Example: here are the two Japanese covers for King of Fighters XII, which, like the Western editions, feature a different picture for each console. And hey, it's not that we hate the Western ones. We just think the Japanese ones are better.

The highlight? Check out SNK's take on those sexy, sexy French ladies. Subtle.

While SNK Playmore has yet to officially announce who those characters are, even releasing screen shots that still show a character select screen that features the stock 20 characters, they may have given us a hint about who's new. The official King of Fighters Anniversary web site now has illustrations of the oft-requested Mai Shiranui and K'. Yeah, so?

Well, those new illustrations are done in the style of The King of Fighters XII, leading many—including us—to believe that we'll see both Mai and K' added to the console versions of the game.

Clearly, SNK doesn't want to miss an opportunity to release another suggestive Mai statue, this time focusing on the underexploited side boob exposure she's giving KOF fans in the official artwork. That's leaving money on the table.

Unfortunately, this is little more than speculation at this point, but we'd bet it's speculation in the right direction.

The King of Fighters Official Web Site [SNK Playmore via Mognet]

The King of Fighters series finally makes the jump to current generation hardware with The King of Fighters XII, coming this July to the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. It's the first title in the series since 1996 to feature completely new graphics, though by way of trade off it currently only boasts 20 combatants - the lowest in the history of the franchise. It's a bit like what Capcom did with the recently-released Street Fighter IV, bringing the game back to a core set of characters, relaunching with a new look but retaining the classic feel.

The July release further clarifies the Summer 2009 target shown in the game's latest trailer.

"I couldn't think of a more appropriate way to commemorate The King of Fighter's 15-Year Anniversary than with a gorgeously animated, high-definition installment that updates the KOF legacy for a new generation." said Shane Bettenhausen, New Business Development Director of Ignition Entertainment. "While other fighting games have abandoned the time-consuming process of creating beautiful 2D art, KOFXII fully embraces the refined aesthetic beauty that only human hands can produce."

Other fighting games have abandoned 2D? Whoever could Shane be calling out there?

Yeah, we've seen it before, and it's looked great before, but AOU is really the first time we've been able to see the game in any great length. In all, there are five clips here, and four are long (you're looking at around 30 minutes of KOF here, people), so settle in for a marathon session of hand-drawn animation and face-punching.

Those residing on the pointiest end of the KoF fanbase may already have pieced together most of this from trailers and screens already released for the game. Since you people are an infinitesimally tiny fraction of our readership, however, here's the full roster (least, as it stands now...there's always room for unlockables!) for the rest of you.

The omission of Mai must be some kind of...mistake.

King of Fighters XII [SNK, via insert credit]

Glendale, CA – November 18, 2008 – Ignition Entertainment Ltd., a UTV Enterprise, a worldwide publisher and developer of videogames announced today that The King of Fighters XII is coming to North America and Europe in 2009.

In celebration of its landmark 15th Anniversary, The King of Fighters XII — one of the last great arcade 3-on-3 fighter games — is about to get even greater. For the first time in its history, this ultimate fighting game has undergone a complete graphical overhaul. All sprites used over the past 14 years have been dropped and replaced with new 2D high definition, high resolution sprites, on detailed 2D backgrounds, drawn 100% by hand.

“Dreams never die!” said Ajay Chadha, President of Ignition Entertainment. “I’ve been a huge The King of Fighters fan since 1994 when the game first debuted and I know original fans will be as excited as I am about this groundbreaking installment of this very popular series. And just as importantly, The King of Fighters XII should be a treat for the new gamers who’ve just been introduced to the hugely popular franchise.”

Stay tuned to Ignition Entertainment for more information — including release date, game platforms, screenshots and loads of details on new features!

Overall, it's a very hard process that could take 16 months for even an experienced designer to do alone. In terms of data, the character size is about four times larger [than in previous installments]. But when considering the extra errors that come about in doing the [bigger] pixel art, the trouble is more than four times what it used to be.

Each character in KOFXII has around 400 to 600 [sprite] patterns. Every single one of them is hand-drawn, and it's something that we're proud of. I'll only say it here, but we believe that this is something that no other company can imitate, something that only SNK Playmore can do.

Amazing.

King of Fighters XII knuckles up next year [GameSpot]

King of Fighters XII, you may recall, brings the classic SNK fighting series into the realm of high-def, with 100% hand-drawn sprites. It looks quite good. We just hope that SNK keeps what we like about Metal Slug intact. We don't want another Metal Slug 3D on our hands.

HD Metal Slug in the Works? [IGN]

『ザ・キング・オブ・ファイターズXII』稼動時期が決定！[Famitsu]

But after reading that King of Fighers XII was completely hand drawn, the answer to updating a 2D isometric game suddenly felt obvious—just draw it out.

Backtracking for a moment, it's in my humble opinion that Diablo III can't go 3D and maintain its trademark click to kill feel. But even giving the benefit of the doubt to Blizzard that they could deal with this issue (maybe by maintaining the same camera angle), it's hard to imagine such tiny characters on screen in 3D without becoming cartoony. Picture the units in Warcraft 3—there's a reason that the chunky style works for this world—the eye can identify small units that have large, cylindrical arms and giant blocky weapons.

But this art style doesn't match that of the Diablo world. Diablo is carnal in that stereotypical RPG way. If a weapon glows, it's with patina. If a monster is ugly, it's not in the PG Crocks "ugly is beautiful" way. It looks like an ugly monster.

With these boundaries in mind, the solution of hand drawing (and sticking with sprites) seems perfect. Without the limitations of polygons—current screen resolutions combined with Blizzard's artistic talent could create a Diablo that we've only seen in our mind's eye, one that is essentially concept art imported directly into the game without the artistically-limiting technical compromises of 3D modeling. (In short, it'd look a lot like Diablo 2 with the gloves off.)

Granted, KoF's process involved starting with a 3D model, turning it to 2D and then filling in the shading gaps by hand. That's how their animations look 3D and 2D at the same time. So if Blizzard mirrored such a production workflow—and there's absolutely no reason to believe they would—we could have plenty of the 3Desque eye candy in a true isometric world, not compromising Diablo mechanics, but bringing an unmistakable level of greater visual depth to the franchise. (UPDATE: Apparently the 3D to 2D conversion was used in Diablo 2, but it seems the hand-finishing elements of KoF were not.)

Sure, this is just one blogger's opinion. But a hand-drawn Diablo III feels like a Diablo limited only by an artist's pen. And the whole imaginary prospect seems very exciting to me.

Street Fighter IV... I saw it at the AOU 2008 show... I was impressed. It's very similar to King of Fighters in that we're trying to do something new with the franchise.

Street Fighter IV will also be making an appearance, most likely in playable form. Despite persistent reports that Osaka-based DIMPS (comprised of former SNK staff) are working on Capcom's flagship fighter, Capcom themselves are officially stating that the project is being developed in-house. Either way, should be a good weekend for fighter fans, who probably haven't partied this hard since the summer of '93.
THE KING OF FIGHTERS XII（映像出展）[AOU 2008]