For a new player, The King of Fighters XIV is immediately overwhelming. There are 50 characters, multiple types of jumps, weird commands for supers and specials, and strict input leniency.

Also, you have to learn three characters instead of just one.

This is the document of my attempt to learn The King of Fighters XIV and see if new players can do the same.

I am completely new to the King of Fighters franchise, and the tutorial quickly taught me one thing: everything you know about jumping is wrong. In other 2D fighters you can jump up, backwards, and forwards. Maybe an occasional superjump, but that's it. There usually aren't more “ways to jump” that aren't immediately obvious.

In KOF, you've got small jumps (hops), medium jumps (dashing or neutral start), and large jumps (dashing or neutral start). If you can't remember all of those and implement them correctly in matches, you can't play King of Fighters.

Each jump has different uses, and you need to change them up in order to approach properly. Hops are faster and harder to react to, but don't clear moves with large hitboxes or fireballs. Regular jumps are slower and easier to punish, but they can go over fireballs and those large hitbox moves.

Once I realized the “trick” to hopping is to just tap a direction and let the stick return to neutral, it became much easier. But I still spend time in the training room jumping around, making sure I can consistently get the jump I want.

I also had the aid of a great tutorial video on YouTube.

The King of Fighters XIV does provide ample tutorial material for new players. The basic tutorial is lengthy, giving text tips and making you try everything yourself. There's a story mode that lets you fight AI on a challenging but fair difficulty, and Trial mode that teaches five basic combos for every character in the game.

The single-player content like Story, Time Trials, Missions and Survival are important for getting new or casual players into a game. Its got nothing on games like Mortal Kombat X in terms of sheer number, but this is far from a barebones game. It's worth the price.

I noticed in the basic tutorial a hurdle that can trip up players attempting to learn the game. Super inputs are hard, and chaining multiple supers together is even harder. The most damaging combos in this game require you to cancel normals into MAX mode into multiple chained supers. If you don't want every match to Time Over, you'll likely need to implement some of those basic combos given to you in Trial Mode. But they are not easy.

Inputs for special moves are inputs that are simply not used in the majority of recent fighting games. Daimon's command throw is half-circle back, forward. Or as I like to call it, 632146. Even if you know number pad notation, that is not an input I've come across in any fighting game I've played.

Super cancel combos can require you to do things like Forward, Half-circle Forward into Quarter-Circle Forward, Quarter-Circle Back (641236 xx 2363214), shown in one of Yuri's Trials. This requires impeccable timing and speed or the combo will drop.

Then you have characters like Angel who are impossible to play if you haven't already been playing her for ten years.

I won some matches using basic fighting game skills like anti-airing consistently and confirming into short combos. But if you truly want to get good at KOF, you need clean, consistent inputs for chaining supers together. You need to realize and accept that the commands for your supers and special moves are generally more difficult than other fighting games.

If you have bad habits when inputting specials or sloppy inputs in general, the game will let you know. Your moves will not come out, and you need to really train and drill them down if you want to succeed.

I started playing fighting games in 2012, and none of the games I've played since have required the amount of precision for inputs as KOF. None have such complicated super inputs at all, and I'll admit that my skills were not up for the task without training. Nothing in this game came naturally or easily for me.

However, I would still recommend this game for newer players because of that reason. If you stick with it, this game will make you a better fighting game player in general. You'll sharpen up your inputs and execution, even if you just sit in training mode or Trials practicing. I noticed going from King of Fighters back to other games that combos felt easier to execute because they have more input leniency than this game does.

I have a few mechanical complaints about the game, where it gets too complex for its own good. There's both a guard gauge and a stun mechanic, so you're punished for being on defense for too long and for getting hit too much. I rarely ever see Stun in a match so I'm not sure why it's there. There's no visible Stun bar so you can't tell if you or the opponent is about to be stunned, which just seems like an oversight.

The throw system never felt natural to me. Forward throws are always Forward+Heavy Punch, back throws are always Forward+Heavy Kick. Outside of grabbing someone out of a roll, I would usually just get a normal attack when attempting a throw, and I'm admittedly biased toward throws being LP+LK or (Throw Button) for fighting games.

Even if you're as terrible at fighting games as I am, I would recommend getting The King of Fighters XIV. If you stick with it and continue practicing with your chosen characters, this game will kick you into shape and make you better at fighting games overall. There's enough tutorial material and training options to help ease you into the fight, but the ceiling is high enough that you'll constantly make new discoveries with your team to improve your play.

Check out the tutorial video I linked earlier and this guide to choosing a character. You can and should play who you like, but if you're lost this will give you some easier starting points.