Going online, you can expect the usual Ranked and Unranked battles, but the most enticing feature is the Arcade Match. Up to eight players occupy a room, watching each others’ matches, talking trash and discussing strategies, and waiting for the chance to challenge the victor. If you dim the lights and stack some quarters below the screen, you can almost imagine the days of the arcades, except the arcades didn’t have connectivity issues. Even when battling people with similarly fast connections, one-to-three second lag is a constant burden, assuming that you don’t get hit by game-breaking “Synchronization” and booted outright.

This is a sad day for The King of Fighters. The combat is as taught as ever, but everything else is a comedic misinterpretation of “less is more.” Unless you have a friend aching to hold the second controller, the lag-ridden multiplayer and pitifully skeletal single-player experiences only serve to stain the memories of this beloved series.