Kotaku 
Enter your username and password.
Denver, 12:10 AM
Tue Nov 24
53 posts in the last 24 hours
Tip us: tips@kotaku.com
Editor-In-Chief:
Brian Crecente
Email | AIM | Twitter
Deputy Editor:
Stephen Totilo
Email | AIM | Twitter
Senior Editor:
Michael McWhertor
Email | AIM | Twitter
Senior Contributing Editor, Japan:
Brian Ashcraft
Email | AIM | Twitter
Contributing Editor, East Coast:
Michael Fahey
Email | AIM | Twitter
Contributing Editor, Oceania:
Luke Plunkett
Email | AIM | Twitter
Contributing Editor, Weekends:
Owen Good
Email | AIM | Twitter
Correspondent, San Francisco:
AJ Glasser
Email | AIM | Twitter
Columnist:
Leigh Alexander
Columnist:
Tim Rogers
Original material is licensed under a Creative Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution.
11/04/09
Thankfully, I still have BlazBlue for comfort. #thekingoffightersxii
11/04/09
People like to talk shit about Mai, but when used correctly, she's almost unstoppable. She's what got me playing KOF in the first place, cos she was my main character in Fatal Fury 2.
A boss or story would've been nice, and the pushover AI is annoying, but I'm not bitching about the pared down movelists. I actually love that. It plays more like '94-'99.....before they had to throw in everything but the kitchen sink. In that sense, I think it's a perfect rebirth of the series. #thekingoffightersxii
11/04/09
"Do what?", you say? I mean that the parts that they got right (80 percent of the game) are so well done that it pisses you off that it doesn't live up to its potential....and that's part of the reason people are so angry.
If they'd just "finished" the game, it would've been a legendary success, at least among fans. #thekingoffightersxii
11/03/09
11/03/09
11/03/09
They don't even try. #thekingoffightersxii
11/04/09
Seriously, when I first saw pics I was so excited for this, then when it finally arrived I was gutted. It looks terrible.
It may be 100% hand-drawn, with fantastic animation, but it still looks like pixelated shit to me. Even the filters can't hide it. SSF2THD Remix looks way better, even with it's gloriously 16-bit animations. #thekingoffightersxii
11/04/09
And yet you never bothered to see if it is a good fighting game? #thekingoffightersxii
11/04/09
Of course gameplay is more important than graphics, but KoF only has the former, while Blazblue has both - If I'm going to spend my money on a good fighter, why would I go for the ugly one?
11/03/09
SNK was on the right track, but they should have taken as much time needed to help the game reach it's full potential, instead of just rushing it out the door. Yes, it would have taken longer to release, but it would have been a much more polished and complete game than what we got. #thekingoffightersxii
11/03/09
SNK as it was in it's absolute creative peak is no more, and never will be again. They're just reduced to trying to cash in on their marquee franchises which are progressively cheapened with each new installment. It's amazing to think I once supported them by spending $250-$300 for their new release home carts years back. #thekingoffightersxii
11/03/09
I'll tell you one thing though, if they ever start releasing franchise compilations for ps3 i'll be all over them. Sengoku series, Samurai Shodown, Streets of Rage, Metal Slug, Neoturf Masters, Puzzle Bobble, King of Fighters...
I want that... badly. #thekingoffightersxii
11/04/09
11/04/09
I was naming series i'd wanna see, not just snk properties. #thekingoffightersxii
11/04/09
I think SNK's biggest problem is they can't seem to do anything that seems creatively fresh any longer. It didn't help much that their final Neo Geo releases were mostly giant sprite rips. It's disappointing to see since they were such a great company for a long time. #thekingoffightersxii
11/03/09
If I practice his move sets then maybe I'd be able to derive some humiliating defeats for the relatively tiny amount of cash! #thekingoffightersxii
11/03/09
Though the part I'm surprised about is that for PS3 in particular, KoF XII is the $40 one, and Blazblue is the $35 one. What? #thekingoffightersxii
11/03/09
11/03/09
11/03/09
11/03/09
11/03/09
a REBIRTH.
So there isn't as many characters as usual. So what? KOF XIII will come along within a year or 2 and have probably around 40 characters (and Mai most likely I would hope).
The online is the only thing that's completely botched up and broken in KOF XII, but other than that, it's a great fighting game for the gameplay and is great for local multiplayer. #thekingoffightersxii
11/03/09
But it in no way justifies all the missing special moves.
Seriously. No. #thekingoffightersxii
11/03/09
Yes it was rebirth we get it, but why take a step backwards in this mighty franchise.
That's like having Street Fighter Rebirth and Ryu only having a super hard to pull off fireball from part one and nothing else.
NO FUN.
Especially with the amount of other high quality fighting games out there now. There's no room to skimp. #thekingoffightersxii
11/03/09
The special moves (or combo's, depends on the game) make the fighting game. Always have, always will. #thekingoffightersxii
11/03/09
I think $11 is a bit drastic, hard to swallow a game with just three months in being that bad in game sales. Maybe a $20, but $11 is burnt worthy.
Haven't played the game though, could be the game really was as bad as it's $11 markdown indicates.
Truthfully, Playmore should count their blesses this major retailer didn't package it with Twilight. #thekingoffightersxii
11/03/09
11/03/09
The earlier King of Fighters weren't half bad, can't imagine this one even if lacking in features could warrant such a markdown.
Though for $11, I recommend any fighting fan to get on it. In Japan of course. Man, this is when I wish I was in Japan enjoying the life. #thekingoffightersxii
11/03/09
Less characters? I can deal with that, it's new sprites, they need time to draw it all, i'll support anyway.
No singleplayer? Ok, I wasn't expecting something of BlazBlue caliber but damn, 5 fights?
Lack of modes? Ok, at this point i'm a little put off but it's KoF.. i can deal.
Neutered and missing special moves? No. no, no, no, no, no! Fuck that shit! I bought this game to see awesome special moves on my PS3.. Goddamnit, KoF2002 had brilliant finishers, at least 3 per character.
At this point i cursed at my beloved franchise, removed the disc, gifted the game to a friend (die hard, would've bought it anyway) and i resumed my BlazBlu.
Utter dissapointment. #thekingoffightersxii
11/03/09
From the comments seems some enjoyed the experience while others feel the $11 justifies the gameplay. #thekingoffightersxii
11/03/09
About 85% off that experience comes from over-the-top specials and the timing of these moves. Besides, of all the stuff they left out or messed up, the only thing actually harming the core gameplay was the absence of so many special moves.
Honest to god, it pains my heart that i hate it so much.
Totally killed it. #thekingoffightersxii
11/03/09
Yeah.. i can totally do that..
09/01/09
I don't think I've seen a fighting game fail so epically since the days of Genesis where people made SF2 knockoffs.
And this is coming from an SNK fan. Have MOTW and KOF 2002 for Dreamcast. Used to play the entire series online almost compulsively throughout high school via MAME.
09/01/09
Still sucks if you are playing against a red bar, but yellow bar was great. For once, I actually got a One-Character-Victory, and it was against someone with a much better rank than mine. (Go Clark!) What a difference lag-less-ness makes.
It's too bad they waited so long. Anyone who hears of this at this point is just going to buy it used. With this game being such an object of scorn, and KOF:MI3 and that 3D SamSho abomination coming, looks like SNK is going to find out if you only live twice.
09/01/09
I'm gonna buy this eventually, but I'm enjoying KOF 2002UM a lot right now. Hopefully, the improvements to netcode here will show up in 2002UM's port to xbox live.
09/01/09
And KOF2k2UM is out!? ಠ_ಠWHY WAS I NOT INFORMED!?
09/01/09
09/01/09
09/01/09
09/01/09
but im a HUGE fan of fatal fury.. all the way from the real bout series to the best ff.. mark of the wolves.
in fact, i wish they would have made mark of the wolves 2 instead of kof XII.
09/01/09
And I stand by what I said. Without support, the franchise will die. I mean to support SNK as they switch over styles. No Mai no Buy, or whatever the trendy turndown is these days, if you don't support it, it will fail.
09/01/09
09/01/09
09/01/09
09/01/09
Since you clearly don't understand how the videogame industry works, I'll spell it out for you. If a game does not sell, the series will be terminated, and the parent company will most likely be dissolved, since, in this case, SNK is a smaller company.
The game is not perfect. I don't think I've ever played a game that is. The OPs lack of desire to try out a game that was "his favorite franchise" just because of someone else's review is what bugged me, not the fact that it was KOF.
09/01/09
Also, I resent the torrenting comment. Commenters like thesircuddles can attest to my attitude regarding piracy. I'm glad you have disposable income, but those of us who actually need to care where are money goes don't enjoy buying crap. Idiot zealot.
09/01/09
I'm all for supporting a company but there's only so many times you can get burned before you get fed up with paying full price for something that's obviously broken.
FACT: Garou, KOF98UM, and KOFXII all had shit netcode upon release.
09/01/09
Blindly supporting your [franchise/religion/soccer club/whatever] is what a zealot would do - I don't see the OP saying anywhere he will get the game from a torrent because it's online play (which makes up nearly all of the game) is heavily plagued by lackluster performance. If it wasn't broken they wouldn't be fixing it.
That said, OP states he will pick [the game] up when [the patch] hits XBLA - you could have applauded him for not giving up on your beloved franchise but giving it a second chance because of the effort SNK is putting in fixing it.
Lastly, he's not just dropping the game because "someone else's review" was negative: it scores 64% average over more than 35 reviews. That's more like a general consensus.
Let's just hope this patch fixes the online woes and occasional bug as promised, as it's always sad to lose franchises that build gaming's history - let's just hope it won't end like that.
09/01/09
I don't think you have enough faith in a company as small as SNK. How can they afford to keep pumping out games if they aren't being bought. And how can you believe that they'll sell the same game, down to the very line of code, the next time around. They can't and they wont. It's up to devoted fighting game fans, to be the ones to give feedback, not the ones to throw out insults to a company that has seriously remade an old franchise.
My favorite fighting game is Guilty Gear, by the way.
09/01/09
Its the online play. How hard is that to understand? The fans DID give feedback. Why do you think Ignition has pushed SNK so hard to do these patches? Online play is important to the US, since arcades are pretty much dead.
09/01/09
Second, that's great that the fans gave feedback. And it's great that they fixed it. So where's the problem? If you're issue is that online gamers can somehow not play this game, that was rendered invalid the moment the patch was released. Games have bugs all the time. Sure, it sucks. I'm not saying that SNK did the right thing by releasing it buggy. But I'm also fairly sure that these days, companies patch games all the time, to fix issues. People are crying dead in the water, without waiting for what they almost knew was coming.
09/01/09
Do you want KOF to turn into Sonic?
I didn't think so.
09/01/09
09/01/09
Quote: "Pick it up? Pick up a patch? Are you really that stupid? Is that what you think he meant?"
And no KOF doesn't need to be around for 2d fighters to stay relevant. KOF hasn't (unfortunately) been relevant for years. If SF4 failed...now that would be a different story.
09/01/09
Doesn't matter what franchise, any genre needs quality games, not a stable of franchises. If CoD goes stale, I'm not gonna buy it. Same for Halo, or Command & Conquer.
"Free market competition" is not an excuse for poor quality. You wanna know what's gonna help the 2D genre? Look at SFIV, look at GGXX and BlazBlue, of KoF XI. They play well, so they earned the money.
Simply put, KoF does not. So it does not earn the money. The genre doesn't need KoF. SNK needs to catch the fuck up.
09/01/09
I'm going to sleep. I can't argue with this many people.
09/01/09
Even if you remove CoD, the argument still stands- if a product is of poor quality, then it deserves, and often will, fail.
The genre doesn't need the franchise. SNK needs to get their act together. Fighting games will be fine, 2D as well as 3D. THAT'S the major point, good sir. The genre is doing just fine without, and if SNK wants a piece of the pie, they need to step up their game.
09/01/09
09/01/09
KOF12 was trash (now with the patch this may have changed), and I see no point in supporting a bad game, regardless of its impact on the genre. Genres come in go, its the nature of all media/art, but that's irrelevant because KOF12 isn't going to save a genre that doesn't need its mediocre help to begin with.
09/01/09
The screens at least caught my eye. I sort of want to know what all the KOF fuss is about too. Videos are pretty slick. But when I read about the crappy internet play, it was an immediate no. N-O. Not a snowball's chance in hell. That's the sign of a company that doesn't have its crap together. I work hard for my money and I intend to take good care of it. So I figure I'll wait until it's cheap and/or they patch it. Even then, the tarnished reputation and consistently bad sub-par metacritic scoring is going to put it behind BlazBlue on the list of stuff to check out when it gets cheaper.
09/01/09
tl;dr these games are made for japanese people who don't care about online play. It's a "must-have" for us in the rest of the world who need online to find competition, it's just too bad that these games aren't made in our part of the world.
09/02/09
Which is why I am happy that Aksys, being a Japanese company that made most profits in arcade, put so much effort into getting the best netcode ever in Blazblue.
08/28/09
"WAAAAAH. THESE ARE ALL OLD CHARACTERS. WHERE ARE THOSE NEWER CHARACTERS FROM EX AND III THAT NOBODY BUT ME LIKED? WAH! HAVE SOME ORIGINALITY CAPCOM!"
Fan reaction to King of Fighters XII:
"WAAAAAAAAH! WHERE'S MAI? WHY CAN'T I BUSTER WOLF? CAPCOM BRINGS GUYS BACK ALL THE TIME, WHY CAN'T i HAVE GEESE BACK? CATER TO YOUR FANS BETTER, SNK!"
08/28/09
Both games were a big disappointment to me. I hate that KOFXII got rid of the Tactical Shift System, and I hate that SFIV would have been more accurately titled "Street Fighter II 3D Remix".
08/28/09
The complete neglect of anything related to III (which consisted of many technically better characters than half of the SFII cast in my opinion.) was a bit insulting and an obvious realization that getting 'nostalgia bucks' and taking the easy path were more important then catering to those who embraced Capcom's creativity and eccentric characters in III, but that's just what I gather from their complaints.
08/28/09
08/28/09
What I don't understand is that the most reference you see to SFIII is having Yun and Yang show up in Chun Li's intro, as if to say "Yeah, we're even acknowledging that the two youngest members of the SFIII cast are still old enough to have been in this game, but screw you SFIII fans anyway!"
Any SF3 love? Oh, hell no, says Capcom. 5 different variations of Ryu? Oh, hell yes, says Capcom.
08/28/09
08/28/09
Let's face the facts - if Capcom wanted to put SF3 characters in, they easily could have. It's not like Dan, Blanka, E.Honda and many of the others have storylines that focus on Shadowloo, or anything else.
I mean, look at El Fuerte and Rufus's stories. You think Capcom really gives a crap about story?
08/28/09
I've been saying this over and over again: CAPCOM NEVER SAID WHAT ROSE AND GEN'S FATES WERE UNTIL SFIV CAME AROUND. The "storyline endings" of Rose and Gen were just assumed by fans, they were never confirmed by Capcom. Thus, they had free reign to put them in SFIV which is, despite your "evidence" to the contrary, a canon game. In addition, Sakura was also stated to be older in SFIV by the game's producer in an Arcadia interview.
08/28/09
Putting Gen and Rose into SF4? A retcon. You know what could have been a great retcon? Putting SF3 characters in SF4.
Hell, why is Bison even in SF4? I'm pretty sure I remember seeing Akuma kill him right before you fought in Super Street Fighter II X. What, is the shit that happened in an in-game cut scene no longer canon?
And yeah, I know that Sakura is stated as 'Being Older'. Yeah, that's great - they changed a number. You know what would have been a better indication of her aging? Updating her character design. Hell, it's a 3D game - they could have easily made her original costume unlockable (or - knowing Capcom - charged money for it), it's just ridiculous to call a High School Uniform her fighting clothing or whatever excuse they came up with.