Mar 3

King of Fighter XII shows Street Fighter how it should be done

Category: Games

Kotaku’s Brian Ashcraft is reporting that the next King of Fighters game is 100% hand drawn. SNK made basic 3D models of the characters, animated them, and took them back to 2D for fleshing out, by hand, on a tablet PC - I’d argue this makes them more like “100% tablet traced” than “100% hand drawn” but that’s beside the point.This is by far the best looking 2D fighter seen thus far. Could this give KoFXII the boost it needs to dethrone the current king of 2D fighters, Street Fighter?

No. That’s ridiculous.

Not in the West anyway. If you asked people here to name a bunch of fighting games, most would list Clay Fighter or Bloody Roar before throwing King of Fighters out there. But this isn’t about sales - this is about what Street Fighter IV could have been. Granted, had it looked this way, Capcom wouldn’t have put Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo: HD Remix into development. But Capcom could have at least used some of the proportionality that SNK aimed for, rather than the ‘roid-rage cartoon that SFIV has become.

It’s also nice that SNK confirmed the game’s release for PS3 and Xbox 360, following an arcade release, as early as September of last year. Capcom has yet to confirm any platform other than arcade.

Oh well, it’s not like I’m going to buy either game though. Not with Soul Calibur IV’s *ahem* generous character-models and my tradition of buying one fighting game every three-or-so years.

3 Comments so far

  1. Cow_Shed March 3rd, 2008 3:20 pm

    Wow, what a throw back to the old school. The 2D fighter is what it is, and making beautiful character art like that, now that hardware can support it, is maybe all the “innovation” it really needs. I’ve never been a fan of King of Fighters except for their strange “mark of the wolves” offshoot. My vote for a new Guilty Gear game along these lines has officially been cast. Don’t let me down Japan!

  2. jaworsky March 3rd, 2008 3:38 pm

    I was going to mention Guilty Gear but then I remembered how that game kicks my ass, and other than looking at it, I holds no purpose for me.

  3. Cow_Shed March 3rd, 2008 9:57 pm

    every fighting game kicks my ass. If a next gen Guilty Gear comes out, I may have to just try and learn it though. I can hardly wait to see my 0 - however many matches I’ve played record on SF II HD.

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