King of Fighters XII (Xbox 360) Review
Posted by Todd Vote on 08.25.2009
King of Fighters XII lands on the Xbox 360. Does it hold up well to all the great 2-D fighters, or does it falter soon after the opening round? Read on to find out.
Title: King of Fighters XII
Publisher: Ignition Entertainment
Developer: SNK Playmore
Genre: Fighting
Players: 1-8 online
Rated: T (Teen)
Gameplay
King of Fighters XII is a straight, forward 2D fighting game that utilizes a three on three format. In Arcade Mode you will choose your three representatives. From here you will participate in a five-match time trial tournament. Win each match in as fast a time as possible to unlock those sought after achievements *more on those later*. Each round consists of a one on one battle that ends when one fighter’s health bar is completely drained. After this is done, the winner will gain a slight health boost and round two begins against your opponent’s second choice. The cycle repeats until one team is left standing. Then you move onto the next match.
This is all that Arcade mode consists of. The only semblance of any sort of story present here is the lame news report style presentation that I assume is supposed to make you feel as if people all over the world are watching this. This news style report only appears at the very beginning, and then once again after the third match to present a tournament update.
The problem here is further pushed by how poorly these cut-scenes, if you want to call them that, are made. You would think with only two cut-scenes to create, SNK would have been able to do a little more with them. The animation in the cut scenes is second rate, and the voice work is horrible. I’ll forgive the voice work because it is done as well as just about anything that is translated to English from Japanese. But the animation in the cut-scenes is absolutely horrid; resembling something you could easily find on the PS1.
What did the five fingers say to the face?
After fiddling with Arcade Mode for a bit, I decided to try Versus Mode. Versus Mode is basically the same as Arcade Mode, only your time is not near as important. Versus Mode also gives you the option of going with the standard three on three fights, or you can choose to go at it one on one for a nice throwback to SNK’s fighting games of old. But again, this is as far as the depth of this game mode will go.
Unless you have a house full of people, or simply prefer the one on one aspect more than the three on three, there is no reason for you to want to play in this mode. There is no motivation for it, no reason for you to want to try it past the first couple of fights. There is once again, no prevalent story to drive you further into this game mode. To make this even more frustrating, there is no way you can unlock any of the games ridiculous achievements from this mode. So what exactly is my motivation here?
In addition to the bare bones Arcade Mode, and the “Could be fun with some buddies” Versus Mode, the game features some of the weakest move sets I have ever seen. Before I continue, let me preface with this statement: I am a huge fan of fighting games, and when it comes to them I am usually fairly easy to satisfy. I enjoy the realistic approach of Virtua Fighter just as much as the balls to the wall approach taken by others like Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat. That being said, I do not enjoy a mash-up of the two, and that is the impression I get from the move sets featured in this game. There is a combo hit counter, which would in turn lead one to believe that you may be getting some kick ass Killer Instinct style combos, or at the very least the less flashy, but still cool MK3 style combos. This is not the case, as the combos apparently either aren’t meant to be that big and flashy, or I just can’t figure out how to do them. Unless I threw a super special move in there at the end, I couldn’t get a combo over 4 hits. We have mediocre combos to go with our big flashy super special moves? Okay, I think that’s a bit backwards, but that could just be me.
The controls of the game are very basic, with you having access to both light and heavy punches and kicks, which are modified depending on which direction you are pushing on the stick or d-pad. The special moves and super special moves are easy enough to pull off, considering how bad the d-pad is for the 360. Each character features at least one super special move, and some feature two. The controls respond to your actions fine, but when playing against the computer, the different attacks are somewhat nullified by the computer doing nothing but jump around the screen. This made it so I had to jump around to hit them. The access you have to varied attacks is severely limited when you spend most of the match jumping around trying to catch your opponent. So responsive controls are nullified by the bad, cheap A.I. that does absolutely nothing but jump around the screen making it very hard to link any two attacks together.
Once I was finished fiddling with the single player modes, it was time to try out the online portion of the game, which would undoubtedly be the bread and butter of playability. To quote Lex Luthor: “WRONG”! My few attempts with the online play were met with such lag and slowdown that it completely turned me off from even trying anymore. The slowdown experienced in the online modes was something I can’t remember seeing since the days of the Genesis. In a day and age where the success of your game can sink or swim with a smooth online experience, The King of Fighters XII fails miserably, and that is just a shame. I won’t say that I am completely turned off from fighting others online, but the developers will need to fix the issues that mire the online before I venture into that arena again.
Graphics
King of Fighters XII hits the Xbox 360 with a roster featuring 22 of your favorites from SNK’s storied fighting game history, though most of the characters featured here are from previous KoF titles, there are a few notable exceptions. Raiden from Fatal Fury makes his KoF debut in this iteration. Each character now features a new hand drawn look; while unique, it really offers nothing we haven’t seen before from this genre.
Oh, pretty colors!...
Now, this next part is going to sound odd, so hear me out before you ridicule me in the comments section. When I play just to play, I use a pretty small TV. No, I haven’t moved to HD yet. Anyways, I do have a friend that has a HD TV, so for the purpose of reviews, I like to get a look at a game on both a standard set, and a HD set. This is the first time I have honestly been able to say that the character models look better on a standard set. On my standard set, the models looked smooth, and very well drawn. Alternately, when playing on an HD TV, the character models look as if drawn by someone who downed roughly 30 cups of coffee between drawing each character. The models do sport quite a bit more detail, and you can actually see the expressions your character is portraying, whether it be from being hit, or trying to throw your own moves when playing on HD, but the outline of the characters looks really grainy and jittery.
The backgrounds on the other hand, really come to life when playing on an HD set-up. The colors are more vibrant, the animations are clearer, and everything just has more pop to it. But even with that being said, the graphics still seem somewhat outdated, and not really as fresh as you would expect from the 360. For the best comparison, look at SFII: HD remix. The graphics are similar, and I dare to say they may be a bit better on Street Fighter.
One aspect of the graphics I found was well done were the impact graphics. What I mean by this are the visuals you get when you perform a critical counter, or a super special, or one of the other moves of that nature. The bright flashes were satisfying compared to the rest of the solid, yet under-whelming graphics.
Sound
I’m afraid the sound of the game is a big letdown for me. The music choices are… eclectic to say the least. I was not a fan. My first gripe with the sound is: Who the hell thought it was a good idea to create the music for the character select screen with a constant alarm clock sound going off in it? I can’t describe to you how much I hate that sound. So to hear it every time I was picking a character was really grating on my ears. So again, I will re-iterate that I was not a fan of the musical style, or selection used in this game.
The voice work of the game is atrocious, which as I stated above I will forgive as it has that cheesy kung-fu dubbed feel going on, and to be honest, that’s always been a bit of a guilty pleasure of mine. So it was forgivable.
Lasting Appeal
With no real story to speak of, I found myself getting bored with the game rather quickly. For me, after the ability to play against friends in a party style format, the most important part of a fighting game’s appeal is the story. It’s the reason I usually go through a campaign mode with each fighter. I want to see how it turns out for each character. There has yet to be a fighting game that I haven’t attempted to beat with every character, until now. With no story, what motivation do I have for continuing? I’m not a time trial junkie. I’m sure some folks really like racing against others times, and that is fine. If that is what you dig, then this is the game for you. But if you reason for playing a game of this style is for cool stories and finding out how it all turns out, you will be sorely disappointed.
Face, meet foot!
Add in the lag issues, and slow down that are hurting the online play, and the game loses a lot of what could make it one to continue playing. Luckily the online issues should be as simple as a patch from the developers, which I hope we see so I can give it another fair shot.
Fun Factor
The game was fun for a few minutes, but the place I had the most fun was using each character to check out the super special moves. But as I was running through the characters to see these awe-inspiring moves, I started to lose interest. With the bad online issues, and no story to speak of. The game just wasn’t that fun for me at all. I found that I was forcing myself to continue playing for the sake of this review. That’s not to say this is a horrible game, it just wasn’t my cup of tea. I want my fighting games to have a rich story. I know these characters all have a detailed story, what's wrong with including some of that here? Why not have a few bios that explain how each character came to be involved in the tournament, for those of us new to the series.
The 411
I’ve played SNK fighters before, so I was expecting a story similar to what Art of Fighting, or Fatal Fury would offer. So the lack of story in this game really threw me off. As I stated above I’m not much of a fan of time trial style games, and that’s what this game offers in spades.
Yeah, even I have no idea what's going on here!
The game mechanics are solid, yet unremarkable. The graphics are solid, yet unremarkable. Controls are solid, but the lack of a decent A.I. really takes away from the controls, and leaves you frustrated with what is transpiring on your screen.
What we are left with is a semi-solid, bare bones fighting game. Other than the crappy A.I. everything works well enough, while managing to not offer anything great. So my final verdict is: A solid effort, if we were still in the last generation of consoles. But for the current gen, this is just not a great game. For those of you in need of a 2-D fighting fix, there are better options out there.
Graphics
6.5
The graphics are nice to look at, but as I stated above, in todays graphics heavy gaming world, King of Fighters doesn't offer anything that serves to set it apart from rest of the pack.
Gameplay
6.0
While the controls and flow of the moves are very smooth, the cheap A.I. really hurts the playability. Moves are easy to pull off, hard to land on a opponent that does nothing but jump around.
Sound
7.5
I didn't care for the music they used in the game, but that is not to say that the sounds weren't well done. The music choices left something to be desired for my personal tastes; but all the bells and whistles fit in right where they should.
Lasting Appeal
4.0
The lasting appeal of this title is really something I did not feel comfortable putting a number on. As I stated, it all depends on what you expect out of a fighting game. With no story, and bad online functionality, I grew bored rather quickly.
Fun Factor
4.0
I love fighting games, so it was fun while it was still new and fresh. But after running through arcade mode, and everything a couple of times, it quickly loses some of its luster.
These are, hands down, some of the best 2-D fighting game graphics in gaming history. I don't really think it's fair to compare it to the rest of the 360's aresenal of 3-D games. It's apples and oranges, frankly. As a big KoF fan, I was pretty disappointed by XII, but the graphics were the only part of the game I could really defend. They're beautiful, and the animations are some of the smoothest I've ever seen.
Posted By: SeanAltly (Guest) on August 25, 2009 at 02:59 AM
I agree with you SeanAlty. I stated that above. I wasn't comparing to the 3-D fighters on the 360 my friend. I was simply stating that after Street Fighter IV had such great 3-D looking 2-D graphics, I was expecting a bit more from the hand drawn look we were being treated to. They were not bad by any means, just nothing special in my opinion. Thanks for reading.
Posted By: Todd Vote (Registered) on August 25, 2009 at 01:16 PM
Street Fighter 4's graphics weren't 2-D. They were 3-D. They weren't hand drawn at all. The gameplay was 2-D, but everything was rendered in 3-D. I don't see how you can't be impressed by KoFXII's graphics, but I guess you aren't, and that's okay, you're entitled to your opinion. I was blown away by how nice they looked. I honestly wish SF4 would have looked like this game.
Posted By: Guest#0348 (Guest) on August 25, 2009 at 01:40 PM
Personally I wouldn't really call SFIV 3D either, but to each their own. I tried to point out the good and bad of the graphics, and you guys are mistaking my low score for me not liking the graphics. They were good, but I just wasn't as blown away by them as some were.
Posted By: Todd Vote (Registered) on August 25, 2009 at 05:56 PM
To me this is the most disappointing game of the year. As someone who has played KOF all my life, this was supposed to be the rebirth of the series but the game feels like a rush job. No love was put into this game. No options. No story, crap online and a limited amount of options and characters of which I might add is broken because Chin, Kyo and Raiden pretty much own the game and are beyond broken because they take advantage of the ridiculous damage scaling. Compare this game with something like Blazblue which is the best fighting game I've played all year and you can understand why after 2 months, the arcades here in Japan have started dumping their KOF XII machines for the Virtua Fighter 5 upgrade.
Posted By: Guest#5390 (Guest) on August 25, 2009 at 11:23 PM
As someone who more or less despises polygons, KoFXII is by far the prettiest game I've ever looked at. However, the rest of the review more or less sums up everything I've been hearing, so I'm likely to pass this one up in favour of the inevitable KoFXIII.
Posted By: Weston Smith (Guest) on August 26, 2009 at 02:01 AM
"Personally I wouldn't really call SFIV 3D either, but to each their own."
Posted By: Todd Vote (Registered) on August 25, 2009 at 05:56 PM
It doesn't matter what you think it should be called. SF4, while it may only play out in two dimensions, is rendered in 3D polygons. It's not "3D-looking". It's 3D. Period.
KOF on the other hand, plays out in two dimensions and is animated with 2D frames. It's 2D. Period.
Posted By: MattL (Guest) on August 26, 2009 at 06:42 PM
Jesus. Can you guys at least get someone that actually plays fighting games to do the fighting game reviews? Or at least someone that'll play them for more then three hours before busting out a quick review and selling their copy back to EB?
I agree that the game has shit for a story and almost no replay value thanks to the laggy online play, but there's so much in this review that screams "this is not Street Fighter, therefore it sucks" thinking.
"The combos apparently either aren’t meant to be that big and flashy, or I just can’t figure out how to do them." - Are you blaming the game for your incompetence? Do you expect 20+ combos in every fighting game?
"We have mediocre combos to go with our big flashy super special moves?" - Honestly, go back to EB, get the game back, and play the game for another three hours. Check out Gamefaqs if you can't figure out how the combo system works.
"The controls of the game are very basic, with you having access to both light and heavy punches and kicks, which are modified depending on which direction you are pushing on the stick or d-pad." - Is this the first fighting game you ever played? That's how all fighting games work!
"The controls respond to your actions fine, but when playing against the computer, the different attacks are somewhat nullified by the computer doing nothing but jump around the screen." " So responsive controls are nullified by the bad, cheap A.I." - I am totally speechless. Really, if you plan on writing for a living, make sure that your future employer does not see this review.
"Each character now features a new hand drawn look; while unique, it really offers nothing we haven’t seen before from this genre." - God, stop it already! You're embarrassing yourself.
"For the best comparison, look at SFII: HD remix. The graphics are similar, and I dare to say they may be a bit better on Street Fighter." - Take a look at the character size differences when the players are close and apart. Take a look at how small the characters are in SFIIHDR. Repent!
"The game was fun for a few minutes" - So that's how long you played the game.
"That’s not to say this is a horrible game, it just wasn’t my cup of tea." - That seems to be standard fare for the game reviewers at this site. You give reviews to people who don't give a shit about the games they're given. They just want their free copies that they can sell afterwards.
"I’ve played SNK fighters before, so I was expecting a story similar to what Art of Fighting, or Fatal Fury would offer." - You are actually comparing SNK's flagship series to games that they stopped making in the 90s?
Yes, KOF 12 is a terrible effort on SNK's part in more ways than one...
But you have to admit that this is a TERRIBLE REVIEW.
Posted By: Fighting Game Fan (Guest) on August 27, 2009 at 12:12 AM
You know what. I kinda have to agree with the above poster.
In fact, I actually enjoy almost everything that Todd Vote touches, but this review seemed kinda.
Just. I really don't want to have to say it, but bad.
It's understandable that you can't LOVE a fighting game to review it.
In fact, that would be completely bias.
But you shouldnt play it for a couple minutes trying different characters and then rush out a review.
I don't know exactly how long you DID spend on it, but it seemed.
Well. Rushed.
If you aren't good at the game, and feel the A.I is frustrating as fuck.
Then turn it down.
You can't completely hate a game because of the A.I.
It really isn't fair to knock a game down almost 4 points (Exaggeration! Wait. Did I spell that right? Fuck it)
because you wern't good at a game.
If it isn't your cup of tea, review a different game. I wouldn't review RTS games because I suck ass at them and get frustrated at them.
I will say that it isnt the GREATEST KOF game, but you gotta do better than this man.
You really do.
But, before I leave.
I have to say. I really liked the graphics! It's a pretty good looking 2-D game if you ask me.
And dont compare it to other games to rate it.
Rate it solely on how good it is! Or bad.
Either way.
Posted By: Mike (Guest) on August 28, 2009 at 05:48 AM
Why does the online suck? This is on Microsoft servers....
Posted By: Guest#9180 (Guest) on August 28, 2009 at 06:11 PM
I can speak on behalf of the site that Todd Vote doesn't like or play fighting games. The guy hates Mortal Kombat in particular.
You hear that Todd? We all hate you. Grrrrr.....
Posted By: The Salms (Registered) on August 28, 2009 at 09:00 PM
You know what? This game is unfinished, clearly. It is unpolished, and it does fall short of greatness.
The problem the fighting genre has is this review claims there are better alternatives. This review is completely wrong about that. KoF XII has it's issues but hands down it is a superior game to Blazblue (which is the most terrible fighter in a long, long time), Streetfighter IV (incredibly stale), Tatsunoko vs Capcom (interesting roster, but not something you can take as a serious fighter, Marvel vs Capcom 2 (See Tatsunoko only this is quite crap to go with it) and especially all the doujin crap that no one should even play.
It's sad, it really is, but this game is better than this review indicates and it is sure better than any of its competition. It shouldn't be, really, but it is.
Oh well, KoF XIII should be more complete.
Posted By: Sean McCabe (Guest) on August 29, 2009 at 09:05 AM
Many, many people will disagree with you about this being better than Blazblue. If that's your opinion, fine, we all get one, but one look at it's reception within the 2-D fighting game community as well as critical consensus will show you that not only is Blazblue far from a terrible game, but one of the best, most original fighting games to come around in a long time. Typical internet bullshit, going around claiming your opinion as fact when there is so much evidence to disprove it. Have fun thinking you're cool by "going against the grain" and basically running around saying that everyone but you is wrong.
Posted By: SeanAltly (Guest) on August 29, 2009 at 08:20 PM
"The bright flashes were satisfying compared to the rest of the solid, yet under-whelming graphics."
"I was simply stating that after Street Fighter IV had such great 3-D looking 2-D graphics, I was expecting a bit more from the hand drawn look we were being treated to."
So you're impressed with bright and flashy things but have nothing but negative things to say about hand-drawn visuals? And you can't even tell that Street Fighter IV uses 3D graphics on a 2D plane. This is pathetic.
Posted By: Guest#1709 (Guest) on August 30, 2009 at 07:23 PM
the reviewer didn't even bother to find the cover for the american version of the game. so lame!
Posted By: in favor of better reviewers (Guest) on August 30, 2009 at 07:12 PM
Why should I give a crap about the 2D fighter community when they clearly don't care about quality? If they didn't they'd boycott most recent fighters because they've been terrible. I only bought KoF XII in the hopes of supporting SNK in making XIII a better game than XII is because they are the only company I maintain any faith in.
And believe it or not, everyone can be wrong, just as much as any one individual can. I actually have some standards for gameplay quality and artistic quality though, as far as I'm concerned I'm right.
Posted By: Sean McCabe (Guest) on August 30, 2009 at 04:41 PM
Yep, everyone is wrong but you. Keep telling yourself that, maybe it will come true. That's the power of imagination.
Posted By: SeanAltly (Guest) on August 30, 2009 at 10:00 PM
I, however, believe that Todd has a lot of merit in what he says. Compare this game to the only other HD 2D fighter that's come out this year, BlazBlue, and see just how pathetic this game looks by comparison.
I really hate that they used '94 versions of most of the characters, but they progressed the storyline of Ash stealing Iori's flame. Are you going forward or backward, SNK? Make up your mind.
The online fighting is garbage, especially when held in comparison to SFIV or BlazBlue. Slowdown and missed inputs galore.
The only things that are solid in this game are the control and fighting system. Very finely tuned with good collision detection and fluid transitions from move to move. My jury is still out on the SFA2-style custom Counter Combos mechanic, though.
Seriously, go pick up BlazBlue. You get characters with amazing depth and story, some of the best graphics on a 7th gen system, a challenging AI, and one of the best combo systems based on timing and planning I've ever seen.
Posted By: Phoenix10k (Guest) on September 04, 2009 at 09:40 PM
