Girl Gamer

Enough with the moaning on graphics, let’s get to the stuff that really counts – the actual game and gameplay. The first notable difference in the game is the lack of Mai Shiranui. What gives? At least Leona is still there! I was rather surprised to find the roster for fighters to be a only 22; however, all the mainstays like Mature are still in.

King Of Fighters XII keeps true with its 3-on-3 action with timed matches. For those that are new to the game, it does not mean 3-on-3 at the same time. It works as elimination; as soon as one character loses another replaces it for the next round. The control and combos are extremely easy to pick up, making it great a great game to pick up and play. The backgrounds are gorgeous and well done. One downer was the low number of stages, especially since they repeat from day to night settings.

The online portion was a bit of a headache to use, but it was very cool that you could play multiple people online. It’s set up where there are spectators that “line up” to play. Very old-school real-world arcade style, and definitely interesting. One critical exception was the lack of skill-based filters to help with even match-ups. Overall, the online aspects were great to have, but could be upgraded a bit more. The game itself is absolutely fun to play and it stays true to its arcade roots. Don’t expect tons of cool extras though, but we hear that may be changing through upcoming downloadable content, so we’ll see! If you’re a fan of the series, this latest installation is worth getting, but if you just like fighting games, you may want to give it a test drive first before diving in.