King of Fighters XII (yes that really means TWELVE) - Game of the summer, or, not so much?

Alright, so I think anyone that has even taken a glance at this page o' mine has realized that, I love me some fightin' games. Particularly if they are 2d. Expect a Tekken 6 review when it comes out too, although I'll admit right now (and it should be obvious anyways), I'm all about the old school. If its 2D I'm pretty much gonna love it. That being said, this has been the freakin' year for fighting games, I'd even say that in all my years of being a video game freak (which is alot), this is the best year there ever has been for fightin' games. First we had a snazzy new Street Fighter, then BlazBlue that blew away fighting game conventions but having an interesting story that might have been too convoluted for its own good (a dude with no face that is a semi-dream semi-real reincarnation of one of the six elder gods. A cat girl that is just one clone out of 100 from an older race. A little vampire girl who may or may not be imagining all these people in her head..or something. WTF?), but still pretty amazing. We have the rehashed but still-one-of-the-best-fighting-games-ever Marvel vs. Capcom 2 coming out this week too, so people can FINALLY play it online. And in between all that, we have this, King of Fighters XII.

First of all, yes, that really means 12. This game started all the way back in 1994 on the now mostly dead except to the ultra hardcore and/or super rich Neo Geo system, made by SNK. It was a very competent rival to that monster known as Street Fighter, and it had a lot more balanced characters (read: not a whole bunch of cheap characters people could spam the same move over and over again with) than Street Fighter ever did. Over the years though, it's sort of become a joke. They tried a 3d version back on the XBOX days, a game I shudder to think about, they've released compliations like Orochi Saga that you can find for like 15 bucks at your local gamestop, and they've put out various KOF for all sorts of systems dating all the way back to original playstation. The problem was, these games stopped being original at about 2001. 2000 was - in my opinion - the pinnacle of the series, and they probably should have called it good after that. But, SNK has been struggling for most of this century, so they kept cranking them out, until basically, this series was sort of a joke. Not saying they were bad by any means, they just needed something new. So enter KOF XII, a total reboot of the series, and a much needed one.

To start with, this is a damn pretty game. I mean Daaaaaamn pretty. It's pretty much a 2D masterpiece as far as graphics are concerned. SNK started from the ground up and all of these characters you can pick from are MONSTROUS on your TV/Arcade screen, and that is awesome. I'll be the first to admit that as a nerd who grew up with this series, I got a little chill when I saw these monstrous and incredibly well animated characters fighting each other for the first time. So an A+ right there off the bat for SNK for going the extra mile and having all these characters HAND EFFING DRAWN. Do you know how many movies/games/ANYTHING use hand drawn art these days? How about just about nothing. Disney has that one movie about the frog and a princess or something coming out in december, and thats hand drawn - the first one in like 8 years. People don't DO hand drawn anymore, because frankly, its too much damn work. But SNK did it right, did these characters justice after letting them stagnate for so long.

Never one to disappoint its geeky fanbase, there are also a couple of anime girls to ogle. Notice the girl in the school girl outfit getting beat up here. You always gotta have a school girl if you are playing a game of any sort that was created by the Japanese. It makes sense when you think about it, since they DO have vending machines over there that sell used school girl panties. I am not kidding here. Google it. I've seen pictures of the machines. So yeah, the Japanese are a little nutty about the school girls, but who can blame eh I suppose, somethin about those skirts. Like Jason Lee said in Chasing Amy - "I regret never dating a Catholic school girl. As it stands I don't have any 'and then she unzipped her jumper...' stories" Well my name is Jason too, and I must say, amen to that. So anyways, cute, scantily clad anime girls to ogle in this game too, SNK didn't forget its roots. Good job guys.

<---Heres a bigger picture of said school girl if you were really interested (you probably weren't, but I'd like to assume some nerds DO actually read this thing).

Ok, so we got the graphics covered, obviously. I have a 56'' TV and I'll tell you what, game looks freaking gorgeous on there, nearly as pretty as BlazBlue. And what about the gameplay? Good news, its spot on. It plays like a bit of a cross between SFIV and BlazBlue, except in my humble opinion, its even faster than both of them. Some people complained SFIV was a little too slow, enabling cheaters to prosper online. KOF12 throws that little "slowness" problem right out the window by letting you dash and jump right in to kick someones face off in about two seconds flat. This enables even the big guys to hop over fireballs like nobodys business. That's a good thing. Thats a very good thing. As far as the moveset goes, it's good. Apparently they have narrowed it down a bit (I'll be honest and tell you I haven't really gotten into a KOF since about 2001), but for good reason - to have it all balance out better. No one is really overpowered in this one, so much so that people are having a hard time establishing just who the best characters are. This is also a good thing. You can't find some stupid cheater online that just spams the same move over and over again, because you have about 10,000 options to crush that persons face now. And it may have less moves, but honestly that isn't a problem - because they added this freaking awesome mechanic where if your counter bar (that little bar beneath your life bar on the screen) is full, and you and your opponent both do the same strong punch and clash, well BAM, that dude's crap is ruined for a minute and you can just mash whatever you want and keep smashing their life bar, AND it looks damn cool and makes you feel like a badass for minimal effort. It's seriously awesome and a much needed new trick for an old 2D franchise.

See that guy about to get a fireball in his mouth? Even HE could have hopped over that bigass fireball had he had enough space. Thats the freedom this fighting engine provides. So then, you may be asking, well Clev, is there anything BAD about this game? Great, inspired gameplay, a nice reboot, and its damn pretty? Where are the problems? To which I'll say, oh, there are a few.

Before I get into this next section, a rant about what keeps this game from truly being a classic for the ages, I'll start with the main problem now - this game should just be called King of Fighters Online. Why? Because theres barely any single player content at all. Whereas if you can't afford to get yourself on the innernets with BlazBlue, you are golden still - it has an incredibly involved story mode, and even beating it with all the characters on arcade will provide cool new tidbits and you'll have a good time doing it. With King of Fighters, if you aren't playing online, you got NOTHIN. You get ONE one player offline mode. ONE. And its a stupid time trial. It's 5 measly stages where you try to beat the clock. LAME. This is what knocks the value down if you are going out to spend your hard-earned 60 bucks on a great single player experience. You won't find it here. So honestly, if you aren't playing online, or you don't at least have some people to play this with (alot) in versus mode, theres no need to buy it. None. Beating the lame one player mode over and over again with your favorite characters for achievement or trophies (to those who don't have either system, those just mean bragging rights, something everyone can see you have when they look up your name online) will get old QUICK if you have no one else to fight with.

And so that pretty much kills the difficulty score on this game - even on hard difficulty, pretty much anyone can bash through those five stages in about 15 minutes tops. However - that doesn't mean you should ignore this game. If you are a fighting game freak, you probably already own it. If you are on the fence, but you've played other fightin' games online before, then stop reading this now and go find this game, at least give it a rent. The fighting engine is incredible, the game is a beautiful 2d showpiece nearly as pretty as BlazBlue (BlazBlue only edges it out a bit because it has so many more stages), and its a different experience every time you fight - IF you have people to play with or you play it online. If you don't do either of those things, you can probably pass this one by.

And therein lies the problem with this brilliant game - it's barebones features are what are going to keep some people away. Not everyone likes to fight online. Not everyone has a bunch of friends they can enjoy Vs. mode with. However, whats here IS incredible - I'll already go the extra mile and tell you that the fighting engine is BETTER than SFIV. Yes, BETTER than the reboot of the 2D fighting game that started it all. Them's big words I know, but I dare you not to play a few matches with a friend and tell me you aren't having a damn good time with what this game has to offer. So I guess the conclusion here, before we break down my score - game of the summer, no. But it is another bright spot in this year of fightin' games, and with this incredibly slow trickle of games we are getting this summer, its well worth the purchase - IF you play online or have a lot of fighting game freak friends.

Graphics - 9/10. Game is beautiful. BE-U-TI-FUL. Some of the best 2D I have ever seen, and HAND DRAWN CHARACTERS YO. HAND, DRAWN. Two words you don't see together anymore. Seeing the game in action is amazing and if you are a huge dork like me that grew up with these games, seeing the transformation of these characters from ugly sprites to works of art might even give you chills. Only held back by its lack of stages (theres only 5, 6 if you count the one at night - and I don't), but whats there is great.

Sound - 8/10. Once again, held back by what isn't there. Some of the stages (particularly the one in France with all the fat girls women going nuts in the background -

This one, have great music that fits the atmosphere, and the sound effects are top notch, lots of good whacks and face punching sounds exactly like it should, and its very satisfying the BOOM you hear when you enter in the correct super move, makes you feel like a real badass. Again, its only held back by the fact that there just isn't as much there as there probably should be for a $60 game.

Challenge - Well, hows about we break this down two ways - if you are playing strictly offline, a solid 2/10. It won't hold your interest long. If you are online or have friends to play with constantly, then the sky is the limit isn't it? So I'll just stick with a 2/10 for offline, and really N/A if you are online, can be as easy or as difficult as your opponent - which is part of what makes online so fun anyways.

Fun - Two scores again. If you are only offline, you won't get much enjoyment beyond a rental and ogling the pretty graphics (the anime girls in particular if you are a perv such as myself), a solid 4/10. Online, once again, you'll be entertained for hours and the skys the limit if you are into playing online. For my experience, definitely a 10/10, I'll be playing this for months to come, I guarantee you that.

Overall - 8/10. I don't need two scores because I think its pretty well established you might not even want to come near this game if you aren't playing online or vs. It's lacking some things, but that doesn't mean its a bad game, or not worth $60. It's worth over that just to experience this great fighting engine online against people, and people who will probably have a pretty tough time cheating because the brilliant fighting engine they've created for this makes it pretty hard to spam. And that in itself makes this one of the best fighting games ever.

A side note - my experience with the game has been somewhat lopsided online. Sometimes it lags like crazy, like a MF if you will, and other times its been fine. However, this is going to be addressed with a patch soon it has been said, because they know that they mostly created King of Fighters online here, and they wouldn't want that part to remain broken now, would they? Overall, this is a fantastic reboot of what almost became a joke among serious fighting fans - its a great start and it's pretty much assured SNK is on the right track once again and the next game will be even more brilliant. If you are a fighting fanatic like me and want your next fix, you could do much worse than this great game that will likely be the sleeper hit of the summer, maybe even the year.