The King of Fighters XII

The King of Fighters XII

An old-school approach sadly scuppers this attempt to deal a hurting blow to more modern rivals.

This is one of those reviews where you just want to pour your heart out. The King of Fighters series has been with us so long (15 years) that it has become almost like a younger brother. We’ve seen it come from out of nowhere and savage unsuspecting peers. It has toyed with the trappings of recent times, with so-so 3D incarnations that passed us by almost without notice. Now it wants to be back, and centre stage.

However at every preview stage, which has been similar to watching a fighter in training, we’ve worried that the admirable 2D-or-nothing approach would be enough in the ring. Going up against Capcom’s Street Fighter IV and Arc System Works’ Blazblue, it was always going to require superhuman effort. Sadly The King of Fighters XII doesn’t have what it takes, probably the hardest message to deliver.

Yes, the hand-drawn artwork and painstaking animation lavished on the roster of fighters amounts to a landmark event. Not just for the KOF series, but within any genre of videogame. However we strongly suspect that this one overriding, and some might call it heroic, commitment has also been a ball and chain for KOFXII. The most terrible truth is that it doesn’t make a huge difference to the game overall, simply because in key areas such as gameplay and online the new KOF collapses.

Although The King of Fighter XII retains the feel of its highly regarded Neo Geo prequels, it doesn’t add anything new or borrow something else that’s interesting. The tournament structure seems almost an afterthought: fight a few rounds with teams of 3-Vs-3 in the fastest time possible. If you want to try for a better time, you can replay a round but only once. There’s no grand final, or even a Story Mode type commentary to make you feel part of something important.

Given The King of Fighters legacy, we might also have seen a solid Training mode to educate newcomers in the ways of KOF versus Street Fighter. Or, since the characters are among the most celebrated in fighting game history, perhaps Story Modes with attractive introductions and end sequences. We don’t even get a Survival mode, a staple of the early SNK / Neo Geo home versions of popular arcade games.

We couldn’t shake the feeling that we were just playing KOFXII to go through the motions, in respect to what the series has been in the past, and trying to appreciate how SNK Playmore has tried to honour the 2D tradition. Playing against a human opponent just about breathed some life into the proceedings, which is why the abysmal online set-up is such a bitter pill to swallow. At least if the game isn’t too great, a decent lag-free online arena would give fighting game fans something to chew on, keep the dream alive until hopefully, one day, SNK Playmore gets a second wind.

The principles are still rock solid for this so-called Rebirth. But for our money the guys responsible have been unable to get even half the way there. Our score reflects the belief that SNK Playmore were shooting for the stars but somehow didn’t get the support this project really needed.

3 out of 5