King of Fighters XII: Beta tests, gameplay details and magazine scans

Not to be outdone by its rival Street Fighter series, SNK has announced in this past week’s Japanese gaming mag, Weekly Famitsu, that the beta tests for the latest entry in its own flagship fighter, King of Fighters XII will begin in April 2008.

On the Madman Cafe forums, where the news first broke out on Thursday (March 20, 2008), SNK also gave out the first details about the gameplay.

The character-switching abilities which started in King of Fighters 2003, are more comparable to Capcom’s Versus games than previous KOFs have been excised in favor of the franchise’s classic three-on-three system. This is supposed to make the game more accessible to less-than-hardcore players who lack the time to learn how time massive chain combos between different character teams and turn the series back towards “reading your opponent’s mind,” as SNK puts it.

Ironically, KOFXII also includes the Guard system, which involves timing movement to coincide with an opponent’s in order to knock the other player off-guard and facilitate a counterattack. SNK was vague in explaining exactly how this worked but it sounds highly reminiscent of the Parry system from Street Fighter III, where, if you hit forward at the exact time an opponent’s attack was supposed to connect, you could temporarily stun the other player. Because some extremely devoted players had become capable of using parries to block even the strongest attacks, Capcom removed them for Street Fighter IV, also in the name of making the series more accessible again.

Though SNK seems to be addressing this with the Clash system, which cancels out both fighters’ attacks if they do it at the exact same time.

But enough of this overly technical hogwash. It’s time to look at the pretty-pretty Famitsu scans.

Read [Madman Cafe Forums] Also Read Joystiq] Watch [SFIII: 3rd Strike]