After King of Fighters XII, SNK had left a lot to be desired, not the least of which was more robust network code for online play. KoF XIII addresses that issue and makes several notable strides in making the series compete on the level of a Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat, although it has a ways to go. Granted, KoF has always been a very different game than those popular franchises, and it certainly still has its uniqueness intact with XIII, but if it’s ever to get to that next level, I think it’s going to have to evolve and become more accessible in the process.
That said, from the main menu, there are thirteen or so options to choose from, which may sound daunting, but it’s not. By default, the new Tutorial mode is selected. I decided to skip that initially and hop into Arcade mode, which brings you to the character select screen. One on one is supported, but this is intended to be a team vs team, 3v3, fighter. Players select three characters of the thirty-one that are immediately available. As soon as you select one, you can choose between several available color schemes to give them a different look. When the selections are made, you choose the order of who you want to control first (keep in mind there is no tagging system here like in Marvel Vs Capcom), and then it’s off to battle.
My go-to picks for this series always include the boastful Joe Higashi from Team Fatal Fury and Kim, the determined martial artist from Team Kim. My third pick ends up just being a wild card, but I found myself choosing Chin often. Controls felt immediately familiar, but no less difficult, which is how the series has always been for me. You can pause the game and examine your button config as well as the command list, which is rife with plenty of diagonal inputs and other symbols I didn’t immediately recognize. From a controls standpoint, nothing has changed with XIII, which is what the fans probably want, but for more casual KoF players like myself, it just means a lot of cursing and practice.
It wasn’t long before I hopped into the Tutorial Mode to see what help it could offer. I should mention that the old Practice mode is back as well, and the manual is a great resource too. Speaking of the manual, it’s the thickest console manual I think I have ever seen (it does include two languages, but still). The Tutorial is split up into two parts, basic moves and gauge training. The basic moves teach you the differences between a hop, hyper-hop, jump, and hyper-jump (I had no idea there were four ways to jump), as well as dashes and rolls. The second tutorial talks about the gauges, including the guard gauge and the power meter. The power meter is the orange bar which can be filled up five times. Each super special move requires a full bar to use. Embarrassingly, from the tutorial, I was asked to execute a super special move to proceed; nigh ten minutes later, I still had not performed the darn combo which had about eight directional inputs before a punch button.
Despite being unable to perform the higher end moves such as the new NEOMAX attacks in XIII, or any KoF for that matter, it’s still a fun game with plenty of basic moves that savvy players can eek by on. In addition to local matches with the CPU or a friend, there is an Arcade mode and a Story Mode. The Arcade mode is just what you’d expect, it has some story elements to it that appear via cutscene every few fights, but it’s primarily your team versus a random CPU team. The Story mode, new to the series, starts off slowly with a text-based cutscene, but this turns out to be the most compelling mode of all, at least in single player mode. As for the premise, I don’t have a complete picture of what’s going on, but it involves Ash Crimson and a return of the Orochi, which was an entity that was a huge part of the KoF games in the late 90s. Three treasures are needed to set Orochi free, two of which are already in hand by a nefarious character. The Story mode gives players a lot of insight to this main plot from a variety of angles. At certain points, you can choose what part of the story to play and unlock next. You are also able to view your total progress and revisit any unlocked story chapters.
The Story mode is the coolest single player addition this time around, but eventually, if not immediately, you will probably want to take your skills online to see what the competition is like. In my relatively limited online experience thus far (there just aren’t a whole lot of sessions going on this early after launch), the online experience is vastly improved from last time. The lobby setup is informative and intuitive and matches have been as smooth as local play. It’s certainly nice to see that SNK put a lot of attention to this very important component after gamers struggled with the net code in XII.
In terms of presentation, KoF still hasn’t made the transition to “HD.” The hand drawn characters are well animated, but they lack a visual ‘pop’ that the series has been missing this entire generation. The 2D look needs an overhaul, especially after so many very similar-looking KoF games that have been released over the years. I also thought the backgrounds were pretty bad this time around. They’ve never been stellar per se, but many of the backgrounds in XIII looked uninspired. Some examples would be the Paris cafe that has a bunch of obese women, the British stage with the buses that all say “King of Fighters” on them, and the skyscraper with a bunch of poorly animated helicopters. I liked the snake temple, however, and I do like how the backgrounds change, sometimes quite a bit, in between rounds. I don’t understand or like how the background animation doubles its speed during the winner’s pose, though.
As for the audio, it gets the job done but it’s not outstanding. There is a bunch of pre-fight dialogue and cutscenes in the Story mode that could have been better with voiceovers. What voiceovers are included do well, and the music and effects are very much true to the series, which is both a good and bad thing.
To the summary…