Xuan Dou Zhi Wang
Xuan Dou Zhi Wang (炫斗之王, "The King of Dazzling Fighters", tentatively translated for an international audience as King of Combat) was an in-development online PC fighting game by Jade Studio for Tencent Games. The game's first Beta build was available since 2011 in China via digital download. Game's development was paused since 2014 and everything points towards the game was abandoned by 2019 or before. A beat' em up spin-off titled Tian Tian Xuan Dou (international name "Fantasy Fighter") was released in 2014, but its service was discontinued too in the latter  years. Development. The game was influenced by the series "The King of Fighters", both in gameplay and art design. It is generally considered the development of the game responded to the need of Chinese players to be able to play "The King of Fighters" (or at least something similar to it) at home, since video game consoles sale was banned in China by the time. In April 2013, Tencent confirmed a strategic alliance with SNK Playmore, developers of the King of Fighters series, and the first step was including characters Terry Bogard and Benimaru Nikaido as guest fighters for the  game: The two characters were added to the game in August 2013. The game's distinctive visual style consisted on sprites over 3D backgrounds. The character sprites were created via 3D models later photographed and retouched to give the appearance of traditional 2D sprites. That also allowed the designers to include alternative skins (alternate costumes) for the characters, which were added via updates. Somewhere after May 2014, Jade Studio was dismantled following a restructuring plan by Tencent, and the game entered what Tencent called at the time a development hiatus. The SNK guest characters were "temporarily removed" from "Xuan Dou  Zhi Wang" on January 5, 2015, as a consequence of this reassignment, but developers stated the rights over those characters would be reacquired later (which didn't end up happening). The game was supposed to resume development still under the Jade Studio name but designed by new personnel. By 2019, though, the official website for the game was unavailable and the game had been removed from Tencent's game platform, so it's the most likely the game was completely abandoned before being completed and officially released. Gameplay. The gameplay was taken straight from games like "The King of Fighters  '97" and "The King of Fighters '98". It consisted of the same 4-buttons layout, including the ability to perform short and super jumps, rolls and strong attacks ("blowbacks"); throws were performed by pushing the two punch buttons together, however. A maximum of 3 Super gauge levels were attainable. Pushing light kick and heavy punch together put the characters in MAX mode, where their damage increased and gained the ability to perform an improved version of a super move. Single and team battles (3 vs. 3 fighters; either six players, each one of them controlling a fighter, or two players , each one controlling three) in the "King of Fighters" fashion were available. Online features. While the game was downloaded and installed in the PC, it couldn't run without the computer being connected to the internet, in order to connect with the Tencent servers. Ranked single battles and the option to create rooms to sustain matches were possible, as well as single player modes including a 1-player arcade mode, bonus stages of breaking barrels (similar to "Street Fighter II"), and an adventure mode resembling a beat 'em up game. There were "missions" to complete every day (for example, beating  arcade mode once or sustaining 5 team battles) that granted experience points and "Point coupons", used to rent or buy characters and costumes in the game's store ("Shop"). Users won experience to unlock new fighters, and they could train each one of their characters to upgrade their skills, with characters unlocking a powerful "Hidden" super move upon reaching level 30. Updates with new characters, costumes and game modes were added every 1 or 2 months, as well as balance patches with changes to the characters' moves and their properties. Plot. In year 20XX, a meteor called The Messiah landed  in Peru, carrying with it mysterious "CORE crystals", containing a microscopic form of life called "The EVA". United Nations formed a group of scientists called the CRD ("CORE Research and Development") in order to obtain and investigate the properties of the CORE. The CORE is a life form in the middle of a virus and a compound, and it can bond to living hosts. The first contact with the scientists ("First Baptism") was lethal, but after discovering the CORE is a potential unlimited source of energy, they developed a way to create Human-EVA hybrids, granting amazing powers to the  subjects of the test. In China, the powerful Fung Family (or "Maple Group") consortium decided to begin its own line of investigations, but found problems on getting their own CORE samples. That changes when a mysterious sect called "SHINE" appears and offers them an amount of CORE crystals, with unknown intentions. Realizing only the strongest subjects can resist the bond with the CORE crystals, the Fung Family announces a worldwide fighting tournament called the XD Tournament, and many martial artists representing various organizations sign up to win the prizes. Fighters. The first build of the game was launched with five  characters in the initial roster. Later updates added up more characters. As of October 23, the character list was the following: Guest characters. The SNK guest characters were added to the game on August 5, 2014, but they were removed from the game on January 15, 2015, following a change in terms of negotiation between Tencent and SNK Playmore. Section::::"Fantasy Fighter". In September 2013, a spin-off of the game for mobile systems was announced. It departed from the gameplay of the PC version and plays instead as a 1-player beat'em up game. The spinoff, titled "Tian Tian Xuan  Dou" (天天炫斗, "Fighting Days") was released for iOS and Android and released in English language as "Fantasy Fighter". The game featured redesigns of characters Yan, Claire, Brazel, Ell Blue, Kaoru Kuraki and Seal as playable characters, as well as original characters Catherine (凯瑟琳, "Kǎisèlín"), Constantine (康士坦丁, "Kāngshì tǎn dīng") and Looli (洛漓, "Luò lí") not present in the PC version. Guest characters from "The King of Fighters" series Kyo Kusanagi and Mai Shiranui were announced were subsequently added to the game in 2015. The English version of Fantasy Fighter was shut down in February 2018. Reception. At first, the game  was received with skepticism or derision from Chinese players, that considered it a shameless knock-off of "The King of Fighters" series. After it was reported to Western media for first time, it received similar criticism. However, after the alliance with SNK, as well as more original characters being developed, this criticism softened.