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Posted September 23, 2013 by Ryan Villanueva in Gaming
 
 

GAME REVIEW: KING OF FIGHTERS XIII STEAM EDITION

King of Fighters XIII is the latest installment of the King of Fighters series ported to the PC by Steam. King of Fighters XIII is a beat ‘emup fighting game that is developed and published by SNK Playmore. Originally the game was released for the XBOX 360 and Playstation 3 and released for the PC made available by Steam last September 13, 2013.

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From what I’ve read, the story takes place after the last tournament, King of Fighters XI. In King of Fighters XIII, certain individuals are trying to revive the Orochi who was stopped and sealed away thousands of years ago. As like how the previous King of Fighter’s started, invitations were handed out to different fighters to attend the King of Fighters tournament with the organizers trying to break and revive Orochi’s seal and its up to you and your team to stop it.

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To be honest, Im not really a good when it comes to fighting games. I’d say I’m one of the button mashing players who would try their luck by hitting a combination of buttons hoping to land a special move. Occasionally, I’d look at the move list or go to the Training option to practice some basic moves.

King-of-Fighters-Mai

Let me first share what I don’t like about this game before we get to the good parts. I have mentioned already what my weakness is when it comes to fighting games, CONTROLS. This game doesn’t really on luck or button mashing to win fights; you need to know your stuff! With that being said, it’s also a good thing that the developers included a TRAINING mode and even a PRACTICE mode which I HIGHLY RECOMMEND TO USE FIRST! King of Fighters XIII always has a sophisticated move list. You just don’t do your regular down,forward punch move. In King of Fighters, you do a down,forward,down,back punch in one sequence to perform a special move (which I think takes skills and time to master). Aside from the move list, you also need to learn about the super modes. There’s a couple of them so I suggest that you just learn about them in the Practice modes so that you’d learn more because as of this time, I didn’t have the time yet to understand all of it.

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The last King of Fighters game I played was King of Fighters 97.

Other than controls, I really don’t have any issues with this game. Now lets get on to the good parts. The last King of Fighters game I played was King of Fighters 97 back on the PSone and that was more than a decade ago! King of Fighters brings back a lot of nostalgia, as it still includes classic fan favorites such as Kyo Kusanagi, Iori Yagami, Andy and Terry Bogart, the lovely and sexier than ever, Mai Shiranui and the rest of the regular cast are mostly in the game. Another noticeable upgrade is the animation. The hand drawn sprites are really superb! Its like its coming right out of an anime. The animation, the movement, the fighting moves of each character is solid. The backgrounds, specials are all nice to look at. This game feels like hand drawn and coming right out of the paper. If there’s one thing I really like about King of Fighters XIII it’s the art.  There’s also a number of modes to choose from in the game aside from your regular Arcade, Versus and Story modes.  It’s also commendable the level of customization they placed on King of Fighters XIII, you could modify the appearance/color of your fighter that suits your taste.

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King of Fighters XIII Character Select Screen.

I’ve mostly spent time playing the game learning the basics and a few rounds sparring with another person applying what I’ve learned from my so-called training. In the end, I still lost. Button mashing is still the best fighting style when it comes to fighting games not unless you’re a seasoned veteran when it comes to these fighting games. I would still play Super Street Fighter or even Mortal Kombat Komplete Edition over King of Fighters XIII simply because it’s more fun to play games when you’re winning as compared when you always get beat up by A.I. or another player. I’m not saying that Im any good on those other games but they’re more simple to play. King of Fighters XIII is not a bad game, Im actually glad that a PC version was released since there are not a lot of fighting games available for the PC. Overall, Id say King of Fighters XIII is a good game, it’s just not the game for me. However, if you’re a long time fan of the King of Fighters series or a seasoned fighting gamer, I’d say that you’d have no problem enjoying playing this game.

Rating: 3 joysticks out of 5


Ryan Villanueva

 
Your resident all around Flipgeek, from comics,movies,games,toys,music and even sports. A big Spider-man fan raised in the ways of the Jedi,who listens to punk rock and a sucker for chick flicks.