King of Fighters :(

Went down to the local Babbages E.B Games the other day since I had some disposable income and had heard that they sometimes carry SNES games (though they're mostly sports related) and was surprised to find that King of Fighters XII had already come out, excited I checked the price tag and decided that I did not have that much disposable income and promptly set it back down. I then proceeded to buy this instead.

I realized that I had not seen any actual reviews of the game yet, the previews all focused on how pretty the all-new hand drawn artwork is and while that certainly is the case it was still possible for such a good looking game to suck. And apparently it does.

The first place I looked for a review was the AV Club, the serious wing of The Onion whose reviews have gotten me down to the theaters to watch such films as The Wrestler, Away We Go and a small indy film called Watchmen. In short, I hold their reviews in high regard simply because their tastes mostly agree with mine.

I did find the KOF review and it's not pretty. The game is rushed, its missing some key characters, it has a small roster for a 3 on 3 game, its a money grab, there are too few stages and:

"Even worse, if you aren’t into online play, there’s little comfort to be found in the game’s single-player campaign, a five-stage time-trial championship that can be beaten in 10 minutes, tops. The tournament is interspersed with up-to-the-minute action-news coverage that has the audacity to imply excitement, but is completely generic and unrelated to your gameplay."

Brutal. I am no longer looking forward to this game and I'm not sure I can deal with that. Like I've said tons of time I love pretty art but do I love it enough to spend $60 on a mediocre game? no, $20? probably not, it is therefore entirely possible that I'll have to wait at least a year before it goes below that threshold.

What's even worse is that SNK seems to be missing more often then not when it comes to releasing games on the newer consoles. The Maximum Impact games are horrible, the older fighters are...older and now that the supposed saviour has been released and has failed to do what SFIV did for the Street Fighter franchise the future simply isnt looking too bright for the company. The franchise might have a rabid fanbase but how many lemons can that fanbase suffer through? You get one more chance SNK, make it count.