King of Fighters 12
I don’t care how many hardcore fighting fans are praising this game, I’m saying it now. Disappointment of the year. Before you lay into me as some Street Fighter or Guilty Gear fan boy who just doesn’t get KoF, know that I’ve been a big SNK fighter fan since the genesis games, and (aside from bosses that lead to controller throwing), love the Fatal Fury and KoF games.
I hear tons of excuses for this game, and none of them are valid. It’s like everyone’s just diluted or afraid to admit that SNK dropped the ball one this one, but they did. In a year with games like Street Fighter 4, Blaz Blue, Tekken 6, and great re-releases like Garou: Mark of the Wolves, King of Fighters 98, and Marvel vs Capcom 2, I can’t believe KoF 12 thought it would get any market share of the fighting genre. Well I guess that sets the tone of the review…
King of Fighters 12 is the newest entry in the hugely popular (in Japan anyways) SNK fighting franchise. The game has been in development and hyped for quite a while. It was supposed to be the first HD fighter from SNK and really showcase some new hand drawn character sprites. It was also suppose to simplify the fighting system and go back to its roots so that old school KoF players would get back into the franchise.
This was a very big deal to me, because not only would it be a current SNK games (a company which really only developed for dated arcade hardware that are really fun, but graphically never up to snuff), but would also lay the ground work for the series moving forward.
Well, it succeeds in making the game accessible to both old KoF fans and newcomers. The game does away with some of the complex elements from the last couple KoF titles, and while it feels simple at first is still a deep fighter. The biggest plus to this game is the combat system and the vs mode.
The game features 3 on 3 team fighting, you can build your own team and choose an order that they fight in. There’s a roster of 22 characters to choose from, mostly including fan favorites from past KoF games.
First off, the new high definition graphics are anything but. I’ve no doubts that they were originally beautiful. If you appreciate sprite work you’ll notice an insane amount of detail in the character sprites and how they are shaded. But if you didn’t really grow up with sprites and don’t care it will probably look ugly to you. That’s because KoF 12 takes these sprites and scales the hell outta them.
It’s always been a trait of SNK fighters to zoom in to playing field the closer you get to your opponent, but that technique really ruins the quality of the sprites. Scaling them up to fill the screen leaves them looking VERY jagged and pixelated. The first time I played was at a friend’s house on a 52inch 1080p set, and everyone in the room couldn’t believe how bad the game looked. There are several smoothing options, and they do help, but not enough. KoF fans may defend the graphics, but a when a room full of people (gamers and non) see the game and ask why it’s so ugly, the truth is plain.
Now, I’ve spent a long time on the graphics, and I feel justified in my complaining, because like I said above this is the ground work for KoF 13+. These sprites and this fighting engine will be used moving forward and redrawing the sprites and changing the engine is probably crazy expensive to do for at least another couple tiles.
Aside from the scaling it should be noted that there is a ton of details in the sprites and that the animation is top notch. The game runs at 60fps and every frame is animated. It’s the smoothest looking fighting experience around. Also, the backgrounds look great. There’s a lot of detail and action going on with the BGs, the only problem is that there’s only a handful. You’ll start seeing the same 6 backgrounds over and over and that gets really tiring.
Next are the game modes, or lack thereof. There’s nothing here for single players. There’s no story mode, there’s an arcade mode that plays like a time trail, and then just vs, training, and online.
The arcade mode has you play against 5 other teams, if you do bad on any match, you can repeat it once for a better time. The idea is to get the best time overall. There’s no boss (which is probably a good thing with how hard SNK bosses usually are).
The versus mode is great if you have a friend to play with!
The training mode is completely bare bones.
The online mode would have been the saving grace. There were some neat features planned for it. There’s an 8 player lobby with match viewing, and a clan system where 3 players could create a team and play matches together. It all sounds good, but the online itself is garbage.
You can almost never connect to a match, and when you do it’s laggy as all hell. The frame rate drops constantly and at times can look like a powerpoint presentation. There’s also a ton of input lag so good luck with any kind of strategy unless you can think 2 moves ahead of your opponent.
All in all, I can’t recommend this game to anyone. If it were 20$ cheaper and the online worked, I could at least say if your a King of Fighters fan get it. But it’s not so I can’t. If you don’t know the SNK fighting franchise than stay clear! There’s nothing here for you. If you are a KoF fan on the fence than wait for a price drop and some online patches. If you’re not a fan, but still interested in the genre, track down a copy of KoF 11, or the recently released Orochi Saga (which contains the first 5 games in the KoF franchise), both are better value for you cash.
