Hooray! This April, The King of Fighters XII is getting its first official play test in Japan. As pointed out in Famitsu, it's traditional 3 vs. 3 team match-ups. Also, the screen's edge forms a hard barrier that players will have to balance. What's more, attacks can cancel each other and there's a Guard Attack system that lets players switch from offensive to defensive modes on the fly. SNK says that the game system had gotten too complex and they were aiming showing that would be more approachable and put emphasis on "reading the opponent's mind." Famitsu scans below — which do the 100 percent hand drawn game no justice whatsoever.

Send an email to the author of this post at bashcraft@kotaku.com.