Two new characters for King of Fighters XII coming home

by Ben Gilbert on May 10th 2009 11:30PM

In addition to the ultra smooth (and likely quite sophisticated) King of Fighters XII anti-aliasing graphical update, it appears as though the home version of the game will be coming with two new characters. Elizabeth Blanctorche and a character known only as "Mature" will be joining the ranks of the already 20-character strong roster as a result of the move to console from arcades.

1UP claims the game's Japanese language website also teases, "the art of K' and Mai Shiranui in the style of KOFXII," though it remains unconfirmed whether or not the console release will see more exclusive characters. The game releases this July, and in the meantime, we'll be over here looking through the beautiful gallery full of artwork we already have.

[Via 1UP]

King of Fighters XII (March 16)

Source

Tags: 1up, elizabeth-blanctorche, king-of-fighters, king-of-fighters-xii, Microsoft, snk, snk-playmore, snkplaymore, Xbox-360

Reader Comments (38)

I remember Mature. Think she was on the team with Vice.

Chances are I'm confused about something here, but does the existence of anti-aliasing filters mean that the sprites were done in a lower resolution, then just upped into 1080p or whatever?

These are newly drawn HD sprites. They went through a pain staking process to make them.

"SNK gave us the full rundown, so here's how it worked: The original character drawings were modeled into 3D. Those 3D models were then rendered back into 2D. That way the 2D characters could have a greater depth of motion. Since the 2D models were devoid of color and details, artists went through each character, background, image and painstakingly added colors and drew in details pixel-by-pixel on a tablet PC. In one day, one artist would be able to draw one frame and a half for whatever image he or she was working on."

I read that article before, but I don't remember seeing anything about why the filters are necessary - unless the 2D images are done at a lower resolution than the display.

Filters are really only needed to get rid of aliasing in 2D when upscaling, correct?

"Filters are really only needed to get rid of aliasing in 2D when upscaling, correct?"

Yep. Filters smooths out the pixels on the edge of the sprite and blends in the colors seemlessly. So yeah, you're right. Maybe they have a "classic filter" to give it the snk grainly look.

Then I'm guessing the sprites are not really "high res" and are simply upscaled.

I'm honestly a bit bummed out by that. While I'm sure they're running at a higher resolution than the previous KOF sprites, I was under the impression that these were going to be natively higher. These sprites look like they might be the same size as Guilty Gear X's, just scaled up and filtered to hide it.

blazblue looks like they're going to have 720 native sprites, this game doesnt the sprite are definitely upscaled. however animation fluidity is much more important than pixel resolution. now if you account for both animation and resolution, actual pixel detail are probably even.

KOFXIII:
no sprite filter: http://media.ign.com/games/image/article/918/918994/king-of-fighters-xii-20081010111552333.jpg
sprite filter: http://ps3media.ign.com/ps3/image/article/962/962599/the-king-of-fighters-xii-20090313040731479.jpg

BlazBlue:
higher res sprites: http://game.watch.impress.co.jp/img/gmw/docs/076/153/bb19.jpg

Schweet, they are adding Mature back to the roster! I had more fun with her than Vice anyways.

The arcade cabinet (Taito's Type X2) can run in either 720p or 1080p (through interlacing though no game has done this yet).
Most companies work foreground work (i.e. Character sprites) at [1280x] 720p
to keep it the most compatible with all versions of the hardware.
Obviously the "anti-aliasing" scaling filter is for people whom own
screens that support a native 1080p.

The game in motion looks fantastic pre-filter, in my humble and will
probably be playing with it off.

It's pretty safe to say that "K'" and Mai Shiranui are going to be added to the console versions. Famitsu already confirmed they were working on them. So thats 4 added characters so far! Hurrah.

Thanks DFS!

As far as animation goes, nothing has topped SF3 yet. Makoto's walking (just walking!!) animation had 40 frames in it, for crap's sake!

There's a video in the Japanese KOFXII website: http://game.snkplaymore.co.jp/official/kof-xii/consumer/movie/index.html

There is some gameplay footage for the two new characters. Also, after that, the main menu is shown and there's "PlayStation®Store" on the list. Maybe they'll have some DLC characters? Otherwise I don't know what else they could have there.

I'm excited for this.
Who agrees that this will be epic?

Agreed

I've never seen sprites so amazingly drawn and animated before

Look at Blazblue screenshots o_O

WTF where the FUCK is ROCK HOWARD!!!! All I want is Rock can somebody at SNK listen to me please......sigh

Rock was in the 3D KOF titles.

Maximum Impact KOF are a joke...(althought MI2 was better than part one). As this KOF12 is a dream match I don't see why Rock (or any other MotW character) couldn't be added. But Mature of all to bring back?....come on SNKP. Yamazaki, Takuma, Gai, Eiji, Heavy D, Heidern, Billy, GATO (I am so serious)....and if you can bring back Shen and Elizabeth (..I am glad for her ^_^), you might aswell bring Oswald....and GAI (yes...I will say it again). I know handrawn sprites takes alot of time, but it would be best to draw more popular (no to metion more badass) character first....no?

This news is being reported a little late. I expect Joystiq to be a bit more on top of things. That's just the high standard I've come to expect I guess.

I'm just glad they've posted it. I was really disillusioned after sifting through dozens of posts about Ghostbusters and Wolverine on Joystiq to not learn this major news about the most exciting game of the year until I went to other websites.

The title of this article made me think that KoF costumes were coming to Playstation Home.

I was happy for a minute. XD

yeah, I thought something like that too..

I guess one can't use the word "home" so loosely these days xP

needless to say.. I will import this...I will not wait for the US version which if correct...should be like a year after...

I hope comes untouched..of course except the translation menus and online..still importing this... I'll be looking forward to KOF matches against Japanese players.. :)

Japanese players are ridiculously good....lol. I need to train more.

WHY? You're getting that annoying metrosexual Ash on both covers in the Japanese version...

A shame that game dosen't come on Wii to. I'm tired of those developpers just bringing game on PS3 and 360 and that's it.

While I'm sure it's possible, I'm not sure the sales of this game on the Wii would justify the costs of porting it to the Wii,,, unless they did a ps2 port and threw it on to the Wii to make an extra buck.

Damn! I'm so waiting for this game.
I love the new higher res sprites (and the animation), but it'd be so much cooler if they managed to have sprites like those on Odin Sphere...

Mature is not a new character.
Big Fail by Ben Gilbert or whoever wrote this article;
maybe next time you should play the games.

She's new to XII (as in, she wasn't in the arcade version, AFAIK).

"New" because they weren't in the arcade release of KOFXII. He says as much in the article.

Mature and Vice are Rugal Bernstein's assistants.

yashiro and chris pleeeese thats all i want

Exclusive characters??? hope they're better than SC4 !
did any one download Yoda for SC4 from PSN?
I dunno why i didn't feel like it...

Shane Bettenhausen of NIS mentioned in the last ListenUP podcast that this week will see the launch of the English web site of KOFXII. We should expect to see an avalanche of media for this title as the launch date approaches.

lol...no...I just want to compete against Japanese players...as far as I know..KOF is not very popular in the US as Street Fighter..

I saw the game in new york chinatown. Characters are really jaggy and the facial expression is lacking. The arcade has blazeblue right next to it. Blaze blue is smoother and background is richer.

She's rated MMMMMM....for Mature. That's right, baby...

FUUUUUUUU I WANT VICE!!!!

While this is pretty awesome news, all I want them to add to the cast is King and Rugal. I could name like 20+ that I would want, but come on! KING AND RUGAL! REMPUKKEN!

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Two new characters for King of Fighters XII coming home

King of Fighters XII (March 16)

Reader Comments (38)

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