I’ve been wanting to talk about this game on the site for a very long time! Anyone who’s in my circle of friends knows that I have love The King of Fighters franchise and that I have been pretty pumped about The King of Fighters XII for the past couple years. It’s coming out in America in just less than a month on both the XBox360 and the Playstation 3 and it looks poised to take on Street Fighter IV and BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger for prestige of being the best fighting game of this year. All of the character and tournament videos have been looking great thus far, so I have a very optimistic feeling about this game. I am trying to avoid being over zealous this time because that ended up with me being somewhat disappointed with Street Fighter IV after I played it for a few months, though I’ve always expected KOF XII to be the better game in the first place.
So what’s cool about this game? Visually, it’s probably the most impressive looking 2D fighter to date, beating out Street Fighter III: Third Srtike and BlazBlue. Everything is hand-drawn(or hand pixeled, to be more accurate), colorful, and lush. Each character holds an impressive amount of animation frames for their full range of moves and motions, which makes this the most fluid-looking 2D fighter to date. One of the other great things about the artwork is that everything has been redrawn in bigger, high definition sprites that really do a great job of showing the emotion of the characters as they fight or get hit. That was something I felt previous KOF games were lacking. It’s not as over the top as SFIV, but it’s still pretty nice to see the characters showing off more personality than ever.
Speaking of characters, while each character has an impressive amount of animations, this is actually the one of the smallest rosters for any KOF game to date with 26 playable characters. Considering how much time and money goes into redrawing every single character from scratch, each with a high amount of animation frames, it’s not too surprising to see a roster that small. I like the trade off though because I’d rather have a smaller roster of characters that I care about have lots of detail put into them than have that effort spread thin over a larger roster. This may result in some fans’ favorite characters being left out, but all of my favorites are in there. We got Terry and Andy Bogard for starters, then other greats such Joe Higashi, Kim Kaphwan, Leona Heidern, Elisabeth Blanctorche, Sie Kensou, and Ryo Sakazaki. Hell, everyone in the game is looking awesome now, even Raiden whom I initially complained about being in the game for looking slow and useless at first!
It would be nice to have been able to use characters like K’, Oswald, and Bonne Jenet once again; however, this won’t be the last KOF! What’s also interesting is that there are no new characters at all being introduced in this game. A rarity for the franchise and fighters in general. SNK wanted to go back to the basics, but at the same time was anyone going to use them? Street Fighter IV added six new characters to the series but half the people who play that game still stick with Ken and Ryu. To compensate for the lack of new characters, just about half of the roster has had their looks and move sets redesigned, most notably Iori Yagami, Ralf Jones, Sie Kensou and Mature. What I am concerned with most right now is whether or not there is a boss. SNK fighters are famous for having legendary final bosses who are so fucking impossible to beat that actually doing so is a life achievement. The arcade version didn’t have one but I hope the console versions have a surprise like the return of Rugal Bernstein. It’s not a complete KOF game without the famous SNK Boss Syndrome!
Like I said before, SNK wants to go back to the basics. The roster is focused on more familiar characters, and the series has returned back to the original 3 on 3 team format for matches. This means strikers and tag matches of previous entries are gone. There are no team leaders either(or the bonuses that come with that) and stocks for attack cancels and dream cancels have also been taken out. Instead, the rules have been simplified so players can focus on the fight itself. You pick your three characters and the order they will fighter and you do one on one matches with you opponent until all the characters of a team have been eliminated. You still have a lot of the classic combos and signature moves with new ones and the gameplay looks to rebalanced. Other added features include Sousai(Deadlock), Critical Counter, and Guard Attack.
Sousai occurs when strong kicks and punches and attacks of greater force collide. Instead of a possibly unfair priority being used to determine who gets it, the attacks will clash, cancel out, and by default the opponents will step back from their attack to give players some distance from each other. However, you can cancel that backstep after a Sousai with an attack of your own by entering any attack command. You can also move the joystick to make your character jump(and then attack) right after the Sousai occurs. You can do Sousai with characters that are standing, attacking from the air, or have launched projectiles from a distance. The drawback to Sousai is that your character will take a fraction of the damage from the attack your opponent tried to use on you, so be careful with how you use it!
Critical Counters come into play when the green bar under your character’s health bar is fully charged and an orange aura appears around your character. When that happens, you can crush an opponent’s attack with a strong punch or kick , leaving them defenseless to a flurry of moves that can now be chained together in unbelievable combos, but only for a short time. It works a little like Street Fighter Alpha 3’s custom super combos, but the start off if much different. In addition to being a nice way to make a comeback, I think it’s a great technique to counter players who try to jab into combos and super moves. You can also start off a Critical Counter differently: instead of unleashing a flurry of moves, you can instead use a powered-up version of your Super Move if your Super Meter is full. It looks insanely badass!
Finally, Guard Attacks occur when you are holding back to block and hit strong kick and strong punch at the same time to attack an attacking opponent from your guard stance. You will not only cancel their attack, but you throw them off balance so they can counter your attack! This is a nice way to counter and I think it will work better than SF IV’s focus attacks. Guard Attacks, like the other new features in KOF XII, are still going to depend on your timing and ability to predict your opponent’s moves. But in all honesty, any good or better fighting game will depend heavily off the timing of your moves and the ability to understand your opponent.
It looks like I covered quite a bit this time! The King of Fighters XII is the game I have been looking forward to the most this year and I think it will deliver. Much of the franchise’s fat has been cut and all the game features and roster is all killer, no filler. The artwork is more amazing than ever and the series has never looked more alive than this. The progress over the past couple years has been remarkable and it’s only a few weeks until it releases! I can’t wait to do battle once again with my friends and rivals to see who is the local King of Fighters and to see what online play will offer in addition to that. See you guys on XBox Live and at the local tournaments!