The end of July is going to be a good time for fans of 2D fighters: the genre has seen a resurgence in popularity over the past couple of months, and SNK’s King of Fighters XII is only one of many high-profile releases this summer.
According to KOF12‘s Twitter feed, Ignition Entertainment will be bringing the brawler over to the States on July 28, one day before Capcom’s Marvel vs. Capcom 2 hits XBLA and PSN. And how’s this for weird: We’re getting King of Fighters XII two days before Japanese audiences, which probably means the world is about to explode.
Since there’s only so much you can really say about release dates, here’s a fun fact: The artwork for King of Fighters XII was all hand-drawn and each character took 18 man-months to create. The team faked the lighting by using different sprites, depending on where characters were on the screen. Another fun fact? The PS3 version of the game will support clans.
And, hey, to make this post worth your while, I embedded two gameplay montages that Ignition PR were kind enough to send over. The e-mail mentioned that they featured “devastating Sousai (deadlock) counters, critical counter attacks and guard attacks,” but I don’t know enough about the series to be able to find those in these videos. I like the art and explosion effects, and I like making people beat each other up, but I know that I will never, ever be anything more than a below-average fighter.
