Sizing Up the Fight
I wouldn’t call myself a huge King of Fighters fan, but I have played every version since the original in ’94 at least a little bit. There wasn’t a particular one that I enjoyed the most or spent the most time on necessarily, but I’ve always thought it to be one of the very best 2D fighting franchises available. One reason for this was the sheer number of playable characters and modes. With KoF XII, there are a lot less of both of those elements and of several others. That’s not to say twenty-two playable characters is a low number, but it’s lower than series followers are used to with some previous entries having twice that and more.
As for the modes, they frankly feel a bit thin and flat. For starters, I would have liked to have seen more structure and depth out of Arcade mode. Instead of a story based Arcade, it’s all about time trials. The complete absence of a story (like in KoF 98 and 2002) may allow for a flexible roster that doesn’t interfere with the established saga thus far, but in exchange we’re left with a barebones Arcade mode. At the outset, players are greeted with a brief cutscene that informs them that Arcade mode is a series of five random 3-on-3 battles, with the goal being to win as fast as possible. There is an Achievement for beating the game in less than ten minutes, and another for beating it within eight, so you’re encouraged to rush right through it, which isn’t hard to do for the average fighting gamer. After each match, you can decide if you want to do a single replay of that match in order to try and improve your time. The time is always shown in the top of the HUD, so it’s easy to keep track of your progress.
I didn’t like the idea of just racing against a clock instead of following some kind of more rewarding and engaging structure. Just having the player go up against five groups of three random CPU enemies is a poor design decision. Plus, each fight is as easy or hard as the previous one, and the only thing to tie the whole experience together are three cutscenes which are the same every single time you play, no matter what characters you use. The cutscenes are all very brief and have nothing specifically to do with any character. One watch is enough, and then you’ll wish you could just disable them to save yourself a few seconds of load time (although the overall game loads swiftly). So unless you are familiar with the characters going in, the Arcade mode doesn’t do anything to help you get attached to any of them. The mode feels generic and rushed, and the only thing to witness at its end is thirty seconds of credits and a generic “Congratulations!! Thanks for Playing” screen…ugh.
In spite of all this, playing through Arcade is good for some quick satisfaction. Furthermore, you can view online leaderboards that keep track of the fastest completetion times, and I will admit that trying to beat your own times can be fun, but it’s not nearly as satisfying as playing through character stories.
Complementing Arcade play are Versus and Practice modes. It was good to see that SNK Playmore did include their usual package of Practice mode options that lets players really refine their training. Within the Practice mode pause menu, players can adjust lots of settings that govern everything from how the CPU character behaves to what state your Power and Critical Counter gauges are in. Obviously, Practice mode is a handy tool to get your learn on, but there is nothing like a human opponent to test your skill.
For that, KoF XII offers Versus and Online play. Versus, i.e., Exhibition mode, pits the player against the CPU in a 1v1 or 3v3 battle, you actually have the choice unlike in Arcade mode. Versus also includes the ability to save a video replay of a match. You can save up to 100 of these videos which is pretty cool, I know that’s something I wish I had in previous releases and it’s something more fighting games should include.
Of course, you’re not stuck just playing the CPU; you can also play with a friend locally or online. Online options vary between the Xbox 360 and PS3 version, a little bit anyway, which may surprise you (it did me). Between the two, it seems like the 360 version was the online platform of choice for the developers. So while the PS3 version allows clan building (a bit unusual for a 2D fighter if you ask me, but it sounds cool), the Xbox 360 version includes a TrueSkill ranking system. I don’t really know what the TrueSkill function does, although a press release says that “that will allow players to record replay and share their matches with friends online.”
Both platforms include quick, non-ranked match options as well as ranked tiers and up-to-eight-player tournaments. Tournament play requires some patience in that you could be waiting several minutes while you wait for your turn to compete. It’s possible to spectate others playing, but regardless, you cannot exit the tournament once you have entered. I don’t know if that was done to reduce cheating or what, but it is annoying, especially if you are just waiting around and you’re itching to play. Of course, for those quick online fixes, there are the Exhibition and individual matches you can play, so if you’re going into Tournament mode, you’re probably okay with waiting for your turn to play. That said, to get around this inability to not leave a Tournament, you literally have to exit to the Dashboard and relaunch the game.
Online play already requires a patch to play, but I believe this was to update the netcode, which should fix some lag issues that were reported to SNK just before launch. It’s hard to get a feel for how widespread the issue is, and I can’t say I’ve been effected by it much at this point. Of course, even with a patch, you might still see some lag during play, depending on network conditions on either end. Whether the lag issues from the SNK-code side are fixed or not just yet (they seem to be), I do hope that SNK continues to look at some of the other shortcomings of the online mode and patches those, too.
Lastly, there is also a Gallery mode on the main menu that includes artwork, a few dozen pieces in fact, of the various characters. Unlocking the art is fairly difficult though; players must lead their character of choice straight through Arcade mode without losing to unlock their gallery entries.
Round 2
So it’s no surprise that the core gameplay of KoF XII is familiar and largely unchanged, but there are a few significant items I would like to point out. First, a Critical Counter meter was added. This meter is located just below the health meter in the top of the HUD and it fills as a player takes damage and blocks. When full, a successful counter attack with a strong punch or kick will deplete the meter completely and put the countered player in a stun mode. While stunned, the opponent is left wide open for punishment. It can be a game breaker when used properly, and although this isn’t the first time a mechanic like this has been seen in a fighting game, it is a first for the KoF series.
There is now a clash system too that kicks in whenever players hit each other at exactly the same time. When this happens, both players are pushed back. Naturally, quick reflexes can take one of these moments and turn them into a big advantage. And, making a return is the Super Special meter, which is exactly what you would expect. As you deal out damage, the Max meter builds up. When it’s full, you can execute a Super Special (there is just one in XII)that is very powerful, but it’s quite possible to miss the opponent or they can block it if they react quickly enough.
KoF XII also sports a familar, yet changed, control scheme and a simplified difficulty scheme to help appeal to a wider audience and increase accessibility. The difficulty modes are now simply Easy, Medium, and Hard, whereas past KoF titles included more options. I don’t think the change here will upset the hardcore KoF fans, as most will blow through Arcade mode and move on to competitive play in no time anyway.
For the control scheme, KoF XII lets players decide if they want Normal or Simple control. Normal mode is equivalent to a typical scheme whereby players do a motion with either the d-pad or left analog stick and then press a face button or two. In practice, I found myself switching between both the pad and the stick as I do in other fighting games. Overall, the controls are responsive, but as always, I had trouble with consistency in special moves, but that’s more of an individual learning curve than poor game programming. Simple control mode allows you to just press the left analog stick in a direction and press a face button to execute special moves, but that really takes out a lot of the satisfaction of playing, so I never used it.
Speaking of controls, actions are kept pretty simple with the face buttons just acting as Light Punch/Kick and Strong Punch/Kick. These combined with movement controls make up the entire scheme, but the scheme is a lot more than just some punches, kicks, and special moves. The manual breaks down the other intricacies that include throws, dashing, backstepping, emergency evasions, blowback attacks, and fall breaks. These additional controls are easy enough to execute, but only the more detail oriented or hardcore player will use and master them. It’s worth noting too that the default scheme can be altered by choosing from four layouts. And, you can view a character’s move list from the pause menu at anytime; helpful when you’re trying to pull off that Super Special.
As far as presentation goes, KoF XII is a mixed bag. On the one hand, it’s nice to see hand drawn characters, but the characters’ appearance underwhelms. They still look quite pixelated against the smooth background and I found that to be a letdown. The backgrounds are also disappointing; they’re set in various locations like USA, France, Russia, China, Egypt, and maybe just one other one, giving a paltry total of just six. Moreover, I thought nearly all backgrounds featured too much motion and repetetive animations. Plus, when a round was over, the speed of the background animations go berserk (like in Street Fighter II), and it makes them look even more cheesy. Of the bunch, I would consider the France one to be the worst, with it’s painful color scheme and abundance of obese women, and the Russian one to be the best. The Russian background features a snowy setting some cool lighting. Visual effects on the other hand are more attractive and impressive. I would have liked to have seen Joe’s big Van Damme style jump spin kick however, but it’s sadly missing.
Technically speaking, KoF XII is fine; it maintains a smooth framerate and I didn’t have any problems with clipping or artifacting or anything like that. For audio, players can choose to hear fighter dialogue in either English or Japanese, which is always nice to see. Effects are fine, but the music gets tiresome fairly quickly. Fortunately, you can turn down the volume in the main options screen.
Final Round
In the end, KoF XII isn’t a bad game. It does, however, come off as a very lite version of a typical KoF game, or even a typical 2D fighter in today’s market. While it does maintain a lot of the class and core elements that made it special over the years, this newest iteration comes off as more of a stripped down port than a brand new title. I’m confident the series will continue, and it should, but it’s hard not to feel at least a little disappointed with this first entry on the 360 and PS3.
Finally, while I have spent much of this review talking about what I didn’t like in KoF XII, it’s safe to say that what I didn’t talk about I found to be either neutral or good. The overall compliment I can give this game is that in spite of its flaws, I’m having a lot of fun. It’s still a thrill to grab my opponents head and bash it with my knee with Joe, and Kim’s awesome somersault split kick is still really enjoyable to do and watch. In other words, the sheer fun factor makes up for some of KoF XII’s other shortcomings. That said, not every fighting gamer will find this one to be worth $60, understandably, but I do encourage everyone to give it a chance.