http://cyberfanatix.com/forums/index.php/topic,2602.0/topicseen.html

I guess at this point all the big fighting game developers have completely given up on 2D. What a shame.

Not necessarily the worst thing in the world, the new Guilty Gear is in 3D and it looks amazing. It all depends on how they do it.

I have yet to be convinced that the new Guilty Gear is actually 3D.

@egg: ye of little faith :P

But personally i'd prefer KOF to stay Spirit based.

yup. just make them look better resolution to fit the home market.

That's actually what I came in here to say.

It's still going to be a 2D fighter, just with polygonal graphics

That's a shame given how gorgeous KoF 13 is, but it's understandable. If you want to have a ton of characters 3D on a 2D plane is the way to go, and KoF is a series with a ton of characters.

Also they just finished their latest 3 game story arch (If you ignore KoF 12 due to it having no story) so I'm hoping for a 98' / 2k2 style dream match. That's the pattern they've been going with.

It'll still look great, but those sprites are gorgeous and this totally disappoints me. Then again, if they wanted to spice up the look of it a bit with new sprites it would take a ton of fucking time. So I guess I get it.

But still, :(

That's a real shame. I want sprites.

3D doesn't necessarily mean all rubbery looking like SFIV and similar. If used as a tool to speed production time but still maintaining the 2D look and animation style it can be good stuff too.

So we shall see. The KoF team does not strike me as being willing to put out shitty looking design, so I am not worried... yet.

Let's pray they don't go realistic like Tekken or stylized like Street Fighter 4

On the Subject of Guilty Gear's look they achieved a balance assuming those are 3D sprites (i don't doubt it isn't), I hope SNK drop the ball since they're essentially outsourcing (not in the literal sense)

well... they tried it before with maximum impact and it was incredibly awful but they a did great job with the hybrid 3d to 2d sprites of XII and XIII so im not totally doubting them yet.

@gokaired: A sprite by definition is 2D and always faces directly towards the screen, so I don't know what you mean by 3D sprite. Do you mean that they might be pre-rendered Donkey Kong Country style? That would be an absurd number of frames considering the camera rotations and such, so I doubt it. They almost certainly do use a frame-by-frame animation system though*. Still, I would be hard pressed to say if/when the transition between sprites and models happens. They appear to have shadows rendered in real-time, which would mean they are either using a hidden version of the models while the sprites are there, or they really are 3D models all the time with very clever rendering to look like illustrations while the camera is locked.

*As opposed to something using inverse-kinematics and animation blending like Assassin's Creed, for example

@scrawnto: Oh, i meant "2.5D" as i think it's referred to now, i only say sprite due to the genre being - as you said - "faces directly towards".

what's weird in the latest GG example is you couldn't tell they where 3D models because of the technique they used, i doubt SNK will take the same route.

I wonder if they'll add battle damage though, it could set it apart from the other 2D fighters.

They're going to have to try pretty hard to top how good-looking XIII was. Hopefully they'll throw in functional net code while they're at it.

@gokaired: Tekken is hardly realistic looking. More so than Street Fighter sure..but still the characters are still really absurd looking.

Cool, technically it's nothing they haven't done before. Every character was fully modeled and animated for KOF XIII, they just recorded the animation frames and did colour and touch up work by hand for the sprite data. If they can manage to produce the same level of animation and physics quality at run time it could be even better looking than the new Guilty Gear.

Here is a (weird) article partially outlining the process, seems like a mdda amount of work. I have no doubt KOF XIV will look phenomenal.

Gonna have to work on those 3D bounce physics!

Pics or it didn't happen.

Going to just echo the "Guilty Gear looks great in 3D" sentiments.

@recspec: To be fair Ark Systems mastered the whole 2D/3D fighting game thing with Battle Fantasia which was released before SF4, SNK's track record with 3D fighters has left much to be desired. (I am looking at you samshosen!)

I was never aware of what this series was about until I saw it during EVO and I was blown away by those guys. The game was easily the most visually impressive fighter out of the bunch for me.

The excellent 2d artwork was pretty much the only thing I found interesting about this series.

"New KoF"

YAY!!!!

"3D"

No thank you...

Ditto!

KoF 98 Ultimate Match & KoF XIII are still working fine. I'll pass, unless they beat the odds and do a great job.

@toowalrus: I was referring to the graphics.

And yeah, the new Guilty Gear does look pretty good, but its look (and the look of all Arc System Works games) is also far more basic that of the last two King of Fighters games and I highly doubt SNK could convincingly simulate the 2D KoF look with polygonal models. The backgrounds and sprites really don't compare at all. Hell, even SNK backgrounds from well over a decade ago are more impressively animated than anything ArcSys have ever made.

KoF XIII looks spectacular so I'm not sure why they're doing this, but whatever. I recently bought KoF 2006 which I'm also enjoying a great deal so I'm open to whatever SNK wants to do.

I was really looking forward to SNK continuing the work done with KOF13 and giving us a dreammatch in KOF14 with all characters ever to appear in the series in the beautiful KOF13 graphics style.

Then I hear KOF is going 3D??? Normally this news would not be good but seeing the new Guilty Gear game using new 3D graphics technology where the characters actually look hand drawn with real bright cartoony colors really made me consider that the new 3D KOF might actually look very good IF DONE RIGHT!!

Understandable but a bummer, high fidelity 2D games are are already nearly extinct. I'll stick with KOF11 until Vanessa makes a return though, I just love her move set.

There was already a 3D KOF. It wasn't very good...

KOF MIRA was a pretty great game. Let's hope the can be at least that good.

@ervonymous: kof11 (KOFXI) is an incredible game and is up there with the best KOF games along with King of Fighters 98: Ultimate Match.

just one request:
better netcode, por favor

That's a highly valid request. GGPO-like technology needs to become the norm for all online fighting games.

I am in love with KoFXIII despite being complete trash at it, but I have to say the move to 3D graphics is a tiny bit concerning. Assuming the backgrounds will be 3D as well I find it hard to believe they will be able to live up to the AMAZING looking stages in KOFXIII. Seriously, I think KOFXIII has the most beautiful stages of any fighting game I've ever experienced.

Until we get screenshots though I'm going to remain cautiously optimistic. Because new KOF is great news by itself.

I can't wait to see what they have planned for their next KOF game. 2014 will be King of Fighters' 20th annivsery!

@alkusanagi: Why you said that?

Didn't you remember 2.5D which is it same as Street Fighter 4 3D look with 2D Style it's also support higher resolution as 4K 2160p and Above, but if it's only 2D like the old KOF it will be lock at 1080p won't go above to play it on 4K resolution and higher!

it's such of Great SNK throw the low Old 2D Graphics and convert it to 3D so it will be 2.5D remember that my friend