How does that description sound like Chris though?
Either way, the sleeping child sounds interesting. It's like they wanted to create a younger "drunken" boxer but didn't want to remove Chin. The concept overall does sound like something Jackie Chan would do.
First mask switching and now sleep boxing? The new characters are definitely sounding interesting, especially from the gameplay perspective.
The only way it sounds like Chris to me is in the way it's about a young boy who'se body is used as an avatar for a great power. Which means it does have some of the familiar beats of the Orochi storyline, which is always welcome.
Sleepy "Pillow Child" does sound interesting. Is it bad I just keep thinking about Jigglypuff in Smash? If there's ever an KoF character I can see with a Hon Fu-style counter (where he runs face-first into a blow, takes it, but then gets a locking auto-combo out of it), it could be this guy.
I love that trashy urban aesthetic which permeates SNK's older fighters, and AOF2 really felt like the peak of that. Early KOF had some of that feel too in its presentation and character choices. I don't really like what KOF eventually morphed into and just started getting swamped with progressively weirder anime/moe-style characters. KOF99 felt like the tipping point for that. They need to balance things out by bringing back some of that old school grit.
Or even better, make an AOF4 which unabashedly revels in that old style.
SNK used to be oozed with great visual style and direction but since the fall of the old SNK it really hasn't been the same. Games like Art of Fighting, Samurai Shodown, Last Blade, etc. KOF 94-95 had the gritty urban fighting feel and 96-97 had the grand tournament look and sound that you simply don't get from their games anymore.
The Trashy Urban aesthetic just feels like a sign of the times. Even if old SNK didn't die, I doubt it'd stay around to the same capacity.
The great thing about KoF is that it does have new designs per saga that take in the new hotness of the times... but it also generally updates the old character in fitting ways. Thus, an urban character generally still feels urban, even when standing alongside a character that's a tribute to a more recent, "bubblegummy" modern anime.
I feel like a lot of old gaming companies lost their traditional identities into the 3D and HD eras. Everyone tried to replace it with something that was more 3D friendly, which normally meant things like big crowds were scaled back for more central focus on fewer characters, and really defined, lived-in worlds became a bit more clean, due to needing more visual clarity to make 3D less-confusing.
Even though SNK switched around and died as few times, they don't feel that far removed from what Sega, Konami, Capcom, or maybe even Namco went through.
But yet I still feel some of the classic nuance behind them. Looking at Fatal Fury teams VS Art of Fighting in the Southtown stage of KoF XIII feels pretty close to an updated AoF in a way. That derelict church in XIV felt a lot less glitzy and glam than the Neo Esaka stage.
I think it's cool to be able to find a bit of each era of SNKP in modern products. It feels fitting for a large-ensemble game that's suppose to celebrate an entire companies history. I hope when SNKP gets back to making more than just 1 game series, we can see them focus on expanding some of the less-utilized styles and setting more, again.