This was already assumed but now it’s topical so I will talk about The King of Fighters XIII. SNK has announced that they will have a play test in April in Japan which leads me to believe that it’s been worked on since the last one came out.

I expect that it will be based on the engine already established in KOF XII, which didn’t do to well in terms of commercial and critical success. A lot of KOF fans were pissed and some have even swore that they have given up on the series(a threat that I am sure will be just as empty as those of the Modern Warfare 2 and Left 4 Dead 2 boycotts).

The King of Fighters XI was the reason people were excited for XII and the same reason they became disappointed. The King of Fighters 2003, which established a new tag system system for the franchise, but was not that great. But XI polished a lot of those concepts, and brought in save shifts, quick shifts, team leader desperation moves, and dream cancels that made it the most technical entry in the series. It was beautiful.

XII did a lot of new things that weren’t in the KOF series and it was a lot more basic in comparison. However, it also felt like a more balanced experience than before. There are a few gameplay tweeks to make in the engine but I feel that it is a solid start. I expect a similar jump in quality when XIII comes out because that is how it’s always been with the follow-up game.

I am going to make a wish list on the assumption that the game engine, art style, and existing character designs will not change much. I honestly don’t expect them too. I also don’t care how anyone else feels, this wish list is about how *I* feel. 

• Finish the Tales of Ash arc. We left off with Ash Crimson gaining Iori’s powers and his threats to get Kyo Kusanagi’s next. XI’s endings did good to get a lot of us excited only to be let down when XII didn’t even have a story in single player mode.
• Speaking of single player modes, the game needs an end boss! One that is challenging to fight and satisfying to beat! Either this rumored “Dark Ash” or the unrevealed leader of Those from the Past will suit me fine.
• More single player options. Time attack and Survival are standards in fighting games. The home version of XI had the challenge mode that could be used for unlocking hidden characters and other content. Something like that would be cool.
• Whatever the game mechanics, move sets, and combos may be, have a real training mode that teaches players how to take advantage of these features so they can get into the game quicker and play longer. THIS SHOULD BE IN EVERY FIGHTING GAME DAMMIT!

• Some characters need to come back. Whether it was because of their involvement in the game’s story or because they are just awesome I’d like to see the following back: K’, Kula Diamond, Oswald, and Vanessa because they are that awesome. Then Adelheid, Shion, and Chizuru because of their involvement in Tales of Ash.
• I don’t care for her but I’d like her fans to shut up this time. Please bring back Mai!
• Let’s have some standard teams again! It seems like XII axed a lot of things that made The King of Fighters stand out from other fighting games. Maybe that is why it deadpanned?
• If it doesn’t break the game engine and animations, speed up the fighting! I’m used to KOF fighters moving a little faster than they did in XII.
• Animation presentation counts. Redo all the knock out animations, finish some of the victory animations, and dammit have special introduction and victory animations for rival characters like the games used to! Also, when Terry Bogard throws his hat in the air, it should land at some point!

• When a character gets hit, I want them to look like they really felt it. Games like Art of Fighting, Garou: Mark of the Wolves, and Street FIghter III: Third Strike did this very well in their own way. This means that some animations need to be redone but I think it is work it.
• Every character needs more moves. Raiden, Duo Lon, and Elizabeth seemed to be lacking more moves than anyone else. Every character should have about 4-5 special moves and 2-3 desperation moves. It will add more variety to the fights and strategy.
• Speaking of desperation moves, I want to be able to cancel special moves to do a desperation move when I enter it’s input.
• Unlocking characters is annoying in an age where we don’t carry memory cards around and use hard drives instead.
• Even after XII’s online is patched, it still had input lag. Please switch to GGPO! It works!

• Why do Sousai cancels, which take great skill and timing to accomplish, take away a player’s health while guard attacks, which have are easier to use and have a longer period to counter, do not? Sousai should not have a penalty to the player’s health while guard attacks do. Or at least lessen the time a guard attack can be used to counter a move so it isn’t spammed as often in matches.
• Find a new publisher. Ignition bailed out hard when shit hit the fan during the online fiasco. SNK entrusted the next Metal Slug game to be published by Atlus. They know how to sell niche Japanese titles to Americans. I think it would be great if they handled KOF XIII as well.

I don’t think I am being too greedy here. It’s a fairly reasonable list. While I would like some new things in the game, I am currently more concerned with getting old things back that worked before and made the last game feel lacking when they were left out. If new characters and gameplay mechanics are introduced, that’s cool; however, SNK needs to focus on getting some standard aspects of the franchise back in.

Sometimes, I wonder why people have negative year end reflections every year that I have known them. It really makes me wonder what they are really trying to do with their lives. I’ve come to believe that you have to make the most of every moment in your life or else you are not living.

This has been a weird decade for the world overall. I can’t even describe it without writing an essay where I will most likely contradict myself often. However, I really hope the world changes in the next decade- and for the better. But it is going to be our responsibility to make that happen. I really think in this decade, too many people gave up on personal responsibility and depended far too much on people with authority to do things for them that they should have done themselves. And really, because of the lack of personal responsibility, we let our whole country fall apart.

Our economy would not be the way it is now if Americans didn’t become so lazy and health care wouldn’t be such a critical issue if everyone took better care of themselves. That is the basic truth that no politician will ever have the balls to tell the people. We are the only people who can make our lives good; nobody else can do that for us.

Enough of the negative; this has been a year for me that I will never forget. I’m going to now list every significant thing that happened that defined Kent Ward in 2009.

1. I started off the year right with the now legendary Down Right Fierce New Year’s Day Party. The main highlight was that I got so wasted that I Falcon Punched a friend in the chest because I thought he was raping a girl I liked at the time. He was actually trying to hug her goodbye and was on the ground hacking for six minutes for no good reason whatsoever. He helped me clean my house the next morning.
2. Four years ago, I had graduated Full Sail University with a Bachelor’s of Game Design and Development. There has been a lot of uncertainty – that I refused to show – about where it would take me. Sometime after I graduated, I was offered a chance to be a lab specialist at the school. I took it and over time, I became one of the best. I constantly challenged myself and it was a great opportunity to get better and meet lots of great people. I’m really glad for the experience because it did so much for me as a person as it did for my career.
3. I was also proud of myself for being able to take charge as head lab specialist for courses such as OpenGL and Real Time Animation this year. It was a lot of responsibility in addition to already being in charge of Engine Development I. It wore on me a lot and I still wonder how I was able to keep my sanity. Richard and Shawn provided me with many opportunities to advance myself and I am truly grateful for that.
4. The last one about my time at Full Sail: I created new lecture and lab material for RTA that would help students with getting animations working in their games sooner in their final Game Project course. It seemed like it took most groups two or three months to get that sort of thing working, but now they have a system in place that they can adapt right from the get-go.
5. I participated in the Global Game Jam in January, which is a 48-hour game making event. I really am proud I did that because it really lit a fire in my belly that I kept going for the rest of the year. I also got to work with badasses such as David Brown and Jay Baird.
6. Over the years, being exposed to epics such as Fist of the North Star, Berserk, The Alphabet of Manliness, 24, The Epic of Gilgamesh and every single Bruce Lee movie, I had started to develop ideas of what a man should be. My personal experiences were also a big factor in all of this. I noticed over the years that the manly spirit has died amongst many of my fellow brethren and that there was confusion on what makes a man manly. So I co-wrote the Twelve Laws of True Man, which I think does a good job for providing laws for true men to live by. When I first presented it, my audience was the local anime community, but I will write a revised version in the future where my audience will be all of humanity.
7. This year has been an awesome year for the Propeller Anime Club! We kicked ass at several conventions, organized a couple of fun game tournaments, did a lot of outings, got drunk together once or twice(the truth comes out!), and of course we watched lots of great anime – both old and new. I plan to write a reflection on the club blog, but I truly appreciate the amount of time I spent on the club. Hell, I’ll even go so far as to say that the Propeller Anime Club is what people should look towards as an example when one would want to describe an excellent anime club.
8. Speaking of anime conventions – ANIME FESTIVAL ORLANDO 10! Oh man, that was such a good life victory for me. AFO, every year, is the best damn anime convention in Florida and if you think otherwise then you must be retarded. Myself, and many others, worked our damn hardest to put on Swords of Orlandia III this year. The live action game has now become the premiere anime convention experience in the entire state, if not the country. I am really proud of how the game turned out and that many people enjoyed it. The icing on the cake was being made one AFO’s newest staff members because of my efforts(and those of the people who supported me helped with that too!).
9. I went to Disney World for the first time since I was twelve a little while ago. I went with one of my best friends, Fuzzy, and a couple of deceitful women. It was a double date that epically failed for both of us but the trip was still fun regardless of that. I loved Epcot the most out of the trip and I can’t wait to go back and drink around the world!
10. I played Beyond Good & Evil this year and I am really glad I did. What a fantastic game!
11. I really don’t think that this was the “Year of the Fighting Game” that I was hoping for, but I did get Street Fighter IV, BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger, The King of Fighters XII, and Tekken 6. I really feel like there was far more hype than delivery with the return of fighting games in mainstream gaming, but the games were still better than most of everything else that came out this year(which really isn’t saying much). I plan to write about Tekken 6, which I have determined to be this year’s best fighting game. Don’t worry; I am about as surprised as you are.
12. Since I was ten, I’ve always wanted to take martial arts. This past month, I finally did. I am still a beginner when it comes to Muay Thai and I have some interesting bruises on my body because of it. However! It was about damn time that I finally got to follow this path I dreamed of for so long. I look forward to getting better at it and becoming more of a complete person as a result.
13. My brother, my parents, and I had Thanksgiving together in Alabama this year. We haven’t had Thanksgiving together in six years so this was definitely an accomplishment! I also discovered Grey Goose vodka during this trip and I love it so~
14. I saw Dethklok and Mastodon with excellent friends Jacob and Jess last month. I wouldn’t exactly call the experience “Metal.” The show was at the Hardly Rock, where moshing and crowd surfing is forbidden. People tried to mosh anyways but it was pathetic. I really feel like half the people who showed up were just posers that were there because they watch Adult Swim. We showed up to the concert after the opening acts played and I somehow made it to the front. Actually, it was easy; just about everyone else there was a pussy so knocking them out of my way as I made it front and center at the concert wasn’t much of a challenge. I had my horns closer to Dethklok front man Brendon Small than anyone else, which automatically makes me the most metal person that went to the concert.
15. I left Full Sail to become a game developer simulation scientist.
16. I really think I became a legitimate adult this year. I am more proud of this than anything. I’ve accomplished a lot this year, but I also had to deal with some supreme bullshit along the way. Despite that, all the experiences I’ve had up to this point have made me who I am today and will help make me into a better person in the future. I have learned so much about life this year and I think from this point on, if I truly make the effort, then life will continue to be good.

 It’s been real good, 2009! I couldn’t have asked for a better year or a better way to end the decade! Here’s to the future!

This weekend is Mini-Megacon, a multi-genre geek convention being held at the Orange County Convention Center. One of the more anticipated events of the convention is “Year of the Fighting Game: Round 2″, a 90 minute panel that will cover all 2009’s fighters, including Street Fighter IV, BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger, The King of Fighters XII, Tekken 6, Tatsunoko vs Capcom: Ultimate All-Stars, and others. I will be hosting it with my fighting game buddies Chris Smoot and Mike “Brotha Kyo” Burgess. We are going to break down the titles that have already come out and discuss what we like and don’t like for each one. Also, we are going to cover some of the more notable aspects of each game’s design and even show some interview clips from each games’ key development staff. In addition, the panel will have time for open discussion so you are feel to share your thoughts at this panel. Lastly, we’ll talk about upcoming fighting games, classic revivals, and the future of the genre.

Fighting games are a passion of ours; it’s definitely a genre of games that doesn’t get the accolades it deserves for players forming creative strategies in order to win. This year has brought back the competitive nature of many old and new fighting game fans. Not only that, advances had been made in several of the games that have already been released have made significant improvements in either game balance, developing characters and story, or online play. This panel will not only be a discussion of fighting games but also a celebration of the genre’s return and its advancements. We hope to see as many of you as possible because an awesome to will be had!

]]> http://www.kentward.com/2009/08/year-of-the-fighting-game-round-2/feed/ 0 http://www.kentward.com/2009/07/day-1-thoughts-on-kof-xii/ http://www.kentward.com/2009/07/day-1-thoughts-on-kof-xii/#comments Sat, 25 Jul 2009 07:46:20 +0000 Kent Ward http://www.kentward.com/?p=182

The King of Fighters XII - Joe's Screw Upper!

SNK Playmore’s biggest franchise, The King of Fighters, just had it’s twelfth entry into the main series break street date at GameStops around the country and I made sure that I was able to get myself  a copy! I’ve put many hours into playing the game this afternoon before work, and then once again tonight after dinner with friends. I’ve gotten very use to the game pretty fast, despite that the fact that it really doesn’t play like KOF XI or KOF ‘98, which are the games in the series I’ve played most. Rather, it feels more like Capcom vs SNK 2 in terms of speed along with some of the character move sets being similar.

The game has been anticipated for over two years and SNK Playmore has put a ridiculous amount of effort into the final product and it shows. This game plays well and it’s now artistically the most beautiful fighting game ever created. The game does have it’s flaws in what it lacks, but makes up for it in what it brings to the fray in what myself and others are calling the Year of the Fighting Game.

What’s good?

The graphics are lush and lovely, featuring bright colors and exotic landscapes. There are only five stages in the game but a single stage in KOF XII is more lively and exciting than most fighting games’ entire collection of venues. One of my friends and I joked earlier tonight about one of the stages possibly being inspired by Water 7 in One Piece. The locales even have shadows generate on the character sprites depending on their location in the stage. The character sprites are bigger than ever and are very detailed, to the point that can clearly see their facial expressions and the details on their outfits.

The characters also feature far more animation frames than for any other SNK fighter, and this coupled with the games high-definition colorful graphics makes for some beautiful looking battles. Not only that, the explosions and effects from various actions in this game provide a lot of energy to the fight and in some cases provide some key visual cues for players to react to. The game makes great use of generating key effects for moments like guard attacks, critical counters, sousai cancels, and special attack start ups.

The fighting game mechanics are probably going to be the best in any fighting game. The franchise has taken a step away from executing long chains of combos and has focused more on strategy. Timing is key in this game because executing guard attacks and critical counters can determine the match’s victor.  Guard attacks are performed by pressing back, heavy punch, and heavy kick at the same time. When this happens, a blue flash will appear in front of the character executing the guard attack; this flash represents a period that a colliding enemy attack will be parried. If this happens, their move will be canceled and the guard attacking player will unleash a knock-back attack. What’s also great about this technique is that even if the parry fails, they move will still go off which has helped me beat novice players online.

Critical counters are probably the best part of this game. I’ve never felt such a rush while doing one, and that’s the idea. You’ll fill up a green gauge under your character’s health bar. When it fills up completely, it will begin to drain. You have that window of time to press back and heavy punch or back and heavy kick simultaneously will cause your character to strike with an orange aura around their attack. If the attack lands while the other player’s character is striking, a rainbow flash will emit around both fighters and the other character will fall prey to their knees to take a flurry of your character’s customizable combos of normal attacks, special attacks, and even being able to finish with a super combo move. It can turn a match around and even finish it and it doesn’t happen too much that it breaks the fight; in fact, it happens enough just to cause an adrenaline rush. I have shot myself out of my chair at times when I have initiated a critical counter and I have been good at experimenting, especially with Andy and Kensou.

Actually, that never happened. I play KOF standing up because I can’t sit down in fear of falling off of the edge of my seat.

Overall, the game mechanics are extremely balanced to promote strategy as opposed to memorizing combos. I’m really happy about this because memorizing button presses that are only useful in one game is inadequate and I’d rather focus on timing and predicting the movements of my enemy, kind of like chess. Basically, what I am saying a good fighting game is one that has tactics and mechanics that a smart person can take advantage of to win. Memorizing looping combos is a waste of time and is sonething that idiots will do. (Want to guess what game I am referring to that promotes this behavior?)

KOF XII, addition to featuring guard attacks and critical counters, has many other useful tactics like charging strong attacks(heavy punch and heavy kick pressed together) that can either stun an opponent or break their guard, evasive rolls( forward or backward, light punch, and light kick pressed together) that can help fighters dodge attacks, and sousai cancels that will cancel out attacks of equal strength when they collide at the same time. Air sousais are particularly sweet when two characters do jumping kung-fu kicks that clash at the same time; it’s like a scene from Enter the Dragon or Fist of the North Star.

The game features 22 characters in this roster that are already unlocked and they are all awesome. Every one of them has their own strengths and weakness in categories of strength, speed, durability, striking, projectiles, grapples. anti-air attacks, and dashing attacks. One simple example of this would be anti-air special moves. Just about everyone has them. Some are easy to combo into, especially moves like the rising tackle or the jumping uppercuts; however, they have a period of recovery if they whiff, leaving them vulnerable to the opponent. Some characters don’t leave the ground when they do their anti-air special move, which won’t have as much range and it may be harder to combo into but the benefit is that their recovery time is greater and they probably have some other move that’s easy to combo into when both characters are on the ground. I think for this reason of balance, that some of the special moves of veteran characters were removed. Most characters have either three or four special moves and either one or two super combo attacks.

I’ve never seen so much dedication in making the roster of a fighting game so balanced as this that I don’t event think a tier ranking is even necessary for this game. This is wonderful news because tiers need to leave fighting games like quick-time events need to leave action games. It’s much preferable to have all the characters have their strengths and weaknesses balanced out so when matches are fought amongst players, the winner will be determined by who has both the better skill and understanding of the game mechanics and characters. The differences between the each character’s strengths and weakness also lend to different play styles of those who play fighting games, whether you go for speedy attacks, powerful strikes, or grappling moves, their are a variety of characters to fit your strategy well. The problem with some of the past KOF games is creating a team of three fighters that would fit your play style and one of them would be a dude. Thankfully, that is not the case here. In the future, glitches and other forms foul play may be exploited as they are discovered in the game; for now, things are going great.

What’s lacking?

While the design choices of the fighting system are genius and the roster very balanced, the game is missing some things. For one, it’s the smallest roster in any King of Fighters game. While it’s great to have 22 awesome characters available in the game from the get-g0, I and others wish there were more. Characters like K’, Kula Diamond, Mai Shiranui, and Oswald were characters  that I saw requested by many fans. I was also hoping for Rugal to be the game’s final boss. But wait, isn’t he dead? He is indeed dead in the cannon storyline; however, this game doesn’t have a storyline and doesn’t represent the KOF cannon. Therefore, I have no problem with him being back. It’s never explained why Terry Bogard is back sporting his old look, why Ralf and Clark shockingly appear roided up, or why Ash Crimson doesn’t use the flames he stole from Iori in the the last game in his move set, while Iori fights without it. With the story non-existent and inconsistencies unexplained, it was time for someone like Rugal to come back and remind everyone the wrath of SNK Boss Syndrome!

So what did we get for a boss? Nothing, and that’s the biggest disappointment I have with the game. SNK fighting games, especially The king of Fighters, always – ALWAYS – has a ridiculous final boss that is nearly impossible to beat. It may take hours if not days to conquer such menacing opposition. They fight dirty, have ridiculous attacks and priorities, and will always pull out some bullshit destroying move right when you are about to bring them to their knees. It sucks and you yell and swear and probably break your controller, or punch your girlfriend in the face. But you keep trying… and then you eventually beat the boss. Once the dust has settled and the realization of victory has connected with your mind, you feel like the god of fighting games and that is why SNK Boss Syndrome is necessary for The King of Fighters.

Whether it was Rugal, Magaki, or the lovable Igniz; we needed someone. Not having the boss battle made the single player arcade mode seem anti-climatic and the motivation to play arcade mode is not really there, other than to unlock achievements and trophies. In all honesty, arcade mode sucks; it’s just five matches done in a time attack setting and the the credits roll. Not even a character splash screen or animated ending to show what the characters did afterward.

The lack of some kind of storyline in the game hurts the overall experience and there aren’t any other options for the single player experience besides practice mode. What happened to survival mode, or the various character challenges that existed in the PS2 version of KOF XI? Remember when we had to have Robert Garcia deflect all of King’s low and high venom strikes with only the ability to counter with low and high projectiles of his own for 3o seconds and were rewarded by having him unlocked in the game? Okay, well I did it and when I beat that challenge, I felt a badass sense of accomplishment. I really wish challenges like that were in here again.

Final thoughts… for now

So if you really want to experience KOF XII right, then you’d better have some friends who enjoy playing fighting games or have the ability to play others online. Hell, if you don’t have any friends who don’t play fighting games, then ditch them and get new friends that do. Trust me, you won’t miss them when you start playing Garou: Mark of the Wolves with your new compadres.

While lacking a huge roster of characters that more recent KOF games have had, KOF XII has characters that are far more balanced and detailed than ever before. The game depends more on skill and has a well developed set of mechanics that promote match variety, make comebacks possible, and turn good defense into devastating offense. While the single player experience is lacking as well as the story, the fighting system makes for legendary matches between skilled players, and that in itself makes The King of Fighters XII worth getting. It’s hard to say if KOF XII is the best fighting game of the past year when Tekken 6 hasn’t come out in the states yet and I still haven’t played BlazBlue. Even so, after a day of playing this, it already pounds the other competition that includes Street Fighter IV and Soul Calibur IV. Despite such claims, fighting games have more variety this year than in any other this decade in game choices.

I’m sure that later on I will develop new feelings about this game as a I play it more. I don’t know if it will have the potential to exceed the quality that other SNK games like KOF XI and Garou have established, but the potential exists. I for one can’t wait to play this game some more after I take care of the many responsibilities that await me in the near future. I hope by the, the online mode of the game is patched to remove lag so I can fight more people online. Hopefully, this game will be recognized as an incredible and well-balanced fighter that could be one of the games for EVO next year. We shall see. Until then…

Let the year of the fighting game continue!