The King of Fighters XII
| A review of: The King of Fighters XII by: Etali |
| Platform: Xbox 360 | Publisher: Ignition |
| Rating: 7.0/10 | The King of Fighters series of games is one of the longest-running fighting games in existence. The series may not be as well known as Street Fighter or Virtua Fighter, at least not in the UK, but it has a strong core following, and it is very popular in as a competitive online fighting game. In fact, King of Fighters 98 is still frequently played online even today. The King of Fighters XII is a significant title in the series, because the developers left the Atomiswave system, and moved over to the Taito Type X2 system. This may not sound significant to a casual fan, however it means that the developers had to redraw all the graphics, and all the characters, for this game. The King of FIghers XII may be a 2D fighter, but re-drawing so many characters and their animations is no small feat. Some of the older games had huge rosters - more than 50 characters to choose from. The developers did not have time to re-draw all of these characters, so KOF XII has a much smaller roster - only 22 characters in the console version of the game. The good news is that most of the well known and popular characters made it into the game. The bad news is that the move sets of some of the characters are rather limited. The characters do feel different - and it's easy for even a relative newcomer to the genre to identify their strengths and weaknesses, but you'll quickly find that there are four or five characters that are your favourites, and you'll use them more than any other characters, which can make the games feel a little repetitive. Some of the characters look rather different in their newly redrawn forms. I'm a fan of the new look, although the retro-style backgrounds can be rather distracting at times. I love the appearance of Mature (one of the console only characters), and Iori is a lot of fun to play with. The King of Fighters XII uses a three on three system. You and your opponent each pick three characters to use, and the order that they will be used in. The first two characters face off, and the winning character gets a small heal, and stays in play, facing off against the second character chosen by the loser. This continues until one player has no characters left standing. There's no story in the offline mode. SNK have said that they will return to the story of the previous games in a future release, but in KOF XII the offline mode consists of a series of matches, with no boss at the end. The game play is sound enough. The controls consist of the analogue stick or d-pad for movement, and attacks (strong and weak punches and kicks) on the buttons. Slides, rolls, jumps and guard attacks are easy to pull off. Guard attacks can now be used at any time, however they are low risk, high reward - the knockback is devastating. The critical counter system offers a way to end the fight with a devastating flurry of blows. Add in the ability to 'juggle' opponents, and you have the potential for some spectacular fights. I'd like to see guard attacks revert to their older, more limited form, but other than that I think that the fighters are balanced, and the combat system is generally sound. The controls are easy enough for even a beginner to get the hang of quickly, however the offline mode is rather limited. The focus of the game is online play. A huge chunk of the achievements are online too - be it for taking part in matches, winning them, or pulling off certain moves. For veterans to The King of Fighters, the fact that the game expects you to play online a lot will not be an issue, however the matchmaking interface on the Xbox 360 version is rather clunky, and the game tends to lag a lot online. I've only been online a few times (thanks to spending most of the past few weeks on the move, and away from stable broadband), and I have had a couple of matches hang while they were loading, forcing me to quit. I'm not sure what this looks like to the other user - I certainly hope that my opponents don't think that I've been quitting early. I've had other matches that were incredibly laggy for both me and my opponent. You can avoid this somewhat by viewing the connection details of your opponent - the few matches I've played where the opponent had a good connection bar went smoothly, however on the Xbox 360 version of the game the connection strength is hidden away. Being able to view it earlier during the matchmaking process would make things much easier. This review was written at the beginning of October 2009. Apparently Ignition are in talks with SNK about patching the Netcode. If they do release a patch, I'll update the review to reflect the new online experience. As it stands, the combat system is solid enough, and I think the new graphics are appealing in a quirky, retro-modern way. If you're a 2D fighter fan looking for a game to play as same-console multiplayer, then this would be a worthwhile addition to your collection. It's also a good one to pick up if you're a KOF series fan - in particular to see how the re-drawn characters look. If you plan on playing multiplayer online, I'd wait a while until the online matchmaking gets patched. I'm certainly looking forward to seeing a return to the storyline in the next The King of Fighters game. |
