Netmarble is no stranger to long-time mobile gamers as the largest mobile gaming company in South Korea has developed a number of highly successful titles since its incorporation nearly 2 decades ago. While some of Netmarble’s games were not released on the international market, some of the most notable ones released globally are MARVEL Future Fight, Seven Knights, and Lineage 2: Revolution. Most of the apps under their portfolio of 40 games have maintained high average to largely positive overall reviews from users as well as land respectable spots in top ten lists of games.
The King of Fighters Allstar is Netmarble’s latest fighting game for both Android and iOS platforms. As SNK’s top fighting game series that has been on practically any gaming platform since its debut in 1994, The King of Fighters franchise is basically a colossal crossover of sorts that puts many of SNK’s numerous game characters into one massive roster. Protagonists, as well as main antagonists in Fatal Fury, Art of Fighting, Ikari Warriors, and Psycho Soldiers. The immense popularity of the franchise has led to numerous manga, novels, drama CDs, collectible card games, animation, and even a live action movie.
In contrast with The King of Fighters games being typically a fighting game, The King of Fighters Allstar is a beat ‘em up action RPG packed with top-notch graphics and massive content. You can play as any of your favorite characters from the franchise and form an ultimate trio of your choice as you battle through story modes that cut across the game’s previous incarnations as well as other game modes the franchise have not previously stepped into.
On top of the plethora of characters to collect and upgrade, each team you form can be customized through various means. It’s a unique type of action RPG where combinations of skills and team composition opens up hundreds of possibilities in choosing the best team roster. Even if you are not a fan of 2D fighting games or The King of Fighters series for that matter, The King of Fighters Allstar has plenty to offer if you love RPGs and action games so be sure to check it out!
The King of Fighters Allstar has tons of content and features that may seem overwhelming at first especially for total beginners. Following the tutorial through the initial story chapter as well as the new features and game modes you unlock, however, makes the game’s core concepts a lot easier to grasp. As far as the combat systems go, there is no need to worry about memorizing or even pulling off difficult motion-based and button combination special and super moves. Everything has been very much simplified in The King of Fighters Allstar and each special move your character can do can be executed with a tap of a button.
To top it all off, there is even an auto mode that you can activate to leave all the fighting to the A.I. Though tougher enemies are best fought using manual controls, the auto battle mode gives you time to rest your hands on the easier mobs. Considering everything, the gameplay controls are very easy and the mechanics are relatively simple enough. If you are struggling to get past a difficult boss or simply raring to level up and upgrade your team fast, then stay with us and check out The King of Fighters Allstar beginner’s guide below! Our compilation of The King of Fighters Allstar tips, cheats and strategies will certainly help you dominate your opponents in the game!
1. Progress Through The Main Story
Beyond the flashy beat ‘em up action and intense graphics showcased by The King of Fighters Allstar, it also holds an immersive storyline that will engage you for hours to fully finish. As expected, each stage within each chapter grows more difficult as you progress but at the same time, characters you use for battling through the main story gain experience points and grow stronger as well. While the tutorial session takes you through the first few stages and are practically easy to finish, it becomes more challenging later on especially if you want to obtain a perfect clear rating at the end of each stage.
The most important benefits to earn from progressing through the main story are game modes and features that you can unlock after beating a certain chapter in a given series. On top of that, you gain experience points to level up your account that leads to having higher max action points (AP) needed for most battles. Although, AP recovers over time, having a higher max value would, of course, give you more in stock whenever you log off the game for quite some time. Each fighter you use in the main story battles also earn some experience points. You can also receive experience potions and gold from each main story battle and these are basic resources you will never have enough of.
Take note that you can see clear objectives at the right section of the pre-battle screen. While all of the usual objectives are easy, be sure to keep an eye on defeating bosses with a particular color element, taking 20 or less hits, and switching partners before finishing the stage. You should try your best to aim at getting a perfect rating on each stage as doing so will reward you with extra rubies, which are premium currency used to summon more fighters.
Related: The King of Fighters Allstar Tier List: Our Top 10 Picks for the Best Fighters in the Game
There are also bonus stages within each chapter that you should try to finish as these are relatively easy to accomplish and offers great rewards. Perhaps the only challenging aspect of bonus stages is that you cannot use auto mode within them, but then again the rewards are always worth it relative to the needed effort.
2. Choose A Balanced Team
As you play and make progress in The King of Fighters Allstar, you will be bound to have more fighters than you will ever need. With the battle rewards as well as extra perks you will receive from missions and events, you will soon be able to recruit a lot of new fighters within your first day of playing. So far, we have yet to encounter any worthless fighters in the roster but still, be sure to choose the ones that suit your preferences and play style.
Among other things to consider are rarity, color element, and fighter type as denoted by the icon on the left side of the fighter’s portrait. Although, you can rank up stars of each fighter, doing so with bronze rarity ones that start off at 3 stars will be more expensive. As such, it is best to start off with the 5-star fighters you acquire as they will need less resources to reach the max star level of 6 and will have a higher level cap to begin with. If you have yet to secure one, be patient. It is okay to use the best in your roster temporarily so long as you do not invest as heavily on them until after you are certain you will be using them for a long time.
The King of Fighters Allstar uses an elemental affinity system that follows the “rock-paper-scissors” of dealing and receiving extra damage. Fighters are classified under five different colors with purple strong against blue, blue strong against red, red strong against green, green strong against yellow, and yellow strong against purple, and purple strong against blue. Having an elemental advantage against a particular stage, especially the boss battle, can spell the difference between victory and defeat.
Each fighter has an icon on the upper left side of their portrait which denotes the type or class they have. The crosshairs symbolize balanced type fighters while the fist and shield symbolize attack type and defense type respectively. These categorization impacts the fighters’ stats more specifically, the attack and defense values. Although, you will hardly notice the difference in battles early on, you will see the impact stats have in actual combat on more difficult stages and game modes. As far as fighter types are concerned, feel free to choose one that suits your general play style.
Related: The King of Fighters Allstar Teams Guide: How to Build the Best Team of Fighters
Considering everything, be sure to go for a team with variety as far as color elements go. For each fighter you choose belonging to a particular color, make sure to check on the skills in combat before deciding on which one to have on your team.
3. Consider Strikers With Relation Effect
On top of forming your dream team of 3 fighters whom you can use interchangeably in battle, each one can also be partnered with a striker from among the roster of characters you have collected. Strikers can be summoned in battle and perform a variety of unique skills to help you. Keep in mind that not all exclusively attack enemies as some even come with heals and even buffs. Although, each striker holds an added value to the main character’s CP, you should consider relation effect above all when choosing them.
While there are no added bonuses to obtain from selecting a special trio of main fighters in your roster, each one has a unique relationship with one or some of the other fighters that can serve as that fighter’s striker. Even if you are not familiar with each character’s respective teams in The King of Fighters series, you can easily spot a striker with relation effect as they have a chain icon at the upper left of their portrait whenever you are selecting them. BE sure to read through what each striker can do as well to best utilize them in combat.
4. Prioritize Enhancement Of One Fighter Over All Others
Although, The King of Fighters Allstar centers around having a trio of your best or favorite fighters duking it out across all game modes, the various upgrade and enhancement methods available in the game require a lot of resources. While you may be inclined to split these limited materials across your top 3 characters, you may initially not have enough to fully enhance even one of them. As such, prioritize your top pick over everyone else as you can simply use that character to carry everyone else through battles.
The most basic enhancement is naturally levelling fighters up. Although, fighters gain experience points whenever you bring them to battle, it will not be enough to sustain your team through the increasing difficulty of the main story as well as the other game modes. As you do receive experience potions from most battles as well as missions and events, you should choose to level up your main fighter as much as you can before proceeding to use experience potions on another one. To level up your fighters, simply tap on the “Fighter” icon at the bottom left of the main screen, then the character you want to level up, and finally the “level up” button. Take note that on top of the experience potions, you can also use other potions that boost that character’s stats.
Next to levelling up, you can evolve each fighter up to 6 stars using evolution materials that vary depending on the fighter’s color element. As the star evolution level grows higher, the character’s stats increase and the succeeding materials become more difficult to obtain. As far as material requirements go, there will not be any conflicts in terms of enhancing one fighter per color element. As this enhancement system costs gold, though, you should carefully consider each fighter you want to invest on.
It may soon happen that the fighters you pull from summoning will already be a double. There is no need to be worried or disheartened, though, as these will be converted to soul shards you will need to limit break that fighter. This is perhaps a pivotal decision point as far as investing on characters based on rarity goes. As gold rarity fighters will be much more difficult to obtain, chances are that you will have a more challenging task of limit breaking them all the way to level 100 as opposed to bronze rarity or even silver rarity fighters.
The core system in The King of Fighters Allstar is a fairly unique enhancement option that unlocks stat buffs as well as skill enhancements to your fighter at the cost of cores. Although, you will eventually be able to unlock all of it by the end game, prioritization as to which ones to go for first gives way to a bit of customization to your fighter. Be sure to read through each core ahead of the line to determine the optimal path to choose as you earn more cores before pushing for the other nodes.
Instead of the usual weapons and armors to equip your characters with in conventional RPGs, fighters can be equipped with battle cards that boost their CP and stats as well as unlock an additional skill for them to use in battle. Take note that set cards offer an additional buff once you collect all 3 of it and equip all on one fighter. Special battle cards unique to each fighter are very difficult to acquire. You may want to work on fighters that you have special cards of as having extra skills in combat is a huge game-changer.
Last, but not the least,m is the affinity system, where using a character or giving that character some gifts will lead to boosted stats, rubies, and extra fighter souls. Although, you can gift any fighter with just about any gift item in your inventory, each one has a unique favorite and using these specifically on a character will lead to a tremendous affinity boost. You can tap and hold on a gift item to see where you can find more of them, just like any other material in the game.
As you might be puzzled as to how you will clear story mission requirements that require a specific color element to defeat the boss, you can still do so even if you only have one strong fighter. Simply bring the required color of fighter along and switch to that fighter at the last inch of the boss’ health. Alternatively, you may also stop attacking the boss whenever you support is of the required color so he or she can finish the job and earn you the completion reward.
5. Get More Of What You Need At The Power Up Dungeons
The Power Up Dungeon in The King of Fighters Allstar holds a wide variety of dungeons to battle through to get more of the resources you need. You can earn gold, experience potions, cores, evolution materials, battle cards, and even battle card evolution materials. There are no limits as to the number of times you can go through each one as long as you have the required action points or stamina to spend. As you reach farther through the main story chapters, higher difficulty levels of each dungeon become available.
The most unique dungeon within is perhaps the Tower of Trials as it does not require AP. The Tower of Trials hold a variety of resources you can earn on each floor and you must push to climb the tower as high as you can. Naturally, each floor is more difficult than the previous one. Every tenth floor is a boss battle with better rewards. You have 3 attempts daily to push higher at the tower and attempts will be consumed when you suffer defeat. Once you have already reached the highest floor you can, be sure to auto clear for extra gold and AP.
6. Follow The Growth Mission
The Growth Mission in The King of Fighters Allstar serves as your guide towards playing through the game optimally as far as sequences and power requirements are concerned. On top of leading you through the story campaign as well as various difficulty levels across the power up dungeon, it also offers plenty of rewards to help your progress through the game much faster.
It may happen that you will accomplish some missions prior to seeing them on the growth mission guide but then again, be sure to try and follow it as much as you can as you would want to get more out of every activity you partake in as you play the game.
7. Block, Dodge, And Tag Wisely In Battle
Although, CP and elemental advantage may dictate the challenge level of each battle, it is not always the case with The King of Fighters Allstar. At some point, you will have to rely less on auto mode and manually control your fighter to perform much better in a challenging level. Oftentimes, doing so will already raise your chances of success but then, you will still have to use your block, dodge, and tag abilities with great timing to do well on hard battles.
Blocking naturally reduces a huge amount of damage from attacks but leave you little room to launch a counter attack especially when pinned by a combo. If you do not want to have to wait for your opponent to finish his or her combo, use dodge instead, avoid all damage, and attack from behind. As tagging out and switching characters can send enemies falling to the ground, you can use this as a sort of last resort if you are already taking damage from a combo, or to avoid a heavy attack. Keep in mind as well that some enemies specialize in grabbing so be sure to avoid blocking whenever you are going against these fighters.
8. Accomplish Daily Missions And Achievements For Extra Rewards
On top of the immediate rewards you obtain out of every battle you engage in, more can be obtained through the game’s missions and achievements. Be sure to tap on the checklist icon at the upper right side of your screen to view the objectives under all tabs within the missions section as these are the usual activities you will engage in as you play and you may complete some objectives even without consciously wanting to.
Daily mission reset each day and each objective is very easy to accomplish. Be sure to do your best in accomplishing each one especially the ones that reward you with AP. If for some reason you cannot accomplish all tasks, be sure to push for completing 6 objectives to earn extra rubies.
Achievements, on the other hand offer one time rewards but for the most part, these rewards are either huge sums of gold, rubies, or even auto-clear tickets. Be sure to scroll through the objectives here as you may be able to set your sights on some of them that can be accomplished relatively easier than the others.
Relative to these, there is a 7-day limited special event that offers rewards you will hardly come across afterwards. The welcome festival practically works the same way as missions and achievements as it involves objectives aligned to what you should engage in as you play the game. Keep in mind that you can still accomplish objectives from the first day even on the seventh day of the event. Be sure to do your best in accomplishing each feat as the completion rewards for each day is exceptionally rare and valuable.
9. Don’t Forget To Add Friends
In addition to your 2 tag partners and 3 strikers, you will also have the help of a supporter in most battles. As supporters are potentially top characters of other players, having them to fight alongside you is a huge plus which is why you can only summon them once in combat. If you like the support character you used in a particular battle, be sure to send that fighter’s owner a friend request. You should also accept incoming friend requests from other players through the “friends” icon you can access through the menu. Simply tap on the menu (grid) icon at the upper right side of the screen to bring up the menu.
Each time you use a support and each time you are chosen as a support, you earn friendship points. These friendship points can be used at the friendship summon to earn you cores, gift items, and experience potions.
10. Check Your Mailbox For Rewards
Some rewards you earn like friendship points and other mission rewards do not go directly to your inventory. These rewards end up at your mailbox and will only be obtained once you claim them. You may often see a notification on the mail icon above your screen so be sure to occasionally check your mailbox for some unclaimed rewards.
And that wraps up our beginner’s guide for The King of Fighters Allstar. Although, the AP or in-game stamina delimits how much you can make progress in the game on a daily basis, you will earn a lot more than you can probably consume on the first few days of gameplay. This means that if you love and enjoy the game, and would want to make good progress, take advantage of the overflowing AP you have and ensure that it never gets close or beyond maximum.
While doing so may require a lot of time, be sure to consider running some of the power dungeon battles on auto as you do not need to constantly watch the screen on repeating battles you have already conquered previously. If you have discovered other tips or strategies relative to what we have discussed, feel free to share them with us through the comment section!