King of Fighters XII hits PS3, 360 worldwide this July

by JC Fletcher { Mar 3rd 2009 at 3:00PM }

Ignition Entertainment has just announced a July 2009 worldwide release for King of Fighters XII, the impossibly gorgeous first HD entry in SNK Playmore's long-running 2D fighting series, on both Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. The fighter features 20 playable characters, all of whom appear as newly redrawn sprites, fighting in equally impressive 2D backgrounds.

According to the press release, preview footage and images for this unbelievably hot game are included in the PS2 release of King of Fighters '98 Ultimate Match, itself a fairly nice-looking KOF -- which happens to be out today. Prepare to be burned by the Orochi flames of a searing hot trailer after the break.

[Screen via KOF XII's official website]

Tags: fighting, king-of-fighters-xii, snk-playmore

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)

Donalds5 @ Mar 3rd 2009 3:04PM

isnt this what street fighter used to be called? or am i wrong, cuz im pretty sure of myself, but i dont know

samfish (is ready for MadWorld!) @ Mar 3rd 2009 3:10PM

err...no.

Deeznuts420 @ Mar 3rd 2009 3:11PM

i sense an uproar coming....

Kola @ Mar 3rd 2009 3:14PM

I can't tell if your comment is supposed to be funny or the 5 in your name is short for 5 year old.

Either way your answer is no.

phr3qu3ncy441 @ Mar 3rd 2009 3:15PM

i don't think so... street fighter is owned by capcom. unless capcom and snk were buddy buddy at one point, then i doubt the franchises had mixed titles... they did have an snk vs. capcom game though.

Arnold @ Mar 3rd 2009 3:16PM

how old are you? clearly not old enough to know that calling king of fighters a Capcom product, let alone part of the street fighter series is blasphemy!

Donalds5 @ Mar 3rd 2009 3:22PM

first, off the 5 is my favoritie number
Donald = My first name
S = first initial of my last name
5 = my favorite number,
when making my gamefaqs name a few years back, they said to do that, and thats what i did, since my old screenname was used, also sorry i didnt know that street fighter was originally called king of fighters, but hey, it looks a lot like street fighter, just the graphics are different
sorry about the "disruption" i caused by my post, all apologies
btw, im 16, turning 17 in late march, so im not 5 =]

samfish (is ready for MadWorld!) @ Mar 3rd 2009 3:31PM

On your 17th birthday you have to promise to start capitalizing properly. The shift key is your friend!

Donalds5 @ Mar 3rd 2009 3:37PM

Are you happy now? Lol, but hey, sorry about the confusion before. I just didn't know that it wasn't the original Street Fighter. So lets start over, this game looks pretty decent!

vahdyx @ Mar 3rd 2009 5:02PM

I can't believe you're apologizing, what do online folk mean to you, I hope nothing! No one deserves an apology online unless you actually respect them.

That's my opinion. If I screw up, I just move on.

Anyway, I feel SNK games are better than Capcom fighters, but ARC is the best!

samfish (is ready for MadWorld!) @ Mar 3rd 2009 3:07PM

Woo hoo! Day 1!

Although a lack of Mai means I'll have to play with my pants on :,,,,,(

Deeznuts420 @ Mar 3rd 2009 3:12PM

madworld peach is awesome!

Samo @ Mar 3rd 2009 5:28PM

Doesn't Athena's special leave her nekkid, third base for a moment?

...No, I didn't freeze frame that move, not at all...

dru @ Mar 3rd 2009 3:14PM

Looks. Fucking. Awesome.

Shattercross @ Mar 3rd 2009 3:16PM

As a long time fan of the series, I can't wait to beat the fruitiness out of Ash Crimson with Kyo and Iori.... hope it has online.

Maulok @ Mar 3rd 2009 3:17PM

Can I just say that it's refreshing to see something besides Final Fantasy and the Superbowl keeping roman numerals alive? Kudos to not dumbing down!

samfish (is ready for MadWorld!) @ Mar 3rd 2009 3:21PM

I just hope they have arcade sticks available in stores by the time King of Fighters 7 comes out, because I can't find them anywhere right now.

Shattercross @ Mar 3rd 2009 3:45PM

It's King of fighter's 12, they switched to numbers after 2003 because they didn't want to have to pump out a new game every year anymore.

Brucie_K @ Mar 3rd 2009 3:17PM

This game is gonna beat the hell out of SFII Turbo HD Remix.

Baby J Penn (PSN johnnynumber5) @ Mar 3rd 2009 6:39PM

This game will beat the hell out of Soul Caliber IV, Street Fighter IV, Tekken whatever number and MK vs DCU. The only two things I can think of that would be better are an HD powerstone or Samurai Showdown. KOF is very technical and very rewarding.

jimi hendrix @ Mar 3rd 2009 9:37PM

Your kidding right?!? Didn't anyone notice that they just "refined" their counter system?? King of fighters has never really updated scheiss, its been pretty much been the same ol poo till now.

PLUS

2 of the original designers of street fighter ONE created the King of Fighters (Takashi Nishiyama and Hiroshi Matsumoto) and seriously have been LAZY at the way they do games.

to learn more on the history of Street Fighter and how SNK had to play competition (which they weren't) check out this link

http://retro.ign.com/articles/954/954426p1.html

Shattercross @ Mar 3rd 2009 11:34PM

Oh please jimi, ign doesn't know it's ass from it's head when it comes to game history. The only reason you linked them was because the article's inaccurate facts support your stupid bias. SNK has time and time again put out better fighting games then Capcom. You can't honestly play Kof 94 then play kof 98 and say that nothing's changed... if you do I pity you and your franchise where almost every character wears a karate gi...awesome character design Crapcom. Your a friggin' idiot.

Nigeria @ Mar 3rd 2009 3:18PM

I hope the wait is really worth it - I blew SF4 off for this. The relatively tiny roster has dampened my spirits, but it looks so damn good.

Antagonist @ Mar 3rd 2009 3:33PM

Did you spit or swallow?

FluxWaveZ @ Mar 3rd 2009 3:34PM

Why don't you buy both?

Shattercross @ Mar 3rd 2009 3:47PM

Ha, I get it Antagonist.

shadowhowl1900 @ Mar 3rd 2009 3:48PM

it could be that he is smart enough not to blow so much money on games

Nigeria @ Mar 3rd 2009 4:05PM

Not enough time to divide between the two, so I forced myself to choose. Half a dozen, or so, SF games on my Saturn/DC made the decision a little easier.

AoE @ Mar 3rd 2009 4:06PM

um... why is in an either/or decision? SFIV is an amazingly great game, and this will be as well. Why not have 2 awesome games instead of choosing between them?

Ghen @ Mar 3rd 2009 6:22PM

I don't get it either. By the time KoF12 comes out you could have played hundreds or thousands of street fighter 4 matches.

ittybittygirl @ Mar 3rd 2009 3:49PM

I'm guessing the trailer only says PS3 because this was on the PlayStation 2 '98UM disc? That would also explain the lack of an HD version.

Anyways, can't wait. Huge fan of the series (SNK fighters in general) and XII looks great... Hopefully they find room for Yamazaki, Geese, Goenitz, Billy, and Mary in XIII.

shadowhowl1900 @ Mar 3rd 2009 3:49PM

Need to see more to be more excited really. i have been SF for so long that KoF is long forgotten.

-Vexx- @ Mar 3rd 2009 3:51PM

YES FINALLY A RELEASE DATE YESSSSSSS!!!

WiredKnight @ Mar 3rd 2009 3:55PM

That's it.

SNK vs Capcom 2.

Now.

deft @ Mar 3rd 2009 5:06PM

More like Snk vs. Capcom 3 (or 4

s256 @ Mar 4th 2009 8:28PM

Now. NOW!!

WiredKnight @ Mar 5th 2009 5:27AM

I know it wouldn't be the second one they made, but they never actually made a "2."

The most recent one was SNK vs Capcom: SVC Chaos, but that was six years ago.

tmontana213 @ Mar 3rd 2009 4:02PM

I know I'm going to get a lot of flak for this, but Street Fighter IV looks way better.

AoE @ Mar 3rd 2009 4:10PM

Apples and oranges? One is hand-drawn 2D sprites with an impressive level of animation, the other is 3D with beautifully drawn textures and nice effects. Why do you feel the need to compare the two?

tmontana213 @ Mar 3rd 2009 4:36PM

They're both fighters....

WRE @ Mar 3rd 2009 4:43PM

By that logic, Killzone 2 looks way better than Portal.

bm @ Mar 5th 2009 1:32PM

This is real animation. SF4 moves like a floaty mess compared to it. All the characters in it move like fucking dolls, it's awful. If they'd put SF3's team on some high res handdrawn animation, SF4 could've looked glorious, way better than even KOF12. But nooooo, it had to be THREE DEEEE cuz that's what all the kids want nowadays. THREEE DEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE. Fucking awful.