King of Fighters Retrospective Bonus Round: KOF: Maximum Impact

We’ve gone over the main King of Fighters titles in my long retrospective, but there is still some ground to cover.  The King of Fighters has had some spin-offs, the most prominent being The King of Fighters: Maximum Impact and its sequel, Maximum Impact 2 (bafflingly renamed KOF 2006 in America).  These were the first King of Fighters games to be made specifically for the PS2 and utilized full 3D characters and environments long before KOF 14.  I remember seeing advertisements in magazines and was skeptical.  It isn’t in the series colorful 2D style, the story is completely unrelated to the main games, there were no teams and there was Mortal Kombat’s not-that-well-received transition to 3D around that time.  For years I would forget the Maximum Impact games existed, but after getting my hands on them, I think they’re worth giving a fair shake.

King of Fighters Retrospective: 13

King of Fighters 13: the real King of Fighters 12!

After years of anticipation, the sequel to the phenomenal King of Fighters 11 finally came out, and as if a sign from god, the game came out on my birthday, November 22^nd following some delays.  I didn’t get it until a year later though.

Ordinarily I would assume that the delays for the game were so that it could be fine-tuned, but that doesn't make any sense.  They didn’t seem to give two shits about taking their time when they were making a certain game before this one that may or may not exist!

But that’s beside the point.  King of Fighters 13 is tied with 11 as my favorite installment in the franchise, which is the big reason the Tales of Ash is my favorite storyline thus far.

It takes place after the tournament in King of Fighters 11.  At the conclusion of that tournament, Ash Crimson stole Iori’s Yasakani Magatama along with his flame powers, and Magaki, another higher-up of Those from the Distant Land, was killed by the weapon of his subordinate, Shion, who is now missing.

In The King of Fighters 13, there’s a new KOF tournament on the horizon, this time sponsored by (a Botan-controlled) Rose Bernstein, who is sparing no expense to make it one the most grandiose ever.

There’s one thing about this scenario I don’t understand, and it’s a pretty glaring plot hole.  The Bernstein family are wanted criminals!  They’re illegal arms dealers!  They’re on the run!  Now Rose is appearing on TV and nobody is doing anything!

Rose and Adelheid did appear on TV in the KOF 2003 comic, but in that, they didn’t give their last names because the Bernsteins are known for being criminals!  Here, she specifically says it’s courtesy of the Bernstein family!  No one I’ve ever talked to and nothing I have ever read has explained this!  My only assumption is that they made good with the government, seeing as how Adelheid is now “friends” with Heidern and they don’t seem to be doing anything illegal (intentionally).  Still, wouldn’t the money from their criminal activities be confiscated?  I just don’t get this.

Adelheid is sitting this one out, at least on the stage.

Maybe they're so powerful they control the police.  That always seems to be the convenient reason with crime lords in fiction.

The entrants in this tournament are all nostalgic, as the majority of them are teams from the first game, KOF 94, and the first good game, KOF 96.

Kyo, Benimaru, and Goro form the classic team Japan.  Though he was going to go anyway, Kyo was personally invited by two of Those from the Distant Land, one of whom Kyo gave a flaming punch to.  Shingo would have loved to join too, but is sadly left out due to injuries sustained in the last tournament protecting Kyo.

Why is it Benimaru only lets his hair down outside of battle?

Yuri, Mai, and King reform the original women’s fighting team, which hasn’t been officially formed since ‘95.  Returning from an extended absence, Takuma joins the Art of Fighting team with Ryo and Robert, and despite the forces involved that got her barred last time, Leona leads the Ikari Warriors team with Ralf and Clark.  Like everyone else, Terry, using his original look, joins with his classic teammates Andy and Joe, and Athena reunites with Kensou and Chin.

Even after losing his Yasakani Magatama and his powers with it, Iori is also an active participant, out to get his powers back and take revenge on the one who stole them.  With his flame gone, Iori now only utilizes the purely physical art of Nanto Suichoken!

You'd think Iori would have run out of teammates by this point, and in a wy, he has.  Joining Iori are his old partners Mature and Vice…. Wait, what?!

I didn’t want to spoil a character ending, but I'm cutting out the ambiguity this time.  You’ve had enough time to play it!  At the end of King of Fighters 96, in Iori's ending, Vice and Mature died!

They!

F&^#ing!

Died!

How are they back?  How is this possible?  The most we get is that they want to protect the Orochi power from falling into the wrong hands, but if that’s the case, where were they in the last game?!  My only guess is that Iori losing his powers indicated that their intervention was necessary, but that still doesn’t explain how they resurrected themselves!

In the story supplements outside the games, Mature and Vice have occasionally haunted Iori as ghosts, so I guess you could say they never truly left.  The only explanation I have is a fan theory that believes the Orochi can never truly die and can enter the world of the living in emergencies or because the Orochi seal is broken or something.  If that were the case, why can’t they just get Goenitz or one of the other Orochi cult members to kick those Distant Land jerk’s asses?  Let’s face it, SNK Playmore just wanted to get Mature and Vice back, plot be damned.  What a load.

Many of the old characters got significant makeovers for 13.  KOF-original characters from the Orochi saga got several new outfits, like a black tank top for Leona and black suits for Mature and Vice.  The only character introduced in the Tales of Ash to get an outfit upgrade is Elizabeth, and thank god for that.

I have no problem with those changes.  I have problems with the other ones.

Some of the characters that appeared in SNK games before KOF were redesigned with their original style in mind.  For example, Kensou wears his green outfit from Psycho Soldier and Athena now has long pink hair and a moe-like face.  King and Yuri both have the unfortunate effect of having the front of their shirts destroyed when finished by a special attack, like they did back in KOF 94 & 95 and the Art of Fighting games.

Ralf and Clark probably got hit the hardest in the art shift, because they’re now both obscenely buff to the point that you have to wonder how their bones work.

I understand what they were trying to do with these changes, but long-time fans got accustomed to their KOF designs.  To suddenly change that makes it taxing to recognize them as the fighters from previous games.

The only characters not from the Orochi saga are the important ones (even if in another story) and Kim’s new teammates.  K’ enters with Maxima and Kula only because Chin Gentsai bribed Kula with ice cream to sign their team up for the tournament, even though K’ wanted nothing to do with it (something that becomes very apparent).

Rather than Chang or Choi, Kim instead has two new participants in his reformation program.  Chang and Choi convinced Kim that Fatal Fury characters Raiden and Hwa Jai were more in need of reformation than they were after seeing the two in a magazine.  In reality, Hwa and Raiden were still not exactly nice people, but weren’t working for anyone evil like Geese.  Hell, Raiden isn't exactly a bad guy himself.  It's just an evil identity he has with his good identity, Big Bear.  Still, they went along with Kim’s program so that their reputation could get a boost from fighting in the KOF tournament.

Raiden and Hwa Jai are two of only three new characters introduced in 13.  Hwa is a muy tai fighter like Joe, but has a far different set of attacks.  Raiden is a wrestler with many grapples and heavy moves that hit slow, but hard.  He's also Australian, so I guess you could say his opponents will face Australian justice.

Ash Crimson is apparently now working with Those from the Distant Land and has promised to gather all 3 of the sacred treasures for them, two of which he already has.

Keep in mind that Ash couldn’t have killed any members of the Distant Land in the previous games.  In 2003, Mukai gets away, and in 11, Magaki is killed by Shion’s spear.  Ash fought against them, but only because it's expressed that he doesn't like them.  There’s also another rather good reason they keep him around and why they believe he'll ultimately do as they say, but I’ll get to that.

The Distant Land folks gave Ash his own invitation, but he doesn’t have a team, so he doesn’t participate per se.  After viciously betraying Shen Woo and pitting him against Oswald in KOF 11, the Shanghai street fighter instead joins Elizabeth’s team with Duo Lon for revenge.  Ash merely watches from the sidelines for most of the game's events though.

Truly Ash is the hero of this story.  Only a hero would join the villains, betray his friends, steal artifacts needed to seal off an evil power, and have every protagonist want his head.

The console version added two more unlockable playable characters: the returning Billy Kane (who has gone back to his original outfit like everyone else) and the leader of Those from the Distant Land, whom Ash bears an uncanny resemblance to.

Billy Kane rules!

While KOF 13’s character selection is substantial, I can’t help but feel disappointed in the characters they chose.  Almost none of the characters premiering in KOF 11 come back, making 11 the only game to have them.  I would have loved to fight with Oswald, B. Jenet, Duck King, or Tizoc again.  There aren’t any new characters important to the plot aside from the main villain either, something that most games before this have done to keep things interesting.  The characters from the Tales of Ash aren’t forgotten, thankfully.  As something of a compensation, just about all of them get cameos somewhere in the game.  You have to look carefully to see some of them in the backgrounds.

This is just one screen.  One screen and there are 7 different characters from previous games!

The characters that are playable got significant changes to their moves in the move to HD systems, and some of them are for the worse.  There are a few special moves Kyo can no longer use, Duo Lon plays completely differently, and King’s Double Strike and Surprise Rose, once special attacks, are now super special attacks.  Not to mention Ralf lost his backbreaker move and his Galactica Phantom has far less range and damage output even though Ralf is BUFFED TO THE MAX IN MUSCLE MASS!  All these changes do is take away character strength, and they're not the only things that had a big change.

In an unexpected move, King of Fighters 13 goes back to a fighting system much like that of King of Fighters 97 & 98.  There’s no more swapping characters on the fly and no more leader selection.  Presumably this is because of the loading times required for each round, which takes all of two seconds.  I suppose that two seconds of waiting would have badly broken the flow had they gone with the free-tagging KOF 11 system.

The only new mechanic introduced is the drive gauge, which is similar the one from KOF 11.  By using up half the meter, you can perform a drive cancel.  When the meter is full, you can press all 4 buttons at once (both triggers or R2+L2 in the console versions) to enter overdrive mode, in which you can use as many cancels as you need and your most powerful attack: the Neo Max for only 2 super stocks instead of 3.  Neo Maxes are basically the replacements of the leader super moves from previous games, because like the leader moves, they require a control stick command and two buttons instead of one.  They’re explosive, flashy, and take humongous gashes out of your opponent’s health.  Pulling one off is oh so satisfying with the game’s graphical leap.

That's kanji, in case your're slow.

The combat in 13 is one of the best yet.  It should be immediately familiar to any King of Fighters player.  It keeps up a speed similar to KOF 11, but feels unique and weightier than any other KOF game, due in no small part to its presentation.  The first (it’s the first, dammit!) HD King of Fighters game looks absolutely revolutionary.  All the character sprites and stages are incredibly detailed and sharp, and backgrounds change with each round, showing off different lighting effects and cameos.  You need only look at it to see how much of a spectacle King of Fighters 13 is.  The finale’s cinematics are also for the first time completely animated, though the endings are still mostly a slideshow of SNK’s trademarked artwork and none of the cutscenes have voice acting.  That’s just sticking true to KOF’s style though.  It is without a doubt the very best looking 2D game I have ever seen.  Not even Arc System Works has yet been able to top The King of Fighters 13.

See, I held on to my powers.  Nyah nyah.

Blending in perfectly with the perfect graphics is the perfect music.  In past King of Fighters games, the best music tracks have been the final boss tracks.  The boss tracks have always seemed to have that extra amount of effort and grandiose detail befitting of a grand finale.  In  The King of Fighters 13, almost every track feels like a boss track!  Combined with the much meatier sound effects and voice acting, the audio for the game can make any fight a memorable one that will have you physically clenching your fist in the air out of either triumph or anger!

But wait, there's more!  Not content with having just one badass soundtrack, SNK Playmore gave the console version two!  If you look in the game's audio options, you’ll notice there is a choice of two tracks: A & B.  Switch to track B, and the game uses an alternative soundtrack using new arranged music from previous King of Fighters games.  Most of the teams get their themes from King of Fighters 11, like Ash’s “Joker” and Elizabeth’s “Queen”, but the teams not present in 11 take alternative measures.  Billy Kane gets Geese’s theme, the women’s team gets their KOF 2003 theme, and Kim’s team gets the Korean theme from KOF 96.

But it's not just the thrills of battle the game brings to life.  King of Fighters 13 also excels in characterization and story.  Character introduction animations from previous games were all taken out and instead, what they used to say at the beginning of a round (or as a taunt) in the past is spoken when you select them on the character select screen.  It would have been nice to have intro animations, but the tradeoff is a better alternative.

In arcade and story mode, in place of intro animations are pre-fight character conversations.  Literally every single character has a specific conversation specific to every single character, including themselves.

These dialogue bits range from trash talking, arguments, discussions about certain aspects of characters, and even the usual “let’s make this a good one” remark.  There are several references to past King of Fighters games, which makes them especially entertaining for the longtime fans.

For characters that fight themselves, there are several variations of reactions.  Leona says she’s fighting her inner evil, Athena says she’s fighting a cosplaying fan, and Kyo believes he’s fighting another one of his clones from 99.  The conversations can be drawn out or short and snappy, and they always fit each character to a T.  I get the feeling we have Atlus to thank for properly translating the script, which I doubt Ignition would have been able to do.

There are also several character-specific win quotes as well; far far more than there were in 11.  In fact, I find it harder to find generic win quotes that apply to any character than specific ones.

Against Terry

All of this action and excitement builds up to the explosive and downright cosmic finale of the Tales of Ash.  I feel like I shouldn’t give it away, since I practically wrote these articles for people who got this game, but even knowing the previous games, it can be pretty hard to understand, so I will take the finale to spell things out as best I can.  You can read it here, but please do not do so until you’ve beaten the game, because there is a gigantic spoiler in there.  I know there isn't much to spoil in KOF, but this game has an exception.

For even more detail on the plot, the console version of King of Fighters 13 has a story mode!  For the first time, a King of Fighters game elaborates more on the plot in the game itself outside of the endings!  In story mode, you fight much less often and watch several scenes that show what different characters are doing as the tournament happens.  These scenes, however, are mostly still images with text over them; quite a lot of text, actually.  If you’ve played Persona 4 Arena or have read all my articles up to this point, that shouldn’t be a problem, right?

To be specific, story mode has 3 different perspective storylines: Heidern’s investigation, Adelheid’s investigation, and Ash’s actions.

Once story mode actually gets to the fighting, you can only select the pre-made teams, and once in battle, there is only one sequence of pre-fight dialogue between every member of both teams.  It all makes the story feel more complete and is the best feature ever in any King of Fighters game.

Hey look!  More characters from previous games!

But wait!  King of Fighters 13 has even more to offer!  In the console version, each character has 10 customizable color slots in which you can adjust the colors of their appearance.  But you may not need to, because every character has 10 alternate colors by default.  Some even have 20 due to alternate outfits you can select by pressing the select button at the color select screen.  These alternate outfits range from new styles to past wardrobes, so if you thought Elizabeth didn’t look incredibly stupid in KOF 11, 13 has you covered.

Additionally, there are several modes to keep players occupied.  Tutorial, time trial, survival, online mode, and (finally!) versus mode are all in the package along with the story and arcade modes.

Beating story mode with different teams and beating arcade mode with a specific combination of characters also nets you many different special pieces of artwork, and completing different goals goes toward revealing a giant picture with chibi forms of every single character from the Tales of Ash, including the PS2-exclusive ones from 11.  The ultimate cameo piece!

My personal favorite is the arcade ending artwork you get for winning with Kyo, Terry, and Ryo, which I won't show because you can unlock it yourself.

If you’re too lazy to unlock everything, there are DLC options to help you along the way in the console versions.  You can pay to unlock everything in the game’s gallery or unlock all the colors for every character, because normally you have to play as a character several times to get more colors for them.

Inevitably, DLC characters are also offered, of which there are 3: Mr. Karate, Iori with his flame powers back, and NESTS Kyo, with his old moveset.  Since they don’t have any impact on the story and technically they’re all in the game already (just in a different form), I don’t find them to be worth it, unlike the game as a whole.  Especially not at $15 total.

King of Fighters 13 is worth every single dollar you can scrounge up.  It is a glorious, feature-packed, celebratory masterpiece with all the bells and whistles!  If you don’t have it by now, you must get it!  Now!  The King of Fighters 13 is available on the Xbox 360, PS3…. And iOS devices.  Yes, really.

The iPhone version of 13, titled King of Fightersi, is just what you’d expect: a compressed and portable recreation.  It’s actually rather impressive just how much it recreates, especially with King of Fightersi 2012 having almost all the characters.

Like most iOS games of its kind, rather than controlling the game with a real control stick and buttons, they’re on the touch screen.

There are also several additions and omissions.  For example, the iPhone version doesn’t have the arcade mode (per se) or story mode, though it does have 13's pre-fight dialogue.  The backgrounds are also completely static, though characters still animate decently enough.  The iOS version has only 2-3 colors for each character, and you fight Ash as a boss instead of experiencing the finale.

Additions include a wi-fi mode that lets you play online anywhere (unlike the console versions needing a router), the ability to share accomplishments on Facebook & Twitter (mandatory for an iOS game), and the “Rose Shop,” where you can buy unlockables like iPhone-exclusive artwork and movies.

Now I know it isn't canon.  Rose can't even manage a piano number.

If you don’t have one of the HD systems, I suggest you check out the portable version.  It keeps the core of the experience, at the very least.  One way or another, you must get this game!

In this stage you can see Shingo and Hinako in the background.

The King of Fighters 13 is the perfect way to end such a out-of-the-norm storyline.  The Tales of Ash truly went out with a bang.  I hope with this retrospective convinced some of you to try this wonderful series, or at least cleared things up for the 13 players out there, but even with this retrospective over, I will never be finished talking about The King of Fighters.

[Update: since my original posting of this article, The King of Fighters 13 has also come out on Steam for the PC!  The Steam edition includes the DLC characters and Steam community bonuses like achievements and Steam trading cards.  I've already got my KOF Steam badge.]

King of Fighters Retrospective: Do not buy King of Fighters 12!

Every really long-running game franchise has that one flop; that one game that was clearly rushed out, nobody likes, and is damned to overstocked bargain bins anywhere they’re sold.  For Spyro, it was Enter the Dragonfly.  For Tomb Raider, it was Angel of Darkness, and for Sonic, it was the 2006 game.

The King of Fighters 12 is King of Fighter’s embarrassment that, like the examples above, should have never been released.  Do not buy this game.  Buy The King of Fighters 13.

Looks great.  It isn't.

The King of Fighters 12 got quite a lot of hype when it first came out back in 2009, probably because it was the first King of Fighters game to be on next-generation consoles.  SNK had to overhaul everything and make all-new detailed character sprites instead of recycling the ones they had been using for so many installments before.  If you look around the internet at old articles and forum posts, you can see just how hyped people were.  Some made their own retrospectives and SNK even made a website giving tidbits on every character that had been in the main KOF series thus far (not including strikers) and official backstories for every game.  It was going to be the ultimate King of Fighters game for the new age!

Then it came out and people saw it for what it really is.  Do not buy this game.  Buy The King of Fighters 13.

It’s not that the game itself is bad per se.  It looks, sounds, and plays great (more detail will be in the KOF 13 post), it’s just that everything else is lazy and half-assed.  The easiest way to describe KOF 12 is that it is the beta version of King of Fighters 13.  A demo disc, if you will.... A demo disc they thought they could sell at full price.

First and foremost, the character selection is pathetic, especially by King of Fighters standards.  They got most of  the most popular and important characters in there, but where’s Yuri, King, K’, Shingo, and Maxima?  They’ve been staples since their introduction!

The answer to that question is they’re all in King of Fighters 13, except for Shingo, but in KOF 13, Shingo is absent for story reasons.  King of Fighters 12 doesn’t have a story at all, so there is no reason for him not to be in it!

You read that right.  No story.  There isn’t even a boss for the game.  The arcade mode is only a time trial that has you fighting randomized teams with only a single generic ending from our old TV friends from ‘97.  They couldn’t even manage the simplest and core part of a King of Fighters game!

Do not buy this game.  Buy The King of Fighters 13.

The only new character The King of Fighters 12 introduces is Raiden, from Fatal Fury, who previously appeared in Capcom vs. SNK 2, but since he and every other character is also in The King of Fighters 13 (the good game), he’s not a notable draw.

That's not even going into the radical character redesigns, but I'll get to that in the next post.

You know your game has a problem when a game from 1997 has a stronger character selection than your game that’s had a decade of establishment and on an HD system!

*Quack*

In an unexpected move, almost all character themes were taken out too, like in KOF 97.  The soundtrack is still good (certainly better than ‘97’s generic background music), but it takes flair out of what few characters there are.  There aren’t even that many stages either, unlike, say, The King of Fighters 13.

Do not buy this game.  Buy The King of Fighters 13.

Congratulations.  Now you don't have to play the game.

As if the putrid frosting on this insult of a game, King of Fighters 12 was localized by Ignition Entertainment.  For those of you who don’t know who Ignition is, these are a few of the games they’ve localized:

Lux Pain, a game heavily criticized for its horribly translated script.

Obscure: The Aftermath, a low-budget game that was ultimately forgotten and not hard to find in a bargain bin.

Arc Rise Fantasia, a game heavily blasted into the ground for its incredibly laughable English voice acting that’s so bad you can’t even believe they were serious.

Muramasa: The Demon Blade, a game that was well-received, but only because of its fun gameplay and visuals.  The localized script was criticized by those who know even basic Japanese for being oversimplified and, at times, inaccurate, so much so that the more accurate, rewritten English script for theVita version was celebrated.

King of Fighters 12 continues Ignition’s terrible track record with some truly terrible English voice acting.  It’s confusing enough as to why they even decided to have English voices in the first place.  The King of Fighters has always told its stories through images and text, so players didn’t necessarily need to know what they were saying in battle.  Atlus, the good company that published the good King of Fighters game, didn’t even bother with English voice acting in 13.

But if you’re going to have English voice acting, it needs to be done right, and doing something right is not Ignition’s strong suit.  All of the voices are stale.  There are only a few actors voicing multiple characters and not a single one does the Japanese voices justice.  The most noteworthy actor in the bunch is Jeff Manning, mainly known for being the Super Smash Brothers Brawl announcer, who is not suited for delivering energized lines for hot-blooded characters like Ralf and Shen.  Thank goodness the Japanese voices are an option, because I doubt anyone can stand the awkwardly-delivered English lines.

They honestly kept this in the English version...

Do not buy this game!  Buy The King of Fighters 13!  KOF 13 has everything KOF 12 has, except more and better, with the exception of a few stages and the soundtrack, but even then the stages of the two games are either similar or outright the same!

King of Fighters 12 does not deserve to be acknowledged.  It has no reason to exist.  It does not continue the story, it does not offer something another KOF game can’t, and charging even 20 dollars for it is highway robbery!  It baffles me that SNK even released this game in the condition it was in!  It is a demo disc!

If you want to play it (you don’t), you have nothing to worry about.  King of Fighters 12 can be found in large quantities in game stores everywhere because nobody wants it!  Most gamers are probably too busy having a blast with The King of Fighters 13 to even give 12 the time of day.

What really grinds my teeth is that this game, for a lot of people, may have been the first King of Fighters game they ever played, and those people might have assumed this was the quality to expect and wrote it off as a crappy game franchise!  The King of Fighters is an excellent game series!  KOF 12 has no place in it!

Maybe it's a curse of having a subheading with only one syllable.  If that's the case, we shouldn't have to worry about this ever again.

Do not buy this game!  Buy The King of Fighters 13!

In volume 2 of my King of Fighters 2003 comic, there's an ad for The King of Fighters 12 with the tagline "The King of Fighters is ready for the next generation!"  To my horror, that was not supposed to be an ironic joke and to my knowledge, SNK has not been sued for false advertizing!

It's best we just forget this whole thing and move on to something worth writing about.

King of Fighters Retrospective: 11

A few months ago, I was at a big gaming get-together with our college’s anime club and was given a TV all to myself.  While many of the others were in the main room having a Catherine tournament, I was playing fighting games.  I played some King of Fighters 98 and a little bit of Capcom vs. SNK 2, but for most of the time, it was nothing but The King of Fighters 11.  I played through KOF 11’s arcade mode countless times, watched other people play arcade mode, and fought other people in many different matches.  It was almost nothing but King of Fighters 11 all night for 6 hours without getting bored and I had a blast, because the game is just that good.

You may be wondering why SNK suddenly gave their King of Fighters game a traditional numbered title instead of their usual year numbering.  Well, King of Fighters 2003 was the last game to be made on the Neo Geo system, and SNK Playmore made a significant butt-ton of money after winning a lawsuit against another gaming company, Aruze.  With all that money to spare, SNK Playmore made the next King of Fighters game bigger and better, but that also meant it took longer to make, as it wasn’t finished until 2005 (though making a spin-off before that, KOF: Neowave, may have been a factor).  If they were to simply name it King of Fighters 2005, people would go searching for the nonexistent King of Fighters 2004, so to avoid that whole mess for the present and future, they gave their long-running series the Final Fantasy number treatment from then on.

In the previous game, a mysterious organization called Those From the Distant Land made themselves known, Chizuru had her sacred treasure along with her powers stolen by Ash Crimson, and the seal on the dreaded Orochi was broken as a result.  Now, a new King of Fighters tournament has begun, and participants are stupid enough to join while an evil organization is present.... Again.

Actually, that’s not entirely fair.  Some of the entrants are joining so that they make sure the Orochi power doesn’t get into the wrong hands or to make sure Orochi doesn’t awaken at all.  Others weren’t there for the 2003 tournament, and some of the goings-on at the end may not have been reported, so they can be forgiven for being oblivious (Bonne Jenet is one such oblivious participant).

Get ready for a long character introduction.  There are so many changes in the teams, it’s best I just go over each and every one.

After the last tournament, Chizuru was hospitalized, even seen in a wheelchair in KOF 13.  In the hospital, Chizuru told Shingo, of all people, to protect the other two treasures by taking her place in the 3 sacred treasures team from the Orochi saga.  To keep his promise to her, Shingo had to make Kyo and Iori put aside their differences and make a team.  Don’t ask me how he did it.

Chang and Choi told Kim to take a break from his criminal reformation program and enjoy himself by forming a new Fatal Fury team with his friends Terry and Duck King (another Fatal Fury character).
Franchise long-runner Joe Higashi couldn't join in this one, as he had a conflicting schedule with a muy thai title match.  Mai, another omnipresent figure in the franchise, is also absent story-wise, taking a vacation to spend more time with Andy.

Duck King is a decent replacement though.

He's kind of like Street Fighter’s Dee Jay, only American.  His fighting style is all about jumping, spinning, and rolling around the arena like the hyperactive break dancer he is.  Even his idle animation is a dance.

He was shuffling every day before it became a thing.

It reminds me of the Simpsons episode where the family goes to Brazil, and the flamingo in the weird parade says “You cannot run from Carnivale!  Because even running is a kind of dance!”

Duck King also has a small little mohawk-sporting chick/duckling in the foreground that imitates his moves and reacts to what happens to Duck.  He doesn't affect the fights in any way, but he's just the cutest thing.

Having come back from his training, Kensou joins Athena, who found a new teammate gifted with psychic powers like theirs: a little girl named Momoko.  Momoko doesn't shoot balls of psychic energy like Athena or Kensou, but she's a small and nimble physical fighter who presumably uses her psychic powers to defy gravity.  Together, the trio forms the Neo Psycho Soldiers team.

Eiji Kisaragi (From all the way back in KOF 95) joins the tournament to exact his vengeance on the school of Kyokugen.  To help in his quest for revenge, he recruits Kasumi Todoh and Athena's former teammate Malin, who wants revenge on Kyokugen (Yuri in particular) for insulting her use of weapons, calling them dishonorable.

So I guess Whip, Foxy, Heidern, Leona, and Mai are all dishonorable too then.  It's funny how Yuri never shows any problems with them.

With the Fatal Fury team full and with Yamazaki and Billy absent, Gato and Tizoc were left without a team.  That is until B. Jenet decides to get in on the action and have them join her to form the Mark of the Wolves team.

Robert Garcia, yet another mainstay, left to manage his father's company (he has a job?!), and since the women’s fighting team is sitting this tournament out and Takuma is in the hospital, King has nothing better to do than join Ryo and Yuri in the Art of Fighting Team.

In a bit of overkill, Heidern sends 3 different teams to infiltrate the tournament this time.

That's got to be unsettling  That’s like being in a class where a quarter of the students are all spies.  I know it helps to be thorough, but in a secret investigation like this, doesn't more agents mean more of a chance to get their cover blown?

For this mission, Heidern sends K’s team, with K’ himself, Maxima, and Kula, who has regained  her powers since 2003.  He also sends his usual Ikari Warriors consisting of Ralf, Clark, and Whip (Leona was barred due to an incident in their 2003 ending).  His third team is composed of the arguably more qualified special agents: Ramon, Vanessa, and Blue Mary.

But what about Seth?  Seth is no less a badass secret agent than Vanessa or Ramon.  In fact, he might be even better.  Why didn’t Heidern let him enter?

It can't be the mohawk.  Duck King has one.

It can't be that the suit isn't proper fighting attire.  Oswald and Vanessa wear suits.

Or maybe it’s because he’s

Joking aside, Seth does make a playable appearance in the KOF: Maximum Impact spin-off games whereas Ramon and Vanessa don’t, so I guess that makes them even.  There must not have been enough room for Seth to be in The King of Fighters 11.

Most of the teams I just described are of nominal importance though (save for the Japan team).  The big new character KOF 11 introduces is the Frenchwoman Elizabeth Blanctorche, who (it must be said) has the all-time stupidest outfit I have ever seen in the series.  It’s a good thing she got a better attire following KOF 11, because even Yashiro didn’t look that dopey.

Elizabeth is the sole heir to the Blanctorche family, whose duty it is to protect the innocent.  Apparently, the Blanctorches have fought Those From the Distant Land over the generations, greatly reducing their numbers, and either Ash or the Crimson family as a whole have shared the Blanctorche duty.

Prior to the events of the game, Elizabeth invited Benimaru and Duo Lon to her mansion in Paris.  After she foiled a bank robbery nearby, the two told her about what happened at the 2003 tournament, including Ash’s theft of the Yata Mirror.  All three agreed that Ash can’t be trusted and formed a new team to find out what he’s up to and stop both him and whatever Those From the Distant Land are planning.

I guess you could say she's whipping Ash into shape with that riding crop.

Benimaru really gets around.  After being on the champion team in the Orochi Saga, he has been teamed up with Lin, K’, Goro & Shingo, and now Elizabeth.  He doesn’t just tag along with his pal Kyo every year, he goes his own way and stays at least tangentially relevant to the plot.  He's quite the dynamic character.

With Duo Lon leaving him for Elizabeth, Ash was in need of a replacement.  In place of his Chinese assassin, Ash settled for an Irish one.  Enter Oswald.

Oswald uses razor playing cards for his attacks.  He’s searching for a miracle medicine of some kind called the dragon pill… That’s really the most that’s known about him other than a few vague win quotes from Ralf and Clark that show they recognize him.
Ash recruited Oswald into his team by beating him in a poker game, something that is not easy to do.  Said poker game had Oswald folding with a hand consisting of two kings and three aces.... Dumbass.  Shen tried his hand at beating Oswald too, but lost.

Poker Face.

The hell are these?  Cards?  I can't punch cards!  'Cept... Y'know... Punch cards.

It’s not exactly his character or personality that makes Oswald so awesome, especially since most of it is shrouded in mystery.  Oswald is awesome because he is a badass in every definition of the word and looks excellent while he fights.  He’s got a slick suit, cool red shades, well-groomed hair, a swift playstyle with his card-slashing, and even a unique fighting stance, all while looking somewhere in his 60s.

Oswald is all badass, all the time!  Maybe not quite as much of a badass as Ralf, but even being compared to Ralf is badass.

Finally, Adelheid joins the tournament as a single competitor and acts as the default miniboss in the middle of the game.  Before the question comes into your head, he is just as hard as in 2003.
If I were speaking instead of typing, I would now take a deep breath from an oxygen mask after the exposition dump.  King of Fighters 11 is only beaten out by King of Fighters 2002: Unlimited Match as having the biggest character selection in the franchise.

Why is Mr. Big there?  I’ll get to that.

For the most part, the rules haven’t changed since KOF 2003.  King of Fighters 11 still uses the character tag-team system just like the previous game did, but with two minor adjustments: In 2003, players started with three super stocks, but in 11, they start with one.  In every game before this, health determined who won a match when time ran out, but in 11, it's dependent on a meter beneath the round timer that sways in a player's direction the better they're playing the game.  The rules are just about the only thing that didn’t change significantly, however.

The controls are different, for example. Since the PS2 version is the version you’ll inevitably play, see this nice little chart of how KOF 11 is controlled, courtesy of Gamefly.  Keep in mind that by “thrust attack”, they’re referring to the knockdown move, and that the R2 button can be used to dodge roll.

The buttons also play into simple character selection.  In order to use a character’s default color scheme, you need to select them using the R2 button.
What game started that stupid fad?  I've seen the same thing in Guilty Gear, Capcom vs. SNK 2, and Tatsunoko vs. Capcom.  Why can't you just choose their color beforehand like Super Smash Brothers or after selecting them like KOF 13?

Team leaders are selected manually in 11, as opposed to the leader being the first character selected like in 2003.

Alongside the super gauge, KOF 11 added a new gauge that allows you to use cancels.  A cancel is when you use a special/super move while in the middle of another super or special move, allowing you to extend your combo.  It’s very difficult to pull off, and I do just fine without using them, so I wouldn’t worry about it unless you’re an extreme tournament player like these guys.

The changes to 2003’s fighting system is all technical.  The biggest improvement by far is the game speed, which is faster than KOF 2002, but slower than 2003, hitting that sweet spot of fast-paced challenge with time to think.  The fighting system overall runs much smoother, resembling the games before 2003 with quick jabs & kicks and slightly slower heavy attacks to chain them with, as opposed to the slightly delayed normal attacks in 2003.  It’s the 2003 system, but perfected, and it never gets old.

But that’s nothing compared to the presentation upgrade.  Gone is the pixilated artwork of past King of Fighters games.  Aside from the character sprites (which have been touched up themselves), everything is hand-drawn with no pixel art.  The cutscenes, the backgrounds, and the victory screens are all sharp, slick, and boast SNKs outstanding artwork to their fullest potential.

And more character-specific win quotes!  Yay!

Just look at how much detail went into the background for this installment.  Notice how much sharper and wider they are, giving fighters more space to maneuver around and fight in.

As an added touch, the game has many more special character introductions than 2003 or even 2001 did, though the chances of seeing them are still low, due to the tag team system only allowing for one intro per match.

The music too got a push in the right direction.  There are some forgettable music tracks in KOF 11, but for every underwhelming one, there’s an awesome one to make up for it, with guitar riffs aplenty.  Not only that, but the sound quality took so much of a leap, the music almost sounds like they’re arranged tracks rather than music limited by the Neo Geo’s capabilities.

To top it all off, KOF 11 continues the Tales of Ash with a great finale consisting of two of my favorite bosses in the franchise.  See a recap of it in all its glory here.

But it gets better!  Unlike the Honus Wagner card that is KOF 2003, King of Fighters 11 is readily available on the PS2, and copies are relatively easy to find for cheap prices!  I’d say you can probably find it for 5 dollars or 10 at the most, depending on where you look, and it is worth every penny, because the console version adds even more polish to a King of Fighters game that's already one one of the absolute best.

The PS2 version has a treasure chest of extras the arcade version doesn't have.  These extras include:

• A small art gallery with illustrations of the new characters and Ash.

• Special ending artwork for using specific character combinations, much like in the PS1 version of KOF 99.

• An endings viewing gallery.
• The option to customize the colors of every character and their attacks.
• The option to use the arranged music.
• The option to play an arranged version of the arcade mode with new 3D stages and balance tweaks; many of the new stages have cameos of previous KOF characters in the background.

There's Leona, Hinako, and even Fio.

• The option to fight a best-2-out-of-3 series of matches with a single fighter or go back to the Orochi Saga’s elimination-style rounds.
• Additional music tracks for specific characters that start off a match.

• A challenge mode that allows you to unlock some of the…
• Many characters exclusive to the console version.  These characters include past KOF participants (Mai, Mr. Big, & Robert), Fatal Fury characters (Hotaru & Tung Fu Rue), and characters from entirely different SNK games (Silver from Buriki One & Sho Hayate from Savage Reign).  These characters make what was already an extremely impressive character count a staggering, awe-inspiring character count.

Sadly, despite Mr. Big and Geese both being unlockable, Krauser is not, which is disappointing because he was my favorite member of ‘96’s boss team.

The King of Fighters 11 is an absolute must-own for any and all fans of fighting games of any kind.  Its content, story, character count, character variety, and presentation holds up even by the standards of today’s fighting games.  It's polished to a shine and I've yet to play any fighting game of the previous generation that can surpass it.  This is one PS2 game they have got to release on the PSN!

The gang's all here.  Now fight!

That high recommendation makes quite the contrast to its sequel.  After reaching an all-time high with The King of Fighters 11, SNK Playmore dropped the ball big time with what is their absolute worst game since KOF 95.  I was considering skipping The King of Fighters 12, but I believe it deserves more of a verbal beating than it already has.  Expect to see a lot of complaining in the next post, because while King of Fighters 11, is one of my favorites, King of Fighters 12 is my most hated in the entire franchise.  King of Fighters 94 & 95 have the excuse of being limited by the technology of their time, but King of Fighters 12 has no excuse at all!

I’ll just type this up front ahead of time to make sure you don’t make a regretful decision: Do not buy The King of Fighters 12.  Buy The King of Fighters 13.