Things have changed a great deal since the days of Street Fighter and the sheer amount of moves and combinations can be intimidating but that’s not to say that the latest iteration of SNK’s primary series doesn’t have its’ merits. KoF XIII is a disappointing PC port of a decent fighting game.I’ll be the first to admit that it’s been quite some time since I played an arcade fighter like King of Fighters so, for me, the learning curve was always going to be relatively steep. You can't even change the resolution from the console versions' 720p, and the lack of filters to disguise the jagged edges means that the higher your monitor's display, the worse it looks. You can choose between windowed or fullscreen, fixed or variable framerate, dynamic or static backgrounds, and that's your lot. Worse, that excellent sprite work is undermined by an almost complete lack of graphics options. There simply aren't that many people playing it. Online there's the usual choice of ranked and player matches, but SNK's pledge that this release would have better netcode than the console versions has proven hard to verify. There are combo challenges, time trials and a survival mode.
There's an Arcade mode, naturally, with two infuriating boss battles, and a Story mode with branching paths and fixed team selections. There is, at least, plenty to do, even for lone players. KoF XIII is still rewarding to play at a low level, but you're always worried that you're missing out on something, and the game is in no hurry to let you in on its many secrets. Character-specific combo trials start out helpful and quickly become insane. This makes for a pleasing mindgame before a match begins when both players select their team's order of appearance, but it's another layer of complexity in a game that hardly needs it. Unlike other 3v3 games (the Marvel vs Capcom series, for instance), you can't tag-in a teammate during play: the action plays out like a traditional 1v1 fighter, fading to black when a round is over to load your next combatant. Oh, and you have to learn three characters. Put it this way: King of Fighters XIII is a game with four kinds of jump. There's none of Street Fighter IV's friendly input recognition: your joystick motions have to be perfect.
Nor should you expect it to be as beginner-friendly as most contemporary fighting games. What the tutorial does make clear is that you shouldn't interpret KoF XIII's four-button control scheme as a sign that this is a simple game.
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