To begin I feel it necessary to let you (the reader) know where this particular reviewer is coming from when approaching King of Fighters XII. I've always been a moderate fan of the fighting game genre, picking up the controller every once and a while to bash some skulls in, but mostly only when friends are involved. Fighting games have just never interested me when I'm fighting solo because let's face it, the computer can be absolutely infuriating when it seems to "cheat." So years have gone by when the only time I pick up and play a fighting title is when a new Mortal Kombat releases just to see how gruesome the fatalities are (or aren't in regards to MK vs. DCU), but that's about where my exposure to the fighting genre ended, and it's been that way for years. That was until Street Fighter IV released and I found myself holed up in my room, practicing my hadouken's and yoga blasts till my fingers bled just so I can kick the shit out of my roommate and look like a fighting genius. Street Fighter IV is solely responsible for renewing my interest in the genre and therefore, after this long-winded confession, I feel it necessary to let readers know King of Fighters XII is going to be compared against SFIV, there is no way around it.
Now about King of Fighters XII, being the 12th version of the title and the 15th anniversary of the franchise means the series has gathered seen quite a bit of success (one that I'm not part of). The game comes stacked with 22 combatants throughout the 15 year history of SNK arcade's history and every character has been redrawn, with all-new high-resolution sprites for battle on some gorgeous new 2-D backgrounds. KoFXII's style is easily one of the game's best aspects as it's very eye catching while still staying true to the franchise's graphical history. And who would have thought 2-D graphics could still be quite draw-dropping. I especially liked how when a match was won by a contestant, the background characters would speed up, giving me the impression they were all on crack (a bunch of lady old ladies eating salads and fruit on a dock with a killer whale frolicking in the background takes the cake btw).
However, it's unfortunate that I had a hard time really connecting to any of the characters in King of Fighters XII in the gameplay department, no matter how nice they look in motion. Outside of one character (Duo Lon) whose movement and fighting technique gives him (her?) a unique move-set, everyone else in the game is pretty bland and boring. Each character can perform a special move, has counter and evasion techniques, and can perform a number of kicks and punches, of the high and low variety, but I never felt like anything I was doing was so mind-blowingly cool by fighting game standards. Maybe a truly seasoned KoF player could prove me wrong, and I'm almost 100% certain they could, but nothing really struck me as all that unique while playing the game outside of the cool animations for the 2-D sprites. To bring up Street Fighter IV once again, in that game you have a green monster that shoots electricity (who loves to ride on whales), a Hindu man who breathes fire, a Spanish Lily man with a wolverine claw and Jason mask, and the list goes on. Hell, I can actually name the majority of the Street Fighter cast and when I try to think of names for characters from King of Fighters...crickets.
