Its no secret that many fans loathed The King of Fighters 12, the game was lacking in many areas and is probably viewed as the worst game in the franchise. With The King Of Fighters 13, SNK Playmore hopes to make up for the short comings of 13′ predecessor.
Does the studio succeed in crafting an expansive fighting game? Or does this title crash and burn? Unfortunately, its mostly the latter.
Its probably best to start off with the good side of things. Those who already have The King Of Fighters 13 on pre order will also get a four disc soundtrack containing music from the franchises long and storied history, which is a huge bonus considering just how good the games music is. In addition to this
well actually thats really it as everything else about The King Of Fighters 13 is pretty disappointing.
To start, the games menu system is vastly outdated. Its really just a series of bars that the player scrolls through until they find what theyre looking for. Its bland, boring and can sometimes cause the player to miss what theyre looking for as theres no way to differentiate between them aside from the text and a picture on the right hand side. Luckily, there are a variety of game modes to keep the player entertained. Well, when they work that is.
Most players new to the franchise will probably start off in the tutorial mode, which this reviewer still cant figure out how to conquer. The first of the two tutorials is easy enough but, in the second, the game attempts to teach the player about the power gauge and special attacks. Sounds simple enough until the player realizes they cant proceed until they complete a special attack which requires a total of eight button presses. The eight button combos wouldnt be such an issue if they actually worked but whether its an input lag problem or a data glitch, gamers will find it especially difficult to pull off more complicated attacks. After pressing each button in succession and still getting no results, except for a sore thumb, players will probably give up on the tutorial and move onto the story mode.
Dont.
Seeing how The King of Fighters 13 is cursed with being a pretty niche title already, its clear that Atlus and SNK Playmore werent going to have the funds to make any real cutscenes or do any polishing instead players will find themselves staring at a scrolling image while reading basically unskippable text. While the text itself is skippable, doing so would result in missing an entire cutscene. If the fighting held up this would be slightly forgivable, but sadly the aforementioned 8-button special attacks (and subsequent input problems) will mean that players wont really be able to advance far enough into the story before they are confronted with an opponent who is able to execute brutal combos in a snap faster than players can even fire-off a special attack.
There are also a few other modes for players to dip their feet into, though most of these suffer the same issues as the main story albeit without the messy storytelling. Theres an arcade mode which allows players to build a team of three fighters and then face off against other CPU controlled teams. The mode works until the difficulty starts to increase and players find themselves struggling to fight characters with more proficiency than them, which means players will get roughly three fights in before getting destroyed. Theres also a survival mode which is similar to arcade except health doesnt regenerate afterwards. In addition to the arcade and survival modes, theres also a time trial mode. Theres really no point in detailing it because in the end players will just end up finding they fall into the same cycle of terribly extensive combos and imbalanced enemies.
One game mode that slightly rectifies this issue is the games versus mode, which allows two players to fight head to head. Thankfully because both characters are player-controlled the playing field is evened and ends up being much more fun than any of the other game modes. Two players can also fight head to head online. Unfortunately we were not able to test out the online portion of the game either the servers arent up yet or the matchmaking is just broken -so well be sure to update our review post-release. That said, the online portion is equally unpolished if no game is found The King of Fighters 13 will just continue to search, leaving the player wondering why its taking so long to find a match while the same repetitive pseudo-hard rock tune continues to play.
The King of Fighters 13 experience boils down to a series of poorly executed ideas. Its surprising that this game got a pass with the terrible controls and match-imbalances. Executing combos and special attacks a necessity for winning is nigh impossible, especially with the precision and timing required.
If theres any consolation, its that the games art style is gorgeous the water color characters really jump and the music is amazing. So, players who already have the game pre-ordered will still get an awesome four disc soundtrack. As for the game itself, its probably best to keep the soundtrack and then return the game later on. Simply put: The King Of Fighters 13 is bad and SNK Playmore should definitely up their game if they intend to release The King of Fighters 14.
The King of Fighters 13 is available now for the PS3 and Xbox 360.
