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King of Fighters XII, The

EMAIL PRINT ps3

4.7 User Score:

Mixed or average reviews

Based on 47 critic reviews
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Based on 35 votes
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Game Info

Publisher: Ignition Entertainment / SNK Playmore

Developer: SNK Playmore

Genre(s): Fighting

Players: 6

ESRB Rating: T (Teen)

Release Date: July 23, 2009

Summary

The legendary 3-on-3 fighting game series that united rival brawlers from SNK Playmore's classic arcade franchises celebrates its 15th Anniversary in style with the release of The King of Fighters XII. For the first time in its history, this epic martial arts showdown has undergone a complete graphical overhaul. The antiquated character sprites used over the past 14 years have been dropped in favor of all-new, high-resolution fighters fluidly animating across painstakingly detailed, 100% hand-drawn backgrounds. [SNK Playmore]

Cheat Codes & Hints: Cheat Code Central

Also On The Web: Official Website

What The Critics Said

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

Play UK

Short on content but solid technically. [Issue#182, p.76]

GameFocus

While the game is a bit thin on play modes and the online battles are a complete write-off at the moment, the fundamental gameplay is still fun and true to the series.

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Cheat Code Central

If you like online play, King of Fighters does it extremely well. However, with only one single-player offline mode, this title feels a little empty overall.

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PSX Extreme

If you're looking for only one full fledged fighter loaded to the brim with goodies, BlazBlue is what you get. Unless you're a hardcore fan, wait a bit before splurging on this $60 game. Give it time to hit $40 or less.

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InsideGamer.nl

King of Fighters XII looks good, has great sounds and plays really good, but isn’t a top game. The arcade mode is entertaining, but a little to short. The rest of the modes are boring or missing. In the end we can say that King of Fighters XII is only interesting for the few hardcore players who aren’t satisfied with Street Fighter IV.

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Vandal Online

King of Fighters XII proposes to be a new start for the series, and it manages to do it half and half. The graphical change is positive, but it stalls midway, and the price to pay has been losing characters, scenarios and music.

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Game Over Online

Right now, there’s way too little here to recommend a full-price purchase to anyone. Die-hards should only buy it when it hits the $20-30 range, and everyone else will likely be satiated by a rental. What’s here is done quite well, but there just isn’t enough of it.

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GamePro

Most gamers may not want to pay full retail price for only a handful of light features, despite how pretty the game is, but if you love your fighters old-school and 2D, The King of Fighters XII is probably worth checking out.

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Game Informer

In the end, the sparse content maims Kof XII. Next time around there better be more stages, characters, modes – more everything. You can’t just rip the five-minute-per-play arcade code straight to consoles and expect people to invest the full $60 over a few coins.

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GameZone

Worth a rental for certain, but only the most diehard King of Fighters fans will want to add this one to their collection.

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ZTGameDomain

King of Fighters XII is not a bad game; it just came out at a bad time. The re-birth of the franchise really feels like ten steps backwards, and it wouldn't be so bad if the competition wasn't so stiff right now.

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Console Monster

With a little extra love in the practice mode, some online love and character development, KoFXII could have been a charming fighter for old and new fans alike.

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Strategy Informer

So when it’s all said and done, The King of Fighters XII isn’t going to be placed on a mantle above all other fighting games. It lacks proper net code and not everyone is going to enjoy the pixilated graphics.

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Kombo

The fighting genre is getting crowded and that doesn't help KoF, unfortunately. Playing KoF is like having your dog fetch the morning paper only it comes back all chewed.

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MEGamers

KOF XII is a bad attempt to bring a fan favourite onto next-gen consoles.

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Eurogamer Spain

A very limited game that shows mistakes in planning and execution, making it much worse than other offerings in this genre (yes, Street Fighter IV, I'm referring to you).

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GamingXP

The King of Fighters XII is a typical beat‘em up with a really lame gameplay and short content. The only advantages of the title are the retro music and the nice anime graphic.

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PS3bloggen.se

The core gameplay of King of Fighters XII is quite good, a thing which is quite hard to mess up nowadays. But the total content of the game is seriously dissapointing, having only an arcade mode and a poorly implemented online mode. There's not much extra material to unlock and the environments are few and dull. King of Fighters XII has not taken over the throne of beat 'em up games this time around, making it only appealing to hardcore KOF fans.

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DarkZero

Although a competent beat ‘em up, it lacks not only the accessibility but the depth of Street Fighter IV, the classic gameplay of Mark of the Wolves or Marvel vs. Capcom 2, and the hardcore technical side of Blazblue.

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Thunderbolt

The menus are needlessly tedious to use.

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Playstation Official Magazine UK

The brawling itself is still solid. [Sept 2009, p.112]

Teletext GameCentral

A disappointing series reboot, with the new graphics proving more trouble than they're worth.

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VideoGamer

KOFXII's biggest problem is that the fighting game bar has been raised considerably in the last 12 months, with the release of Street Fighter IV in particular showing how reboots should be done.

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Gameplayer Sweden

The King of Fighters XII is a somewhat disappointing experience compared to the earlier installments. But even though SNK Playmore have toned down almost every aspect of the game, the game mechanics feels solid enough to attract those who enjoy some fighting and hand-drawn sprites.

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games(TM)

We'd expect a new KOF to offer more depth. [Oct 2009, p.118]

Meristation

The King of Fighters XII offers a superb visual section. Unfortunately, the rest of the game gives the sensation to be unfinished: poor artificial intelligence, scarce game modes, online filled with errors.

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IGN

King of Fighters XII is fun to play when you're fighting a buddy locally, but everything else about the game is seriously lacking.

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Playstation: The Official Magazine (US)

Maybe hardcore fans will appreciate the subtle mechanics at work in KOF XII, but as fighting game fans who aren't devoted enough to count frames of animation and the like, we can't help but feel indifferent. [Aug 2009, p.78]

WonderwallWeb

If online can be improved King of Fighters XII will be a much better game, in the meantime though stick to the Xbox LIVE version or one of the recent anthology games for your SNK fighting fix.

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Giant Bomb

The fighting at the center of King of Fighters XII is totally fine, but with everything surrounding that action coming off so half-cocked, there are a lot of annoying little barriers to enjoying that fighting.

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GameDaily

As it stands, it's just another fighter that tries – and fails – to knock Street Fighter IV off its mighty throne.

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Gaming Age

It's neither as interesting as Street Fighter IV or BlazBlue, or as infinitely playable as Marvel Vs. Capcom 2.

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Worth Playing

It really is sad to see a game like King of Fighters XII turn out this way. It has a solid fighting mechanic and great graphics, but the surrounding features are so meager that they kill everything good about the game.

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Hardcore Gamer Magazine

In the end, calling this a "rebirth" or even a "reboot" just doesn’t cut it. If one looks hard enough, they can see the ambitions SNK had with this game, sadly outstripped by time and budget.

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PSM3 Magazine UK

There's no story, no extra modes and merely functional presentation. [Sept 2009, p.77]

GameSpot

The King of Fighters XII is the latest chapter in 15 years of fighting game history. It's also a disappointment.

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1UP

KOF12 fails to seize the windfall in online matchmaking. It uses an archaic, even backwards, system that serves only to frustrate the player.

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PSFocus

This new part in the franchise isn’t what it’s meant to be. The sound is annoying, the graphics are really bad and the gameplay isn’t very extensive.

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XGN

The King of Fighters XII doesn't offer you enough for the price of 60 euros. It feels like an old arcade game, that could have been downloaded from the PlayStation Store for a cheaper price. The game should have taken an example to Street Fighter IV, but unfortunately it doesn't.

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GameShark

This is a sad day for The King of Fighters. The combat is as taught as ever, but everything else is a comedic misinterpretation of “less is more.”

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Game Revolution

Don't get me wrong, the game does handle fairly well, and with friends this could be a fun one to share, but single-player is worse than most. Combine a three-player team with the smallest roster KoF has ever had, and you'll have your faves chosen like a routine in no time.

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Gaming Nexus

If you were jazzed on the hype that King of Fighters XII initially had, calm down. This game has a pretty face, and that's about it. A competent fighting system with nothing else to offer makes for a pretty short and shallow experience.

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D+PAD Magazine

There’s little here to recommend, even for the most loyal of fans. Instead, don your best shell-suit, hook up your mum’s old telly to the SNES in the loft and play out your childhood battles with the original. It’s far better.

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GameSpy

KoF12's online play is (to put it mildly) atrocious.

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Playstation Official Magazine Australia

Grey, old, and well beyond retirement, KOF XII is irredeemable. [Oct 2009, p.74]

Boomtown

It offers no challenge for the solo player and is unplayable online, even after the hefty patch. If it wasn’t already hard enough for KoF to compete with Street Fighter, this release has made it even more difficult for it to do so in the future.

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The Onion (A.V. Club)

With 22 fighters, this stands as the worst-attended KOF game to date, and as the series still largely relies on team battles, the limited mix-and-match options are particularly annoying.

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What Our Users Said

The average user rating for this game is 4.7 (out of 10) based on 35 User Votes

Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Thom, Lord of Kittens gave it a3:
What a let down... This isn't KOF... Character designs are great, but everything that made the series great is missing. No Cheesy Boss, no endings, no nothing... Animation is great until you realize how many moves were cut from characters, and how few characters there are. Very, very disappointed.

ghostbinder gave it a6:
Having been burnt out playing Street fighter 4 and not really feeling Blazblue.Though ill admit Blazblue is a well polished game,just not my cup of tea.I decided to buy this game.Now ill admit im not the biggest King of fighters fan.Ive always been a street fighter player.I wanted something different so i thought why not?and so far im really enjoying it.Maybe its because im a king of fighters newbie.But i like the simplified gameplay.Its not a button masher by any means but you don't have to memorize a million moves either to enjoy yourself.Its fun and that's the most important thing to me.I will say though that i haven't tried online yet.(have heard some bad things)and the lack of single player modes is a real downner.But if you're a looking for another 2d fighting fix,gameplay wise its a good game.Its at least a solid rental.

Dan H gave it a3:
Many years ago, when my brother and I first got a PlayStation for Christmas, there were a handful of games that helped define our impressions of fighting games; among them was King of Fighters '95. Though plagued with loading times, the crisp animation, catchy music, and massive amount of interesting characters, teams, and locales let me know that the arcades had finally come home. Fast forward to July 2009. After loading up KoFXII, aware the series had opted for "quality over quantity" with characters--in theory--I eagerly established a team of the original Fatal Fury dudes, with Terry as my frontman. Bizarre anime-esque newsreel interludes aside, I fought off through five (just five?) stages of enemies, only to learn at the end...that no memorable cheap-yet-satisfying to trounce SNK boss laid in wait to force me to use that continue service once more. Baffled, I thought back to Capcom vs. SNK 2, and how if you did poorly, you were denied the chance to fight a final boss. "Clearly, this was the case," thought I, as I proceeded to play through once again, with increased gusto! Six plus minutes later, yet again the last match was followed by nothing more than the credits...and my time, like I cared. Funny, Ignition (the publisher who will live in infamy with me from now on) didn't indicate on their website--amongst this shocker--all of the following absentee features that make KoF...well, KoF: No final boss, no character intros/outros, only one win pose, only 6 stages (2 are effectively palette-swapped), no special effects when finishing a foe with a super, no arcing story, no teams...no nothing... With some 5 teams of 3 characters each still represented, and a few stragglers, it honestly feels like this game was published incomplete, like the deadline was a sword of Damocles, threatening doom. Well, the doom falls upon the unfortunate KoF fan who--like me--spends $60 to find they bought an incomplete game. (Don't even get me started on Iori.) The Critical Counter and "Clashing" mechanics seem well enough at first, thought the clashing seems subverted by the ubiquitous roll, and the critical counters cannot be comboed into; rather, you must be in relatively close range, and your hard punch/kick must somehow have priority over whatever they are being countered with--not likely if light attacks are being used. I don't even mind that they're trying something new with this idea, but it's implementation seems tacked on. This is the worst King of Fighters title I have ever played. (Say what you will about Eolith, I personally liked KoF 2001.) With a renaissance of 2D-fighters this year on next-gen consoles, it will be a long time before Ignition gets one more of my dollars.

Rob N gave it a2:
Wow. How far the mighty have fallen. This series used to be a favorite of mine for it's balancing and character design. This entry is just anemic. It's missing a lot of the favorites from the series, the arcade mode is short and way too easy, and the netcode makes the user deal with enough lag to be consistently frustrating. The fighting system is ok but most characters have actually lost moves since the last game. With games like BlazBlue and SFIV out right now, there is no way I can justify the money I spent on this title.

Rey S gave it a5:
-----PROS AND CONS----- - Bare bones fighter with bare bones gameplay modes to choose from (Arcade, Versus, Online, Gallery, Practice, Options). This is pretty lame, considering that KOF XI had more to offer in terms of it's selection, and other franchises put so much into their single-player campaigns to keep the replay value up. (Tekken, Virtua Fighter, Guilty Gear XX, Soul Calibur...) -KOF was originally about 3v3 TEAM play. Regardless if there is no real storyline in this year's game, there was usually reason in the KOF universe for characters to be there and to team up. No teams nor reasoning in this one. One on one fighting only... with no endings! This is a straight arcade port. -All gameplay additions from past years such as tag-ins, LSDMs, or extra DMs have been exempt from this year's game as well. Even though the arguement that the game has been reverted and there is no storyline, it still does make it right to lose better movelists, nor totally change a character's movelist due to an non-existant storyline (Iori, I'm looking at you...) +The only 2 possible lifelines to this fighter are (1), the totally graphical overhaul of it. Animation is incredibly fluid and smooth compared another game in it's genre, "BlazBlue". It is at least on par with, if not better than, Street Fighter 3: Third Strike in terms of fluidity and motion of characters and moves. (2) The other save would be the online portion, but by now, most big name fighting franchises are making this a staple of any fighter that comes out these days.

Eric gave it a5:
I am a huge KOF fan and wanted to like this entry, but I just can't. Despite all the time it took to make, it still feels rushed. A weak arcade mode can be completed in five to ten minutes and has no story, boss, or even some lousy taunts or winquotes. A lot of characters are dumbed down, which might make them more accessible, but KOF veterans will miss the depth of some of the more advanced fighters. The new, flameless Iori is just awful, too. On top of that, the new fighting system that's in place is pretty basic compared to other entries in the series. No tactical shift, no leader moves or dream cancels or guard counters. The critical counter system they have instead feels a bit simple by comparison, and getting it to work is often feels dependant on luck more than skill. While this might be intended to make the game more newbie friendly, longtime KOF players are likely to feel underwhelmed by this system. The online mode is pretty laggy. This might be fixed in a patch, so I won't count that against it too much. The biggest offense, to me, is that all these painstakingly hand-drawn hi-res sprites STILL look like crap when you compare them to Blazblue's sprites. While not too many people will probably care about this, the achievements/trophies are pretty bad, too. They're not too difficult (except for beating the game in three minutes thirty seconds), but most of them tend to be along the lines of "beat everyone with X character." As you can imagine, this isn't fun or challenging. I do not recommend ANYONE to buy this at the full price of 60 dollars, and even with a price drop, I only recommend it to hardcore KOF fans with good internet connections who intend to spend every second of this game online, because the single player content is borderline nonexistant.

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King of Fighters XII, The

Game Info

Summary

What The Critics Said

What Our Users Said

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