Burger King of Fighters XII - Free with large Whopper meal
 

http://i26.tinypic.com/2yvni2c.jpg

Finally! I know you've all been awaiting the time that SNK would finally do something with the KoF license that wasn't just another rehash or a horrible 3D mangle-job... And if you haven't been waiting for that, shame on you! You should've been waiting! With bated breath in fact!

Anyway. Now it's coming. KoF XII will be the first 2D fighter in full HD it looks like (unless Blazblue beats them to the punch), with completely new character art and backgrounds and it looks absolutely amazing.

Here's the trailer from GDC:

YouTube Video

(HQ non-noobtube version courtesy of Gametrailers and Qwarky)

Here's an interview with producer Masaaki Kukino which is quite interesting:
1up - Previews: King of Fighters XII

Aaand finally there's the mention (in that interview amongst others) that Nona is doing the KoF XII art, which I'm not sure how I feel about when they could've gone with Falcoon or Hiroaki... But I have to admit it looks awesome from the trailer so I can't complain. Nona does have a lot of personality.

The following characters have been confirmed either from that video or screenshots/previews etc. (from Wikipedia, so take with a solid grain of salt):
* Ash Crimson
* Elisabeth Blanctorche (New Look)
* Kyo Kusanagi
* Terry Bogard (his original Fatal Fury outfit)
* Leona Heidern (Returning from King of Fighters 2003)
* Goro Daimon (Returning from King of Fighters 2003)
* Athena Asamiya (New Look)
* Benimaru Nikaido (Original outfit)
* Kim Kaphwan

There will presumably be new characters as well, I should hope. It wouldn't be a KoF without a massive roster.

The release date's a mile off (I believe Q4 2008 for arcades and Q1 2009 for PS3 and 360), but I'm too excited to not make this thread. Whee! :D

We need some Rock Howard in there. :mad:

Might wanna link to a better quality video :3:

But yeah, this looks fantastic. I can't wait for a direct feed version.

I agree.

Man, I can't wait! KoF is one of my favorite fighting series. I'm more excited for this than Street Fighter 4. *BLASPHEMY!*

Gametrailers doesn't work properly for me at the moment, but I'll copy-paste that link into my post with extreme justice! LIKE SO!

Having only recently been hooked by KoF, I'm eagerly waiting for it. My hope for returning characters are May Lee and Joe Higashi.

Looks great, even with the lack of Garou Terry. Can't wait to see how K', Vanessa and the other million+ KOFers turn out.

God, that initial part of the video was a really weird fakeout. I was looking at it thinking "...THIS is what it'll look like in HD? What the hell? They didn't even make it widescreen."

I bet if I'd played the more recent games I would've been able to tell. :(

This is going to be awesome. I'm absolutely rubbish at KoF games, but still! Glorious HD Terry BO-gard throwing his HD hat into the HD air. Also I guess Mai's tits will have more frames of animation than every previous 2D game ever made put together.

I thought the same thing. I played KoF XI and all, and when I saw the beginning, I thought they weren't going to upgrade the graphics AGAIN... I was pleasantly surprized.

All I got to say is DAMN!!!!!!!!!!

I thought the same thing, with the first part of the video, thinking to myself, man it looks like the graphics from other KOF games. I was definetely pleasantly surprised and to be honest the graphics look much crisper than that of Blue Blaz, so I'm definetely excited for this. I'm playing the Fatal Fury Collection and the Art of Fighting collection recently just to get myself into the origins of the KOF franchise.

Hah, pretty obvious reaction to the all-3D Street Fighter 4. I'm not going to disapprove, though. Hopefully the game itself will be good. Like everything else Playmore has done, the last few incarnations of King of Fighters has been kinda lacking. Maybe they'll improve this time around.

Hopefully the game will stick it the KoF XI roots like the kind of implied with the trailer. Seeing how XI is the closest SNK has come to a balanced game, it would suck if they took a step back considering the great looking super high res art they appear to have for XII.

Best part about having a PS3 is that the games are region free. So as soon as this baby comes out in Japan I'm going to be all over importing this game. Boo Ya!

as far as KOF goes, pretty sure 98/2002 are good in that regard.

Not to mention other titles they've released over the years.

It's true that they've been this close before too, however until they fix things like Kula's massive range & priority combo and other things like that, SNK will always remain an arm's length away from being able to make balanced games.

Hopefully they can break that trend with XII. Here's to best of luck for SNK with KoF XII :beer:

Hint: Kula wasn't in 98

Kula is like the only one I can really play ; ; Except maybe Shermie. Except she's fuckin' dead. Screwed there. I'm all right with Whip and Vanessa at least so I have people to beat the bosses with in XI. And on a good day, I can use Yuri. Fun games to play even if I'm horrible at them. I started with 2002 though, and I want to play the games that come before 2000.

Anyway, that is one smexy trailer! The sprites look so smooooth. Very excited for the next game.

Or Gato. He has more options than a 2D fighting game should allow.

@Qwarky
No but she was in '02 which was the game that I was talking about since you listed both 98 and 02 in your post. ^^

Wow, they actually drew all new sprites?

Too bad the new "SNK" is incapable of producing something like KOF 2000.

BTW, SNK art ended with Shinkiro.

EDIT: Just watched the HD trailer. WTF. Buying so bad. I assume this will have online play as well. Now all I need to see is Vanessa and Mai's titty-bouncing in 1080p.

Is it just me or does Athena really look strange this time around? Something about her head or face so far looks off.

I'm seriously hoping that they'll add to Elizabeth's grand arsenal of flashing light moves, as well as her importance to the rather sketchy arc they have going on right now with Ash. Although I bet with those projectiles effects from what Ash's flames look like now, Elizabeth's lights will look pretty sweet.

Two other pressing questions I hope they reveal at least teasers for soon:
- Who will have more flamboyance this time, Benimaru or Ash?
- Who will the uber cheese boss of XII?

I wish they'd release another dream match already too, since Shermie and Chizuru have been dead for too long >=(

Are you talking about the gameplay of 2000? The game where everyone was broken thanks to the striker system? :D

@summonmaster: Chizuru was in 2003. Not that it matters since everyone seems to hate that game, but it was only 2 games ago.

2003? As in 5 years ago? It may be short gap if you're counting the numbers of games, but you know, in actual time that's indeed a long time ago, specially in videogame years.

Objection sustained.

Finally, the ONLY thing I've ever had a problem with the newer installments of most SNK fighters has been fixed: sprite quality.

I've been waiting for a long time for this ever since I was dreadfully disappointed by the look of XI (the game is great, don't get me wrong). I was even more disappointed by SvC Chaos for how dreadfully bland it looked, but I'd hate to go off on a tangent.

I'll be waiting in heated anticipation for this one.

Ahh, your honor. Then the real question should be, Is 5 years "too long"? He mentioned Shermie in the same sentence. I'll go one step further then. Shermie was in Neowave. That was about a year and a half after 2003. Plus, it's only a few months in dog years.

Ergo, it's not really that long of a time.