neo Geo AES, Super NES, Sega Genesis • Released — Arcade Neo Geo AESJuly 1, 1991 Super NES Genesis/Mega Drive • Genre — Fighting • Modes — Single-player, multiplayer • Arcade System — Neo Geo MVS

• Illustration — Gameplay screenshot Players choose one of six monsters (four in the 16-bit ports) for battle, and two players can join forces to fight the monsters together. Battles end when one of the monsters is pinned for a three count or if time expires (in which case both sides lose). During each round, the player must fight using the punch, kick, or by grabbing their adversary to perform a body slam, pile driver, or an atomic back drop. The game consists of 12 total levels (8 in the 16-bit ports) which takes place in 6 cities in a futuristic 1996 Japan. Each city is featured twice with the game beginning and ending in Tokyo. Other cities include Kyoto, Okayama, Osaka, Kobe and Hiroshima (the latter two are omitted from the SNES port. The Sega Genesis port only features Tokyo with the other cities being "Mega Port", "Dragon City", and "Castle City"). The player first must defeat all six monsters, with the last monster being oneself, but in a different palette. Then the player must defeat the six monsters again, in the same order, but this time in different cities.

• Geon: A Godzilla-like dinosaur. • Woo: A King Kong-like giant gorilla (not available on the ports). • Poison Ghost: A creature composed of toxic waste (not available on the ports). • Rocky: A giant Moai-like golem made of boulders. • Beetle Mania: A large beetle-like creature. • Astro Guy: A giant Ultraman-like superhero.

In 1992, a sequel called King of the Monsters 2: The Next Thing was released. In 2005, three characters from that sequel (Cyber-Woo, Super Geon and Atomic Guy) were featured in the SNK Playmore game NeoGeo Battle Coliseum, a fighting game featuring many of the company's popular characters. These characters also appeared as character cards in the DS game SNK vs Capcom: Card Fighters DS. In addition, to the original ports, King of the Monsters was included in SNK Arcade Classics Vol. 1 featuring many rare pieces of the game's production art. Hamster Corporation re-released the game as part of their ACA Neo Geo series for the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, Windows, Android and iOS. A Neo Geo CD version was advertised and even previewed, but it never released.

King of the Monsters was regularly featured on the Nickelodeon game show Nick Arcade, and on earlier broadcasts of Sky1 show Games World.