Late to the Party Review: King of Fighters XII by Binge Gamer
Late to the Party: King of Fighters XII
By James Walker
We here at Binge Gamer are only mortal. Between living our lives, being swamped with work, delivery problems and having writers constantly cracking under the tyrannical rule of JW, it’s understandable that sometimes we fall behind on game reviews. When this does happen, we don’t ignore the game — we simply consider it late to the party.
The King of Fighters XII is, as you can probably imagine, the twelfth game in the 2D fighting series. This latest title in the franchise features the first truly substantial visual overhaul in the series’ history (not counting Maximum Impact), some minor alterations to the core mechanics and online play.
…well, two out of three ain’t bad, right?
Before anybody panics, let’s make it perfectly clear that King of Fighters XII still plays like a King of Fighters game. Right off the bat you can choose three of the game’s 22 characters to create a team, which are then pitted against other teams of three fighters that are either controlled by a friend or by the computer. If you don’t like fighting three-on-three for whatever reason (you’re neurotic or have OCD or something, I don’t know), you can still get into 1-on-1 fights in the game’s Versus Mode.
King of Fighters XII only gives you three modes to play: a Time Trials mode that replaces the story mode from previous games (WTF SNK?), the Versus Mode listed above and Practice Mode, which barely qualifies as a game mode in 2009. The three game modes feel like they are only there to serve as training grounds for you to go online. Now this wouldn’t be a problem if the online play was executed well. Sadly, the online play is a bit dodgy. I found myself getting disconnected from matches quite frequently and when I wasn’t being kicked completely, the lag made playing the game over an internet connection almost impossible.
When you’re in an actual match, the game plays like a King of Fighters game — that is to say that unless you are an experienced fighting game player, you will get your ass handed to you. The game has a roster of widely varied fighters that open up several different options to appeal to anybody’s style of play. The balancing of the characters could stand a little tweaking, however, as while no one character can overpower the others there are a few that have far more special moves than the rest of the roster. But in the end that is nothing more than a minor nitpick that you probably won’t even notice unless you’re a game reviewer who strives on finding any weakness in a game and striking at it with the force of Mjöllnir.
There are a few changes to the core gameplay, including improved knockdown attacks and the “critical counter” system. Basically the “critical counter” system is where, if you execute a well-timed counter attack, your opponent will be briefly stunned and allow you to, as the prophet Stone Cold would say, “open up a can of whoop ass”. The power meters have also undergone a slight streamlining to where you only have a single level of special attack.
One of the biggest deviations that King of Fighters XII takes from the rest of the series is the surprising lack of characters. While 22 is still a respectable number of fighters to pick from, some of the most famous and beloved in the series have been, for some reason, omitted. And yes, horny twelve year-old boys, that includes the omission of Mai Shiranui.
Visually, the game simultaneously gorgeous and an eye sore. Allow me to explain: The character animations are downright beautiful. They’re very smooth, very fluid and they just look good. On the flip side, the character sprites themselves have this weird jagginess to them that just doesn’t look right. After seeing how sprites in HD could look with Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix, seeing the outer fringe of the sprites have this fraying just looks cheap. In addition, while the fighting arenas all look good, the fact that there are only five of them all but promises that, eventually, you’ll get tired of looking at them. Except the jiggly French women. Roundhouse kicking a dude in the face while a fat blonde French chick headbangs in the background is strangely satisfying.
The audio is nothing remarkable. The soundtrack is serviceable but nothing remarkable and the sounds of combat are done appropriately. That’s… really all I can say about it.
Overall
Look. At it’s core, it’s still a King of Fighters game. The core gameplay hasn’t changed much, and the few changes that have been implemented aren’t necessarily bad ones. But the thing is that rather than this feeling like a true entry in the series, this feels more like King of Fighters “Light”. It’s a stripped-down version of a fighting game that would stand fairly well on its own, but is a giant let down if you are a fan of the King of Fighters franchise.
That and the online is damn near broken.
With that said, if you are somebody who has a lot of friends who come over and play fighting games with you, or you are simply a die hard fan of the KoF franchise, you will find that The King of Fighters XII is, at it’s core, a damn fun game. It’s just a shame that SNK felt the need to strip away all of the extras that helped to make KoF stand out from the crowd.
