katsubento said:
But was so hyped for XII, I told my friends who never played KOF about it, bought it and felt rather embarrassed because they said THIS was what I was so enthusiastic about all these years?! XII was a slap in the face.
Same, I also hyped friends with HD videos of
nighttime stadium (I still like it better than Rose Stadium and I hope that stage returns and not as day 1 DLC get outta here) and kept telling them IT LOOKS GREAT BUY IT BUY IT WE CAN PLAY TOGETHER. Until the game arrived and I had to tell them straight up that it was garbage. Funny thing is, I imported that crap in July and the EU release wasn't until September. Now, they don't care about KOF anymore, even though they like some of the NeoMAXes.
XII had some nice ideas, but it's like they aped SF4 when their wall combo system was slammed down by the fans and they got rid of it halfway development. CD launcher was also nothing but "You NEED to press these buttons for the best combo! Why wouldn't you?" for some characters.
Clashing was strange and by the time you realized you clashed, it's too late to follow up with an action that you really want to do instead of accidentally pressing punch or kick again. It did turn projectiles worthless sometimes. I think it would have been better if it were just an occurrence without being a true part of the subsystem.
Guard Attack was just a pace killer with hit detection issues. They should have made it in a way that you shove your opponent away quickly when you catch their attack on the ground and launch them away when you catch their aerial attack. It was funny to kill people with it when they thought they could randomly charge at you with a super, but nah, old skool Guard CD is still the best.
Critical Counter was a lolparade altogether, a forced gimmick. With Max Mode and HD, you have the CHOICE to initiate the modes. With Critical Counter, the state just happened and you had zero control over it. Now, if you could activate Critical Counter state by pressing BC and THEN try to bait people, it would have been a different story.
The only thing I really liked was CD crumpling, but that only worked in conjunction with Guard Attack to save yourself if someone is about to do an unblockable on you. It definitely had that dangerous element that made it interesting.
XII could have had these subsystems (clashing maybe not) if they were handled better, maybe by having an extra tech gauge (kinda like Skill Stock) reserved for Critical Counter and CD tools, alongside a multibar gauge that supports SDMs that look and act different. If they can create EX attacks and EXDMs in XIII without unique special graphics, they could have done the same in XII.
But, like SNKP said before: "We want to create the ultimate 2D fighter!"
...Months later...
"We're going back to basics.
"
