King of Fighters XIII

King of Fighters XIII – Demo Impressions

King of Fighters XIII marks the return of the once very popular fighting franchise King of Fighters. I used to play King of Fighters back on my Neo-Geo console (cartridge) so i’m kinda old school regarding the franchise. I admit i haven’t played too many recent King of Fighters till today. I have to say regarding King of Fighters XIII as a demo and a game its solid. SNK Playmore are the developers while Atlus Co the publishers. King of Fighters XIII released for the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 November 22, 2011.

For the record i played the game on my Playstation 3 for this article. The main menu section had a plethera of menus but only a few you could actually access. You have the Tutorial (playable), Arcade, Story, Versus (playable), Practice, Playstation Network (playable), Replay, Gallery, Mission, Customize, Player Detail, Playstation Store and Options. The Options section had the default controls for the Duel Shock 3: Square-LP, Triangle-HP, X-LK, O-HK, R1-LP+LK, L1-LP+HP and L2- LK+HK. As far as the controls go they are solid. The buttons are placed nicely and feature minimal lag. I never felt like i was getting screwed over during my Versus and Muliplayer matches.

Tutorial – Rose Bernstein instructs you in two categories regarding King of Fighters XIII’s tutorial. Base System teaches you the basics like hopping, crouching and dashing. In Guage System she shows you what each gauge is and their importance while fighting. Some of the gauges are Health Guage, Power Gauge and Special Guage. Its all basic stuff i spent a few minutes just to see what it was all about.

Versus – Versus is a 3 on 3 (myself versus the cpu) match. In this section you will be able to see which fighters and levels you can play on. As far as characers go there are six: Terry, Andy, Joe, Kula, Maxima and K’. I only recognized Terry and Joe. The stages included a UK Sqaure type setting. The other two featured a Matrix like setting and the other in China. In Versus you select your three fighters (i could only select Terry, Joe and Andy). The stage was the UK one. You can select your fighter’s colors and order to fight. I set Terry first, Joe second and Andy last. As far as the match went i hat-tricked all my foes with Terry. The cpu was set to normal difficulty so i won’t brag. It was however a fun little match and got my apetite wet for online mode.

Network – The Network menu featured Ranked Match, Player Match (playable), Friend Match and Ranking. I chose Playe Match and then Quick Match. I was transported to a room with a few lobbies. I picked one and got the match started. For this online multiplayer match i choose the same set-up from Versus mode regarding fighters and orders. The first match was Terry versus Terry. I barely lost to the person on the other side. Next i had Joe and boy did his flaming kicks and tornado punches own. I Hatricked all of his fighters with Joe. All i did was back him into a corner and do wild kicks and punches. I think the person i beat was a noob like myself however i was obviously the better noob. It was alote of fun regardless and the highlight of the King of Fighters XIII demo in my opinion.

As far as the presentation goes regarding the King of Fighters XIII demo its really good. You can play a tutorial level, a versus cpu level and online multiplayer. Remember this is the Playstation 3 version i played i can’t comment on any other system atm. The visuals are really good. Its like the animations are retro with updated polished graphics. When you realize how good the controls are the animations don’t matter much. Some of the characters in the demo that i have never seen had nice imaginative art designs and featured nice effects. The music wasn’t nothing to gawk over but the sound design regarding fighting was solid.

The biggest compliment i can give King of Fighters XIII is that its fun as hell. Its a fun fighting game and the demo had a good level of content. Thanks for reading.