Cognition Dissemination: The Problems Facing King of Fighters XIII

Though it
wasn’t news anyone looking forward to the game wanted to hear, Atlus USA
confirmed earlier this week that King of
Fighters XIII has been delayed from October 25th to November 22nd in North
America — and a distressingly vague
“2011” in Japan. You could make an entire blog post about how terrible this
news is for SNK and the game in general, along with recapping other concerns
that could prevent the game’s success. This is that post.

 

KoFXIII was
already bound to have a tough time, coming off the release of a game that was a
total letdown in nearly every conceivable way in King of Fighters XII. It’s tough for even the franchises most
dedicated fans to trust SNK with this iteration despite promises of fixing
everything that went wrong with the last installment. KoFXII had an absolutely
abhorrent online netcode (that managed to be worse than what was found in their
XBLA releases), had a barebones lobby system, a mere six stages (one of which
is the same stage at night), a luck-based gameplay feature in the “critical
counter” system, and some very obviously unfinished home-exclusive characters.
There were also plenty of little touches that the KoF games usually get right
that were absent, like character-specific intros and music. The online was
eventually patched numerous times to make it acceptable, but by that time most
players had abandoned the game. The character sprite animation sure was nice,
though!

 

In fact,
that was precisely the reason why the game was released in such a poor state.
SNK had spent so much money and time producing the sprites that they had no
choice but to put out an obvious beta to try and make some money back. This was
obviously not a good idea. And people wonder why sprite-based fighting games
aren’t produced as often anymore. Feel free to keep criticizing Arc System
Works for their sprites not being as fluid — a complaint recently reignited
when Persona 4: The Ultimate in Mayonaka
Arena was shown in motion — but there’s a good reason they’re releasing
games in a consistent and profitable manner.

 

In order to
make KoFXIII that appealed to fans they were running the risk of losing (well,
the ones that haven’t been already lost), SNK remembered what players admired about
the previous games. XIII is a fast-paced title that doesn’t rely on too many
gimmicks in the vein of the older games, and now accompanied by some beautiful
sprites. But fans of the franchise were burned so hard that SNK is going to
have to go add everything they can to
get them to invest in this game. This release is piled with a plethora of fan
service. The home game will include a story mode, an incredibly detailed color
editor (no silly, you can’t make most of the characters look naked), and
some console exclusive characters that actually look finished. One of them is
Classic Iori, which fans were begging for the minute they saw his new version
in KoFXII. They also rebalanced the game a bit in an attempt to make each
character equally as competitive.

 

Arcade
players have already assured us that the core game is a much better product
than its predecessor, but there are still a few concerns about the home
release. The biggest is, you guessed it, the netcode. The online for their
recently released games has been a mixed bag, but the NeoGeo Station version of
King of Fighters ’95 plays pretty
good online. If the online here is as good as that, then we’re in business. But
even if they include that, the lack of a spectator mode is going to hurt.

 

You’d think
there wouldn’t be a concern over the online, but we’re talking about a company
that’s taken baffling steps backward between releases before. The best example
would be NeoGeo Battle Coliseum for
XBLA, which was pretty good online. They subsequently released King of Fighters 2002: Unlimited Match,
which had the same old horrendous “online.” What sense does this make?

 

KoFXIII was
already releasing in the crowded part of the holiday glut of video game
software; the fact that it’s been pushed back to a time when there’s even more competition is a worst case
scenario. That’s not only referring to the usual “AAA” holiday releases, but
its direct competition in other fighting games. King of Fighters has always
been a niche franchise in English-speaking countries, so this release already
needed all the help it could get. It was previously releasing three weeks
before Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3,
and now it’s coming out the week after
that. Many fighting game fans around the internet (especially on the
Shoryuken forums) were referring to this as the game that would hold them over
until UMvC3 released. These people probably aren’t going to give the game a try
at all now, and that’s very, very bad
for the franchise and the companies responsible for making this home release happen
in the first place.

 

King of
Fighters XIII did not need more obstacles in its path to impede its success,
and they delay is now the biggest setback of them all. It needed to be the
savior of the franchise, and that’s going to take a small miracle now. Assuming
SNK had plans to continue the franchise in the first place. While you’re waiting, you might as well enjoy the new trailer.