Pretty much unplayable
I purchased a really cheap Android tablet by Polaroid of all companies, and decided to test its limits. I knew fighting games were supposed to be terrible for touch-devices, but being a huge fan of the genre, I just had to take a gander at what SNK had to offer on the device.
Peculiarly, the game's p2p fights are handled through a social networking venue. It's not a terrible thing, and if you're not really into the multiplayer portion, you won't even have to bother past signing up. Don't pay attention any other reviews that say it's a scam; it's just the way you're able to matchmake.
Anyway, once it finally installed, the app continued crashing every time I tried to run it. However, rebooting the entire tablet fixed that problem. What it failed to fix, however, is the gameplay. The game looks and sounds great, especially for a handheld, and with my glasses off it almost looks like it's running on much more powerful hardware. But controlling your fighter is almost impossible. Considering the fact that I've been playing fighters for over 20 years and have put in a decent chunk of time on the PS3 version of this game, I shouldn't have to struggle in pulling off a QCF. I struggled so much, in fact, that I was only able to perform a *real* special move (as in, without the shortcut), once. This is unacceptable. The AI also takes a gigantic leap when you get to the sub-boss, who as I recall wasn't even close to this hard one the consoles. What makes matters worse is the fact that the battles before him are almost laughable even with the terrible controls, and then you get someone thrown at you that cremates your team in seconds.
Fighting games are a paltry lot on the Android, even in comparison to its cousin over at Apple. To make matters worse, this version has less characters than the current iOS version, which makes this one seem like more of a joke in comparison. When the ground isn't so fertile for these things, you can't afford to make such boneheaded mistakes.
I hope whatever comes down the pipeline in the future - in KoF or anything else - has a bit more care taken into it.