The King of Fighters XII is said to be the rebirth of the King of Fighters series. Well, it certainly does rebirth the series onto current generation consoles. However, we’re twelve games into the series (not including spin-offs). So just how different can King of Fighters XII be? Is it an improvement?
Previous King of Fighters games have featured an engaging story arc, which is an important value to a fighting game; it was one of the highlights of The King of Fighters XI. However, in The King of Fighters XII, a story mode is lacking, and by lacking we mean not there. There’s an Arcade mode, however, it’s merely a tournament with five matches, timing you to achieve the best record. In comparison to other high profile fighting games these days like Street Fighter IV and BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger, the lack of a real story mode is severely disappointing.
The latest game in the series comes with a roster of twenty-two characters and a venue selection of six. Once again, in comparison to previous King of Fighters games this is a downgrade. King of Fighters XI featured over 40 characters, King of Fighters ’98 featured 60 characters, you get the point. Tie in twenty-two characters and six venues, and you’ll start feeling a certain repetitiveness while playing the game.
Other than an Arcade mode, the game also features Versus Practice and Online modes, which are pretty self explanatory. The Versus and Online modes are probably the game’s best features, considering if you want some real variation amongst the game’s small selection of characters and higher competition since the Arcade mode doesn’t give you a difficulty option, you’ll want to play against other human opponents. At SCRAWL HQ, we’re playing on the PlayStation 3 version of the game, which also comes with an exclusive clan feature for online matches, an awesome edition to any online-capable game.
However, the lack of a high amount of characters and venue doesn’t mean The King of Fighters XII doesn’t pack a punch. It’s a fast-paced straight-forward three-on-three team fighter that can certainly keep fun going amongst a party. Each character has their own variety of moves, some more than others, but that’s expected in a fighting game. A lot of jumping, running, and rolling needs to be in play for an effective fight. Whether your jumping to catch someone in the air, or rolling to dodge an attack, the gameplay’s all enjoyable.
King of Fighters XII does have some new features in its fighting system, though. A new deadlock system allows players to clash attacks and stop both attacks resulting in no damage altogether. A new counterattack system allows players to absorb moves for use after a knockdown. However, deadlocks rarely happen when playing, and the counterattack system is only useful every now and then.
Graphically, The King of Fighters XII looks okay. You can tell SNK put a lot of focus on updating the roster into HD, but even the hand-drawn models look a bit iffy. Playing on a smaller screen, the game would look really good, but playing on a 42″ 1080p screen, you’ll notice a lot of pixels sticking out the of characters making you think that they should’ve took the route of Street Fighter IV and jumped into the 3D character realm. There is, however, a filter that lets you blur the lines on the characters, but though the image is smooth, it loose a lot of it’s crisp value.
Overall, The King of Fighters XII is a fun game. However, with a lack of a good amount of characters, venues, no real story, and alright visuals, the game feels like a large downgrade after playing the likes of BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger or even The King of Fighters XI. We’d suggest trying those before The King of Fighters XII. Add Street Fighter IV in on that mix. However, for hardcore fans of the series, go all for it. If you’re a hardcore fighting fan in general, we’d suggest not.