Review: The King of Fighters XII, It’s No Longer the King in Fighting
by Reece Heywood - October 6, 2009
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The King of Fighters series has been around for a long time now and has had a strong keeping as one of the top contenders against other fighters such as Capcom’s Street Fighter series.
SNK declared that The King of Fighters XII would bring the series back into the center stage and be reborn to compete with it’s opponents. The main focus was the major overhaul of the visual design in high definition along with new character sprites.
Sadly King of Fighters XII is a huge disappointment for hardcore fans and the casual gamer. Even though the game looks pretty good and has a solid engine for combat it all feels slightly cheap and shallow.
The game features a solid lineup with a twenty-two character roster which features fighters such as Kyo Kusanagi, Terry Bogard and Iori Yagami. A few fan favorites are missing but could be introduced as downloadable content in the future.
It’s main focus of the matches is the same as before with the classic three-vs-three, however fighters cannot jump in or out and have to remain in the fight until the end of the round. It’s basically an elimination approach with the last fighter or team standing is declared the winner, you can also opt for a simpler fight and choose to play as one-vs-one.
Each warrior in King of Fighters XII has a Light Punch, Light Kick, Heavy Punch and Heavy Kick. These four strikes can be used on their own or combined together with the left stick to pull of sophisticated grabs and combos.
Using both heavy attacks will perform a Block Back attack, which can knock back your opponent or stun them. This is similar to the Focus attack found in Street Fighter IV. Using these together while holding back will perform a Guard Attack which parries an oncoming attack and automatically follows up with your own attack or deadly combo.
Each fighter has a unique set of super and special moves which will take a learning curve for newcomers to the series. One of the new features is the Critical Counter bar. This bar fills up over the course of the fight whether your delivering blows or receiving them. Once the bar is full you can activate a special combo where you can roar on your opponent and carry out a fast and devastating combo which is easier than under normal conditions.
The essence of the system feels that it’s past its best. It works reasonably but doesn’t feel it’s leaped into the next generation era when compared to other fighters. The design style works great along with the animations of the fighters.
However, sadly the resolutions of the 2D sprites are far from good and a lack of anti-aliasing doesn’t help the situation even though you have the option to adjust a blur setting within the main menu. This wouldn’t have been such a bad thing if the game was being played in standard definition but this game has been developed for high definition consoles and everything else within the game is.
King of Fighters XII has no story mode, survival mode or character editing options. Every fighter is unlocked from the beginning so there’s nothing to entice the player into completing the Arcade mode multiple times apart from unlocking artwork to view in the Gallery.
There’s a lack of stages to compete in, you only have six with two of these being the same apart from day and night time transformation. The spectators also have an odd design with a mixture of people looking like over weight women with pigs for faces to skinny men behaving as monkeys. I don’t know, I just find it quite slanderous and troubling at the same time.
The problem with King of Fighter XII is the overall presentation, it has no ambition to even work or look good. While in the character select screen you cannot quit out to the main menu, to do so you need to start the match and then quit or reset the console and boot the game up again.
The online multiplayer is completely ruined with lag and is completely un-playable, plus with the majority of skillful players online you will be worried going into battle with them. A patch has been released for both the Xbox 360 and PS3 but it hasn’t cured the problem.
I found no fun with King of Fighters XII along with others who played it, the first few matches were fun but apart from that it’s very insufficient for the price tag when compared to its rivals. With the whole game only being 700MB maybe SNK should of looked at King of Fighters XII being an online downloadable title for a cheaper price.
I find it sad to say but maybe it’s time for the King of Fighting to step down for a while until SNK can produce a true fighting game that everyone can enjoy and praise.
