tempest in a teacup

So, King of Fighters XII.

A lot has been said about the quality of the graphical makeover - I’ll say that based on the 720p screenshots and videos I’ve seen, I do like it a lot. It leaves just about everything else SNK has ever done in the dust; my only gripe is that Kyo’s flame effects still look pretty bad, particularly the ones for his uppercut and DM. You’d think they’d have noticed that by now.

In any case, while I do like the look of the game so far, I have less confident things to say about how the game seems to play at this point.

The clash/offset system seems to be an attempt at introducing something akin to parries into KOF. You cause a clash by performing an attack just as the opponent’s attack is about to hit you. In the process both sides take some damage and do an automatic backstep (or a backwards jump if one party is in midair). However both characters can also cancel the backstep animation into anything they want - a jump, a run or even another attack.

In its current form there’s clearly some risk involved with clashing - you take some damage in exchange for the chance to mount a counterattack. Unlike parries, however, a clash also resets the opponent to a neutral state, so at best you end up going from a disadvantageous position to a neutral position - high risk for a somewhat nebulous reward. On top of that you can apparently clash with fireballs, and there are already a few videos out there that show people stopping uppercuts by clashing with a jump attack (although given the backhop that results from a successful clash this might actually be a disadvantage for the player in the air). It’s definitely a major change, and I’m kind of nervous that it’ll end up breaking the game in some way.

I’m also concerned that the builds shown so far seem to lack super flashes. Just about all the DMs I’ve seen have ridiculously long startup, making them impossible to combo from anything. Since the game we’ve seen so far is so incomplete as to lack a power meter and a hit counter, and even one of the main subsystems (Critical Counter), my assumption is that DM flashes will be added in later, but given the ‘retro’ tone they’re trying to go for I have my doubts.

Speaking of said tone - I can’t say I’m a fan of it. Regressing in terms of looks is one thing, but some characters seem to have regressed in terms of movesets as well, which is…troubling. The most affected one seems to be Kyo, who’s basically gone back to his KOF’95 version. There are some glowing exceptions - Ralf and Iori seem to have gotten complete movelist makeovers, but characters like Terry apparently only have one DM, and Shen Woo seems to have lost some moves as well.  On top of that characters like Andy seem to channel their original Fatal Fury 2 incarnations rather than any recent KOF version. And needless to say, I’m still puzzled at their decision to drop the successful system they had developed for KOF XI to start from a blank slate.

I think we’ll only start to get a real sense for where KOF XII will be in terms of mechanical soundness when the game is complete and ready for beta testing. The game is slated for an April 2009 release in arcades, so that should be pretty soon.

I’ve mentioned before how SNKP dumping all the new things they introduced in KOF XII irritated me. Capcom has been doing something similar with Street Fighter IV, and needless to say that move has puzzled me as well. It’s not that I don’t understand the motivation behind the move - it’s that I think that it’s not going to help at all.

Ostensibly the idea behind returning these series to a time when they were less loaded with subsystems to master is fairly obvious - to make them more “accessible” to beginners. There’s nothing wrong with making games easy to learn - as long as they remain difficult to master. That is the key thing that keeps people playing these games for so long. And when you think about it, a game like Guilty Gear XX really is no more accessible than Street Fighter II, since at the lowest level, they are based off the same principles.

Anyway, back to Street Fighter IV. Capcom is trying to draw in the people who played Street Fighter II back in its heyday, yet who didn’t stick with the scene after that. I have to say, I’m highly skeptical that this will work, and the evidence on the Internet doesn’t really help to convince me otherwise.

For instance, take a look at this video on Youtube. It’s a video of a Ryu player in Street Fighter IV (the video uploader claims it’s Daigo Umehara, but that hasn’t been confirmed). Still, it’s pretty clear that the guy knows what he’s doing. However, the comments on this and other videos are rather revealing:

it’s not that hard to do fire ball over and over again then kick a few times . I hope D dark is on this game so I can show you a real beast.

How is this guy good? He constantly spams a load of Hadouken. The guy is aweful.

good?…all he does is spam hadouken.

These are the people Capcom is trying to sell this game to. Good luck with that.

If anything, they’ll think “omg, this is going to be just like Street Fighter II!”, hop on Live/PSN and get their asses kicked a bunch of times by players who stuck with the scene over the years (and have thus become really good), chalk it up to people being cheap or not “playing for fun” and quit the game for good. Which is probably why they stopped playing Street Fighter II, come to think of it. There will probably be a few who will attempt to learn the system and actually get better at the game, but I doubt they will be in the majority.

Disclaimer: I don’t claim to be an expert at fighting games (anyone who has played against me knows what a pushover I am) but I do like to think that I know why people continue to play these games, and thus why trying to attract new players with misguided attempts to rekindle nostalgia isn’t going to work.

(I’ve been writing way too many negative posts lately, haven’t I? I’ll try to think of something more positive to write about next time)

I got a Gamebridge off someone at work last week.

If you haven’t heard of it, it’s a device that plugs into your consoles’ regular composite/S-video cables and transmits the signal to your PC via USB, letting you either play your consoles on your PC monitor (which it does terribly, by the way) or capture screenshots and video from your console games (something for which it is far better suited). It doesn’t seem to do component, but I don’t own a PS3 or Xbox 360, so I have no problems with that limitation.

I hooked it up just now, and captured a sample video from King of Fighters XI.

Not a dazzling show of my combo skills, but it does prove that the device works pretty well.

Now I need to think of a way in which I can actually use this thing. I’ve got a few tentative ideas, but I need to figure out how feasible they are.

SNK Playmore recently released some information on the upcoming King of Fighters XII in Famitsu magazine. Having been impressed by the initial trailer for the game from AOU 2008 last month, I read the developer interview near the end. One thing in particular jumped out at me.

–What kind of a matchup will KOFXII feature?
SNKP: Rather than the multishift system from KOFXI, this game (KOFXII) will adopt the traditional 3-on-3 elimination style battle system that’s been used since KOF94. By returning to the traditional format and revising the game system that’s gotten too complex, we’re aiming for a game balance that’s playable even for beginners. Instead of complicated combos that makes full use of the game’s system, we want to put emphasis on “reading the opponent’s mind”.

This has me more than a little irritated.

First off, I thought KOF XI’s tag system added a lot to the game. It was the first KOF game I had played in a long time that actually felt new and fresh without being bad, and I think the series was better for it. I was looking forward to seeing how the tag system evolved for the next instalment. And yet, they’ve gone and done away with it together, and gone back to the traditional 3 on 3 elimination format. This is particularly infuriating when you consider that they’ve just released a remake of what is probably the most-loved classic KOF game (KOF’98 Ultimate Match), which you think would satisfy most people’s needs for classic 3-on-3 KOF. Do we really need another game that apes it?

The graphical overhaul is stunning (if you don’t believe me, check out these direct-feed screenshots from Famitsu) but if it continues to keep alive the ghost of old games rather than try new things, I will be quite disappointed.

But it felt really nice.

Awaiting more details (and a high-resolution trailer) with bated breath.