King of Fighters 12 Review
The Short Version: King of Fighters 12 the first entry from the series on the next gen consoles offers an Excellent Core Fighting Experience but is seriously lacking in every other department leaving us ultimately unsatisfied.
Video Review
The Review:
What you’ll Like:
• The Fighting System is Excellent. Responsive, Fluid and Easy to Learn. In the Perfect world this is the only thing that should matter, and this game gets this right – unfortunately this isnt the Perfect world.
• The Hand Drawn Sprites (while they dont look as good as HD BlazBlue) have their own Charm.
• Clan Support Seems Awesome, more games should have this. (only on the PS3)
What you’ll Hate:
• Where the Hell is all my Content? No Story Mode. Only 5 Levels in Arcade? The Single Player is a Joke.
• There are no character videos or anything of the sort that helps to get to know ANY of these Fighters. Inexcusable since this is the first entry into the Next-Gen Consoles and many of us aren’t familiar with the series.
• At the time of Review there are Serious Online Lag Issues.
• The level backgrounds could be alot better (only the fat ladies and the fireworks were interesting to look at).
• Clan Support Only on the PS3. WTF! Assholes!
Final Verdict:
6/10
Above Average (6′s are games that are slightly above average, but for whatever reason they dont merit their Full Purchase Price. Fans will likely love the title enough to overlook its many flaws, but Non-Fans will be slightly disappointed.)
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84 thoughts on “King of Fighters 12 Review”
HELL YEA!! im gunna get it
I rated KoF 12 10 out of 10 ’cause of the badass fighting just in case you are wondering Joe. P.S. Terminator Salvation sucks BALLS!!!!
watch anime
http://anidb.net/perl-bin/animedb.pl?show=anime&aid=3564
I loled at you in the fighter game! Where can I pick up a copy?
I think this game may be good if you just whant to duke it out wioth friends but byond that it lacks. No story at all makes for a very forgettable game. I personlly have always valued the tekken 2 game as a all time classic and whould rather play that again than this shit pickle of a game any day.
I loved KOF XII, but I think because I played it in the arcade. My favorite team was always Kim, Andy, and Terry.
You oughta try out Guilty Gear, Joe. Button mashing fighting at it’s finest.. Or at least you can win like that. Anyway, back to this game and my thoughts. I’ve never played KOF12, and based on this review, I doubt I’d kind of want too. I’d be busier with Blazblue and Guilty Gear, which I personally believe is better due to it having original characters, awesome music, and weird designs.
I mean, there’s a 9 foot tall man with a giant scalpel and a brown paper bag over his head (Faust), how can you beat that?
Anyway, from your review of this, I’d lean this game towards a 4/10 or a 5/10, it sounds VERY basic and is missing quite a lot
I heard there is a fun solitaire game called Faerie Solitaire. My close friend made me try it, and I really think it’s the best solitaire game ever made! I got it here: Try Faerie Solitaire http://www.subsoap.com/?aid=5234
Is that mugen at the ned of the vid?
so funny when Joe says: “…and I mastered the arts of BEATING ASS with him…”
Heya!, Nice review Joe! Would be fun to fight you sometime =P
First when I saw KoF12 on videos it did not look special at all.
But I was soooo wrong… I got an demo from Japan account on my PS3 and I tested it,
after that I could not hold my self for getting it.
For my self I do not care about other content then characters and how the game plays.
And this game is great on that, Sure it would be fun to have an little story mode for
every character to know “who” they are… But as long the game play rocks I’m happy
And don’t worry, It WILL come an new version of KoF12 later, bet it will come out late next year with more content.
And the patch to the Net-Play made it much better, when I play with friends over the net that lives in the same country(Sweden) it works great.
If I remember right they will send out one more patch to the Net-Play.
If your a Fan of fighting games you will like this game!
I see it as an hidden treasure that you have to try the game out before you can say how you like the game.
Take care Joe, many wishes for great games and gaming ^^
i don’t now if this is where the comments are written, but i don’t now a fuck about english language. i’m from argentina (the country where the long arm of the games don’t reach). the only way to play this is Pirating or Mugening. but i find one of your reviews in internet (obviously) and i me cague de la risa.
i love his show anyways joe this game is a old school game and im a old school gamer this game is really ment 4 the arcade when u really think about it i do personally belive that this game should get a 9 only because like i said its a old school game and u r right this is 2009 ans we should expect a lil more thing in games but i think they wanted 2 give this a try the dote graphics i mean and thats all i wanted 2 say wait 1 more thing can u do a review 4 Resident Evil 5 and Street Fighter 4 plz
i would love to see a fight btween spoony and joe on fighting game or especially a tekken game that would be awsome lol
you frogot to mention the release of soul caliber 4, which has both great gameplay as well as compelling storyline. granted its a fighting game story line so its kinda hard to tell where the last installation left off and the new begins, as well as new characters, as well as why they are there. except it seems like soul caliber 4 kinda sold out a little because they added the apprentice from star wars and yoda/darth vader……
hey joe love the review. i was never sure if i should get the game. now i think ill stay away from it. i prefer BlazBlue over anything
joe hit me up on Xbox live MetalGrunt400
great for having friends over and playing, i hear they are currently addin new charcters and a story mode that you can download for the ps3 ( not 100% sure ) with charcters such as geese howard and rugal. hope they do .
- 98 kof is dah shyt dawgs
you dont know who the characters are but I do. everyone should know who the characters are since there have been sooo many relesases of the king of fighter series.. That TRUCKER guy is one of the Bogards… I think there are 2 or 3 Bogard brothers. Their the main characters in the game silly. I was playing King of Fighters 10 years ago. and you Never HEARD oF them??? and ur critsizing something u dont know much about? u gotta do a litle research for any game u review first. anyways, the game is great
Even if a game has 11 prequels doesn’t mean it shouldn’t give some background story about the characters in case there are new players. Also, didn’t Joe say that this was the first of the games to come out for the 360? In that case, the importance of adding backstory for new players is more important than ever. You say that he should do some research before he does his reviews, but why should he? He delivers reviews from the common gamers viewpoint, which is a great thing. If he did research and knew everything about the characters, the people that buy this game still wouldn’t! Think before you comment!
Great review as always, Joe, keep it up!
I was thinking of grabbing a fighting game for rent, and now I know I am gonna get BlazBlue if I can find it tomorrow.
KOF just seems like a letdown.
I trust you Joe, ever since your Prototype review. I trust you *nodnod*
Love your review of KOF XII that you posted recently. I am a big fan of fighters and the KOF series was one of those games that I pretty much fell in love with since I was 11. Evey year it keeps getting bigger and better. The Roster of characters was great and the story was good as well. Then when I heard the they were making KOF XII I was really happy. I went all the way to NYC to play the game at Chinatown Fair, and love playing it from the beginning. Since this was an Arcade game , I didn’t expect much from the story, or a big roster ( Like SF IV Arcade) so I had no problem with that. But when you bring an arcade game home, you kinda expect a whole lot more of a game,especially when you’re about to drop $60 on the game and another $80-$200 on a arcade stick. Hopefully there will be some DLC cause I do want to play as Ramon, Seth, Chang and Choi, Shermie, Vice and Mature,Tung Fu Rue, Gato, and many more that I can’t list. Hopefully they’ll fix all the problems and drop the price, or Make a truly kick ass KOF XII Directors Cut or XIII. Thanks for being real in this and other reviews. PS: Joe Higashi Is Tha Man with Kim and Andy in close second and third
man youre such an angry guy joe, how do you get yourself so angry about videogames tell me your secret
hey joe why dont you put yourself in more videos its like watching goatse the motion picture except at least i can stand looking at goatse
i couldn’t watch more than a minute of this horrible shit
hey joe you sack of shit, why dont you shave that piece of shit you call a mustache and try to make a joke that isnt totally lame
Sad to hear Kof 12 has a laking single player options. In this day of age when games are $60+ we gamers want plenty of content for our money, and yet SKN dropped the ball.
Sometimes I’m awsome at fighting games, other times I suck royally. It’s almost as if the moves only work for me about 50-60% of the time. I’m usually good enough to beat my friends, but that’s only because they suck worse than me. Great review, but I think I’ll pass on this one. I like a good fighting game, but I like lots of content as well.
Hey Angry Joe, I enjoyed your review and felt like posting some things:
I was disappointed with the lack of content in this game as well. I’ve been a fan of KoF for a while now (since 97 I think) and am familiar with the characters and the story, but I agree, without it what does a newcomer care about the characters?
This game has a good system I agree, but I can’t see it being worth $60 without more content.
With its extensive background you’d think SNK could have given some sort of summary/backstory to the game. Hell you’d think they would mention that Ash (effeminate red guy) had just finished stealing Iori’s (the guy with the red pompadour and tight pants) powers (to shoot purple fire out his hands) who has a rivalry with Kyo (the guy in the leather jacket with the fire moves) that spans back to the 90′s and even this just happened in the last game, meanwhile Terry (trucker guy) was a former champion of the Tournament that this game gets its namesake from (KoF) and has a link to Ryo (the Ryu ripoff in the orange outfit) in that they both faced off and had major story points with an old boss (Geese Howard who employed the fat masked wrestler Raiden) in their debut games (Fatal Fury and Art of Fighting respectively) that launched the King of Fighters franchise and that Ralf (the guy with the red bandana and grenades) and Clark (the guy that looks like Ralf but with sunglasses and a hat) were from the Ikari Warriors game from way back when and recently guest stared in Metal Slug 7 and are in the same military organization as Leona (blue haired chick) etc. etc. etc.
There’s lots of back story to the game but maybe they chose to leave it out so as not to intimidate new players. There is hope for the next game though, as SNK/Playmore has shown before, their “first” game focuses on mechanics and getting the product out on the shelves while the sequel will have an expanded roster, polished fighting system, more interesting storyline and far more built in content (well if you use KoF Maximum Impact as a measuring point anyway) so here’s hoping to improved DLC and a better sequel.
I echo the sentiment of ‘It’s a good rental, but not worth full price unless you’re a diehard fighting game fan’.
I’m a long time King of Fighters fan. I probably prefer the gameplay of KoF over Street Fighter because of the variety of characters and their moves/techniques. I am one of the few who bought KoF XII. Why? because i had to see for myself how the game would play out. I own KoF XI, and it is a great game, and for $20 (not a bad buy). I thought SNK were starting to improve after the crappy KoF 2002. I must agree, it sucks to pay $60 for KoF XII and not getting your money’s worth. My complaint is the same as Angry Joe, but one thing that pisses me off the most in this game is how some characters like Ash, Ryo, and Shen Woo have more than one Super Special Move, while characters like Joe and Terry have only one. Where is Terry’s Buster Wolf, the most badass super special move.
My motivation for getting KoF XII is because it has a better selection of character, which i felt XI was lacking. XI didn’t have Joe or Andy from the Fatal Fury team (How could they leave out Joe?).
I think the visual of this game is really good. Keep in mind, in the last decade, SNK has used the same sprite animations, this is the first time they completely changed the visual.
Unfortunately, i have to group myself with those other guys who complain that there is no Mai. It’s not that i have a problem with a lack of eye candy, it’s just that Mai is actually a good fighter. I would also like to see Rock Howard in an official KoF game, but i’m asking too much. In the end, i like to think of this game similar to Gran Torino Prologue. It’s not the completed game, just a sneak peak of what will come in the future for KoF. This game is not worth the $60. If you like the character roster and want a game like this, i recommend KoF ’98. It doesn’t have amazing visual, but it’s $20 so not a bad price for a decent fighter. On another note, the Ash Crimson saga storyline is not concluded, so there will be another KoF, i would suggest waiting for XIII.
I mostly use Terry, Joe, Andy, and Kensou (he’s much more badass in this game compared to his previous incarnations).
Yea, I’m interested to see how much they charge for an DLC content if it is coming.
I’m now a Fan of King of Fighters from even this lackluster game so that should tell you theres potential – however this one isnt worth it. and We should all look forward to KOF 13 (there had better be a crap load of content).
great for having friends over and playing, i hear they are currently addin new charcters and a story mode that you can download for the ps3 ( not 100% sure ) with charcters such as geese howard and rugal. hope they do .
- 98 kof is dah shyt dawgs
Joe’s Great, we need more people like joe!
Great review man!
I’m a long time fighting game fan and I’ve been playing KoF for years. I got to say I pretty much agree with every major point you made Joe. The fighting is excellent but there is a serious lack of content. It’s a great game but a crappy product. Over the years the bar has really been raised when it comes to content in fighters. If somebody can’t play against other people they need single player stuff to fall back on. If this game’s netcode doesn’t get fixed, a lot of people are going to be screwed.
I like this game but there is no way it’s worth 60 dollars, especially since the competition is giving us more for just as much. At most I’d pay half that. I think the only way they can justify the current price is if dlc is on the horizon and the first few are free.
One last thing. In this game my favorite guy in this game is Shen Woo. Gotta love those wild punches. My favorite character out of all the SNK fighters though is a dude called Yamazaki.
P.S. Ash is a dude. He’s one of the most feminine I’ve ever seen, but still…
Ya I call him the Surfer Dude. I like this wild punch style as well. Loose and crazy.
Good review. It’s a shame about KOF’s content, I always look to get a lot of single player time out of my fighting games. I do have Blazblue on order though… hoping to enjoy that.
Oh, and one other quick note. Another person posted a link to fightersgeneration.com.
If you’re at all interested in learning about the characters, you’re better off using the SNK Wiki (snk.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page) or discussing them on popular forums on sites like snk-capcom.com/forums or Cyberfanatix (www.cyberfanatix.com).
The guy that runs fightersgeneration often posts inaccurate information based off his own personal bias or ignorance, amongst other unsavory things.
Of course, if you’re not interested, then just play the game and beat the snot out of each other.
As a long time fighting game fan, I agree with nearly everything you said in your review. Definitely one of the better reviews out there, as many other ones just mention how shitty the online experience is and the lack of content, and pan it without mentioning how great the fighting itself is.
The lack of content is particularly bothersome for me because SNK’s games have always had more of the extra stuff that gave their games a lot of character and personality. Good stories, interesting battle segues, great (if not nigh impossible to beat) bosses, custom introductions if certain characters face each other, etc. None of it ever got in the way, and really made the games stand out from others like Street Fighter or Mortal Kombat.
Great examples of this can be found if you play Fatal Fury 3 (probably the most story heavy game they made), Samurai Shodown 3 or 4, KOF ’96 – ’00, MOTW (which was mentioned in your review), and either of the two Last Blades. To see SNKP release a game without these makes the game feel especially hollow if you’re a fan of the company.
However, I have to disagree with your statement above about BlazBlue’s sprites being better. Not only are KOF XII’s a lot more detailed, but the animation is a million times better. Yes, they’re lower definition, but with the way they made the sprites (i.e. the old fashioned way of drawing one pixel at a time much like you would with the dot tool in MS Paint) made this look intentional. It’s supposed to have an old school feel to it while looking superior to the old sprites. BlazBlue’s are higher definition, but are flat as hell, and animate like sprites from 1991 (i.e. shitty).
I also found all of the backgrounds to be extremely well done and interesting, particularly because there’s so much going on, the level of detail is absurd (especially since they were also drawn the same way as the sprites with no pre-rendering of any kind), and mesh perfectly with the sprites unlike the stages from all the KOF’s since 2001 and onward.
Well, have you ever heard of “Fatal Fury”? That’s the title King of
Fighters ran under in the SNES days. Going back, “Trucker Guy” Terry
Bogard, was basically your lead character. The roster for the KOF games have
never been too…. large shall we say.
But as fighter games go Joe, I have to
say that if you’re interested in storyline, I’d suggest picking up the Street
Fighter anime movies…
1. Fatal Fury: Legend of the Hungry Wolf
2. Fatal Fury
II
3. Fatal Fury: The Motion picture.
Terry and Andy Bogard are the main
protagonists, but Joe Higashi and Mai Shiranui are major support characters.
It’s actually one of the first animes I seriously picked up and can tolerate to
listen to in English. To me, it had enough story that it actually endeared me to
the characters. I didn’t play the game til years later.
As for the current
games, I can’t really comment.
The ones I’ve played… I need to look up how to do their special moves but the controls seem responsive enough XD
For starters, I still, to this day, think that fighting were meant to have no story at all, because it’s just a game about fighting one on one. Now if it were a small character roster I could understand, but you can’t whip up a story for a game like KOF, it’s bullshit. I will agree with Joe on one thing, and that characters need to have a small backstory, just to separate them from other characters…but still, most fighting games can have no story in them.
Sometimes I can be good at a fighting game, but most of time I wound up sucking like Joe does. I LOVE fighting games regardless, as long as they have cool character designs, fantastic gameplay, and brilliant music, no freaking story required.
It’s sad that the 360 version got less of what the KOF series usually got, but I wouldn’t mind trying it. KOF has always had fantastic gameplay.
The fighting engine of the game is actually awesome. It basically gets rid of spamming…..BUT the lack of content is inexcusable. what is especially inexcusable is the BAD BAD BAAAAAD online play- the games only saving grace down the toilet.
It is 6/10 in my book to and a 8/10 if SNK decides to fix the online play.
Nice review, not a bad game but like you said, not a lot of content.
Personally my favorite fighting game is Marvel Vs. Capcom 2, that kicked ass!
At first I thought Ash was a girl cause of close-up where I thought he had boobs and the way he looked/moved, but he’s a guy. I think your review is spot on cause renting this game (which I did because I’m a newcomer to this series and bad at fighting games) was a good idea, fun to kick my friend’s ass at it, but it did feel like an xbox-live arcade game. To make the fighting so fun and then just cut corners on the single player experience is a big let down.
Perfect I like hearing that you actually took action based on a recommendation of mine. Had it been an XBLA game we could have bought it without feeling ripped.
Answering some of the questions there (or rather ene of them)…
To me, there is absolutely no excuse to have no storyline, no character development/background. Sure, it’s all fighting and some people don’t even care too much, but it’s a fighting GAME. And games are made of a few things besides awesome gameplay: background (as in why is this all happening, who is this guy I’m playing and why is he doing that), event (as in what’s happening right now as you play) and development (as in what unfolds from your actions).
Let’s take a milestone of fighting games as an example: Mortal Kombat 1. Yes, the first one, the one that was on the arcades and STILL had some story exposition if you waited long enough in front of the screen, showing the background of each character before showing a quick sample fight involving that character. Now, that sure doesn’t influence the way you play the game and sure as hell won’t influence how the controls respond or your enjoyment of the actual fight. What it does do, though, is add flavour to the game and the feeling that the producers put some effort into it (showing some respect towards the players is always a good thing). This means you get a much more enjoyable experience of the whole thing (rather than feel you’re playing some crappy beta version) and might just want to come back to the game to see how other characters would develop.
Having varied options of ending stories (like the King of Fighters of old), even though I just played through the exact same game, made me feel good and added a lot more to the replay value of those games.
If I took KoF 12 and instead had all brand new characters, people from the old days would be outraged and curse the producers, the producers’ children and their children’s children and so on… Well, as a fan of KoF I know I would. Why? Because I’ve grown some empathy towards the characters of the game as years went by. Why? Because they actually had stories and personalities and different goals in the game.
Ultimately, content that some might see as “extra” is actually the root of the game all along. Shallow characters and shallow games form bonds with shallow people only and are quickly forgotten (cause that’s the way shallow bonds go). Players need something remarkable, something that touches not only their player senses (with awesome gameplay), but their minds and the way they see the world (with an awesome story). People can relate to the most “on-drugs-bred” storyline ever, but if games refuse to give them even that… What’s left then? Hollow gameplay.
Dramatic? Alright, I may have been a bit… But that’s how I feel. I never liked playing a game with no story and I still don’t.
To me, games emerge first of all from a concept and then are built on top of that. But hey… I’m already overextending myself here… So I’ll just leave it at that.
PS: I’m sorry for the broken English, it’s not my native language.
I enjoyed reading it, and I agree 100%!
Now I know what your thinking, I agree it feels incomplete possibly because SNK
is trying to cash in on the whole “Extra downloadable content” they will
soon add to the game along with more characters to download So hopefully a story
mode will be added this way too but if you want knowledge and information about
the characters go to this site and thank me later.
http://www.fightersgeneration.com
I’m a member of this site and i’m friends with the guy in charge.
-David
That red one is a dude, trust me.
I too suck at fighting games, and that has stopped me from buying any that looks interesting.
The only fighting I don’t suck at, is Dragonball Budokai 3! You should try it, Joe!
Yeah no Mai was a downer for me:P Good review Joe , but this is a no buy for me since it’s lacking conetent..You should review Marvel vs capcom 2:D
I know what you mean. You want to know how thease guys are but no. You can kinda just guess how thease guys are its like those army guys are enemys or somthing like that friends maybe? I dunno it makes you angry.
I like the KoF series but this one should have been on Xbox live arcade an not a full prized retail game.
I can only say as a huge KOF fan that this review was one of the best and most honest that I’ve read yet, really, great job on your review Joe! Everything your said was true and centered, not stupid stuff like not having Mai Shiranui affecting your score (yes, I saw a review that did that…on a Gaming site). Heh, Joe Higashi is awesome! I like to play as him, Terry and Kim in the series (but I really pick random most of the time).
I rarely play any kind of fighting games and of corse i suck at those type of games too.
I would consider “King of Fighters 12″ more as a an X box live arcade than becoming a regular $60.00 game. or else, i would give the game a 6/10. I think they should remake the game and include most of the content that was missing in “King of Fighters 12″ like story mode, a longer lasting arcade mode, and should become a special edition if the producers feel like they could do a better job.
P.S good review Angry Joe
Well, here’s a mini review of the game from me, a hardcore KOF fan.
Well, first off, their goal with the game was to bring in newcomers by basically striping the game down (That’s why they’re calling it a rebirth) and starting over basically. KOF games are USUALLY known for a few things, one of those being a ton of characters, which this game does not have, but I was alright with that. Going to KOF XI for an example, that game had a story mode, challenge mode, and plenty of neat unlockables. This game has……..none of that, but yet again, I am alright with that. Now on to the actual game itself, like you said, the gameplay in it is pretty damn good (Despite a lot of missing moves and not enough characters), but there’s just ONE thing that really ruins the game……
THE ONLINE IS UNPLAYABLE. Now I understand this is a multiplayer game, but if the multiplayer online doesn’t work, how are you supposed to fully enjoy the game? Now, they have already patched the online once (It didn’t do much…….at all), but at the VERY least, it means they are looking into it. I also want to point out that Ignition (Who handles the games shipping I believe) has talked to SNKplaymore and has asked them for extra content in the form of DLC. (http://forums.ignitionusa.net/showthread.php?t=1481 Link for those wondering.)
Overall though, I would honestly recommend waiting for things to get better/DLC, and I would only recommend getting this game when the price has dropped.
I hope this mini review helps you guys.
I personally have not played a fighting game that I can say that I liked since Marvel VS Capcom 2 and Dead or Alive 3 came out on the Sega Dreamcast. Now that King of Fighters XII, Street Fighter IV and BlazBlue are out I own two of the three of those and you showed me KoF XII. I can honestly say after watching your review I am really not missing much at all. And that means BlazBlue stands as one of my favorite fighting games in a long time. I’ve thought about doing a review for BlazBlue, but have not had the motivation to.
But thank you again, Joe for this review. Now I know I don’t need to get it.
Your welcome bro! This is exactly why we make videos!
angry joe is encouraging me to be a racist faggot i hate asians
You’re joking, right?
lol i suck at fighters too
the only one i was ever good at was tekken 3
in the end its the whole package that matters i reckon
To help you out, you pronounce BlazBlue just like you would say “Blaze Blue”.
Thanks I was saying “Blaz” instead of “Blaze”.