- Joined
- Jan 12, 2001
- Posts
- 13,393
So, I got to play the game in depth with friends and wanted to update folks on my thoughts about it. The version I got to play was the 360 version without online play (which you can read about online problems anywhere else) Not a big deal. After playing it a second time more in depth gave me a little more respect for the system in game though.
GRAPHICS
Awesome redrawn sprites, pixels are visible which has drawn some complaints when
comparing it to blazblue, but I happen to like it that way.
whatevehs.
The animation is fluid and it's nice to see the job that PLAYMORE did with the graphics
in general. I'm not necessarily the biggest fan of the roid'ed up Ikaris, the blue mary looking
Leona, or an Akuma looking Ryo, but I have to admit: Raiden looks amazing, Terry looks
how Terry should look, Goro looks fierce and everyone else looks just as great.
It's nice to finally see Kim's sprite's animation match the rest of the roster's.
The backgrounds are okay, there are some neat shadow ideas that are implemented, but not really something that
was needed imo. You do have to make sure your TV has the right settings though.
I've played on one tv set where it was almost unplayable since the shadow in the market was too dark.
menu interface? eh.
but that said, the character portraits are nice, coming from actual art, not digital sprite looking
portraits.
ROSTER AND ART
With a roster of 20 characters from the arcade and an additional 2 console
exclusive characters, 12 has a normal variety of kof oldtymers
with one neat addition of fatal fury alumni raiden (Big Bear)
who popped up strangely enough in the semi recent CvS 2.
The other notables are the kof 2003/11 crew.
of Ash, Duo Lon, Shen Woo, and Elizabeth.
I think they're trash characters from trash games.
Like'em or love'em, they are who they are.
Personally I would have wished for them to throw in other KOF characters
like Shingo, the other Koreans, the old man team, etc etc.
(I'm not even a big mai fan, but how could they not put her in?)
GAMEPLAY
Hey! So this is a neat section right here.
Originally I was pretty miffed by the gameplay.
As a kof vet, I've always loved kof for it's staple controllable jumping system,
rolling mechanism, CDs, and chain combos.
After playing initially, it's all in there but when I didn't get the chain combos and
the regular 3 hit combos didn't work for me, I was kind of bitter.
Seeing critical combos online make the game look like a sfa clone.
But I got to play it more along with friends and was pretty delighted to see
that chain combos still exist in the game for some characters.
They just have to come from a neutral HP or HK into a forward LP or LK.
I know it's not a big deal, but I'm used to pushing forward while dialing in my combos.
Also, comboing the CD attacks after a plain attack allows you to do a special
afterwards for a kind of juggle that connects as a combo.
It's interesting and adds something new to the game.
Although the CDs add to the gameplay, I'm not sure about the new system of critical combos.
After landing a counter attack when you have a full bar, you can continue to do a kind of auto
combo on the other player. I've seen combos on youtube and in person that show CC's
taking off from 1/3-1/2 a bar on someone.
You can attribute that ability of pulling off a CC as only being something only experienced
people can pull off from a lucky shot.
But I don't believe that, it's a combo string you can turn over an entire match easily with
from an easy HP or HK.
Personally I'm not sold on the CC system, if it's in the game in the future I'd accept it if it was
toned down, similar to SFA, but still not a big fan of it.
Also, I didn't really look at the animation to normals ratio,
but jabs seem to not come off as fast as they used to, playing as Leona isn't as fun to
me when you have to be concerned with slower speed of putting out jabs.
Plus special moves seemed to not have high priority in the game as in the past.
And it may be my imagination, but command throws seemed to be harder to pull off
without much payoff damage wise.
Finally, on the gameplay front, movelists have changed for some characters or shortened.
Although I'm not a fan of Ralph not having his Argentina backbreaker, he's arguably
just as good with a new scope of moves. Clark on the other hand, along with Mature,
and a few other characters, have about 2-3 moves whereas they had about 5-6 in the past.
To me, a lack of variety of moves is a disservice to the character.
Clark without his frankensteiner or his running grab makes him a big target with less moves.
Iori's been changed to resemble the movelist from freeman in MOTWs, which I think is interesting.
But not everyone makes much sense. Maybe I didn't play him enough,
but chin has some neat changes, but is less effective.
Mature used to have alot of defensive and offensive moves, but now is stripped down to
about two of her offensive moves.
To add to all of this, there's also the fact that all characters only having one DM,
as well as one DM stock (with the exception of Benimaru, who has 2 DMs to choose from)
SOUNDS AND MUSIC
Although people make fun of the accordion music in the french stage,
it's unfortunately the only song I like in the game.
Couple that along with only about 5 other songs to accompany the 6 other stages,
then you don't have much for variety.
Also, if you buy the game, you may want to switch the voices to japanese.
The American dub to KOF alumni maybe something new, but is fairly annoying.
I'd argue for newcomers that you could always try the US dub for yourselves. (jk, don't)
REPLAYABILITY
Unless you're playing it online?
not much.
There isn't any storyline, boss, or unlockables (edit: there is an unlockable gallery, thanks Taiso).
The amount of backgrounds? 6.
The days of playing against people in arcades are gone, either playing it alone
at home 1p or playing it online against other people are the norms now.
If you're an offline gamer then there's little to nothing except for the fighting system
to keep you company.
Comparing this to past KOF games, the lack of story, characters, backgrounds, win qoutes,
taunts, and a boss makes this iteration seem fairly lacking.
Although some have said that the fluid animations that PLAYMORE spent about 4 years working
on was good enough, I still account the lack of things to be a disappointment.
It's like going to a steak buffet house that only gives you one
tiny undercooked piece of meat per visit to the counter. just not enough meat on the bones.
If you're online, you get the opportunity to post your best times online and play against others.
Chatter about dlc has been tossed around, but to again point out the bare bones nature
of the game, this would be be the reason why people loathe the idea of dlc in the first place.
Should people who pay 60 dollars for a game have to pay more money to add to
an already scant roster or amount of backgrounds?
Also, not a fan of the exclusion of any sort of story.
I understand some people don't care about it,
but it's one of the reasons why I value most SNK games to anything else.
OVERALL
So alot of new changes, alot of good things, alot of things missing.
Is it worth it?
Is it canon?
Should I wait for the KOF 12.5?
Alot of people have thrown the fact that the PLAYMORE was losing money,
needed to push something out and cash in to keep going.
I can see that the game on it's own merits as a KOF game is pretty nice,
the new sprites and animation is pretty fantastic, the new gameplay isn't necessarily
perfect as I see it, but is interesting and worth learning.
But the missing pieces become more glaring when you start comparing it to other
recent fighters selling for the same price (or <) and what they have to offer.
Blaz blue doesn't really appeal to me personally on a gameplay level, but it's just as deep
with it's element drive system, great visuals, and great online play.
SF IV sticks out in my mind even greater since from the arcade to console conversion
meant more a boat load of more console exclusive characters.
Personally, after getting to play it and get more into the gameplay,
I feel better about the game, but I wouldn't spend 60 bucks on it.
PLAYMORE released an barebones game and should have attached a barebones price on it.
I'm disappointed on what's been left out of this game,
but I am looking forward to the proper release of the next game.
6/10
GRAPHICS
Awesome redrawn sprites, pixels are visible which has drawn some complaints when
comparing it to blazblue, but I happen to like it that way.
whatevehs.
The animation is fluid and it's nice to see the job that PLAYMORE did with the graphics
in general. I'm not necessarily the biggest fan of the roid'ed up Ikaris, the blue mary looking
Leona, or an Akuma looking Ryo, but I have to admit: Raiden looks amazing, Terry looks
how Terry should look, Goro looks fierce and everyone else looks just as great.
It's nice to finally see Kim's sprite's animation match the rest of the roster's.
The backgrounds are okay, there are some neat shadow ideas that are implemented, but not really something that
was needed imo. You do have to make sure your TV has the right settings though.
I've played on one tv set where it was almost unplayable since the shadow in the market was too dark.
menu interface? eh.
but that said, the character portraits are nice, coming from actual art, not digital sprite looking
portraits.
ROSTER AND ART
With a roster of 20 characters from the arcade and an additional 2 console
exclusive characters, 12 has a normal variety of kof oldtymers
with one neat addition of fatal fury alumni raiden (Big Bear)
who popped up strangely enough in the semi recent CvS 2.
The other notables are the kof 2003/11 crew.
of Ash, Duo Lon, Shen Woo, and Elizabeth.
I think they're trash characters from trash games.
Like'em or love'em, they are who they are.
Personally I would have wished for them to throw in other KOF characters
like Shingo, the other Koreans, the old man team, etc etc.
(I'm not even a big mai fan, but how could they not put her in?)
GAMEPLAY
Hey! So this is a neat section right here.
Originally I was pretty miffed by the gameplay.
As a kof vet, I've always loved kof for it's staple controllable jumping system,
rolling mechanism, CDs, and chain combos.
After playing initially, it's all in there but when I didn't get the chain combos and
the regular 3 hit combos didn't work for me, I was kind of bitter.
Seeing critical combos online make the game look like a sfa clone.
But I got to play it more along with friends and was pretty delighted to see
that chain combos still exist in the game for some characters.
They just have to come from a neutral HP or HK into a forward LP or LK.
I know it's not a big deal, but I'm used to pushing forward while dialing in my combos.
Also, comboing the CD attacks after a plain attack allows you to do a special
afterwards for a kind of juggle that connects as a combo.
It's interesting and adds something new to the game.
Although the CDs add to the gameplay, I'm not sure about the new system of critical combos.
After landing a counter attack when you have a full bar, you can continue to do a kind of auto
combo on the other player. I've seen combos on youtube and in person that show CC's
taking off from 1/3-1/2 a bar on someone.
You can attribute that ability of pulling off a CC as only being something only experienced
people can pull off from a lucky shot.
But I don't believe that, it's a combo string you can turn over an entire match easily with
from an easy HP or HK.
Personally I'm not sold on the CC system, if it's in the game in the future I'd accept it if it was
toned down, similar to SFA, but still not a big fan of it.
Also, I didn't really look at the animation to normals ratio,
but jabs seem to not come off as fast as they used to, playing as Leona isn't as fun to
me when you have to be concerned with slower speed of putting out jabs.
Plus special moves seemed to not have high priority in the game as in the past.
And it may be my imagination, but command throws seemed to be harder to pull off
without much payoff damage wise.
Finally, on the gameplay front, movelists have changed for some characters or shortened.
Although I'm not a fan of Ralph not having his Argentina backbreaker, he's arguably
just as good with a new scope of moves. Clark on the other hand, along with Mature,
and a few other characters, have about 2-3 moves whereas they had about 5-6 in the past.
To me, a lack of variety of moves is a disservice to the character.
Clark without his frankensteiner or his running grab makes him a big target with less moves.
Iori's been changed to resemble the movelist from freeman in MOTWs, which I think is interesting.
But not everyone makes much sense. Maybe I didn't play him enough,
but chin has some neat changes, but is less effective.
Mature used to have alot of defensive and offensive moves, but now is stripped down to
about two of her offensive moves.
To add to all of this, there's also the fact that all characters only having one DM,
as well as one DM stock (with the exception of Benimaru, who has 2 DMs to choose from)
SOUNDS AND MUSIC
Although people make fun of the accordion music in the french stage,
it's unfortunately the only song I like in the game.
Couple that along with only about 5 other songs to accompany the 6 other stages,
then you don't have much for variety.
Also, if you buy the game, you may want to switch the voices to japanese.
The American dub to KOF alumni maybe something new, but is fairly annoying.
I'd argue for newcomers that you could always try the US dub for yourselves. (jk, don't)
REPLAYABILITY
Unless you're playing it online?
not much.
There isn't any storyline, boss, or unlockables (edit: there is an unlockable gallery, thanks Taiso).
The amount of backgrounds? 6.
The days of playing against people in arcades are gone, either playing it alone
at home 1p or playing it online against other people are the norms now.
If you're an offline gamer then there's little to nothing except for the fighting system
to keep you company.
Comparing this to past KOF games, the lack of story, characters, backgrounds, win qoutes,
taunts, and a boss makes this iteration seem fairly lacking.
Although some have said that the fluid animations that PLAYMORE spent about 4 years working
on was good enough, I still account the lack of things to be a disappointment.
It's like going to a steak buffet house that only gives you one
tiny undercooked piece of meat per visit to the counter. just not enough meat on the bones.
If you're online, you get the opportunity to post your best times online and play against others.
Chatter about dlc has been tossed around, but to again point out the bare bones nature
of the game, this would be be the reason why people loathe the idea of dlc in the first place.
Should people who pay 60 dollars for a game have to pay more money to add to
an already scant roster or amount of backgrounds?
Also, not a fan of the exclusion of any sort of story.
I understand some people don't care about it,
but it's one of the reasons why I value most SNK games to anything else.
OVERALL
So alot of new changes, alot of good things, alot of things missing.
Is it worth it?
Is it canon?
Should I wait for the KOF 12.5?
Alot of people have thrown the fact that the PLAYMORE was losing money,
needed to push something out and cash in to keep going.
I can see that the game on it's own merits as a KOF game is pretty nice,
the new sprites and animation is pretty fantastic, the new gameplay isn't necessarily
perfect as I see it, but is interesting and worth learning.
But the missing pieces become more glaring when you start comparing it to other
recent fighters selling for the same price (or <) and what they have to offer.
Blaz blue doesn't really appeal to me personally on a gameplay level, but it's just as deep
with it's element drive system, great visuals, and great online play.
SF IV sticks out in my mind even greater since from the arcade to console conversion
meant more a boat load of more console exclusive characters.
Personally, after getting to play it and get more into the gameplay,
I feel better about the game, but I wouldn't spend 60 bucks on it.
PLAYMORE released an barebones game and should have attached a barebones price on it.
I'm disappointed on what's been left out of this game,
but I am looking forward to the proper release of the next game.
6/10
Last edited:
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,
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is nice for just stopping projectiles and poking (has good reach).
