We are in the middle of an SNK resurgence, and I couldn’t be happier. Between new releases and rereleases, we have been eating well lately. Joining the group of SNK rereleases is The King of Fighters XIII, but with rollback netcode. This has gone well for previous fighting games such as Guilty Gear XRD/AC+ and King of Fighters 98/02, so all eyes are on The King of Fighters XIII Global Match to see if they can take the crown.
A King’s Tale
The King of Fighters XIII Global Match is the final story in the “Ash Crimson Saga” that started back in King of Fighters 2003, which saw the mysterious Ash Crimson stealing main protagonists Iori and Kyo’s sacred flame powers and the final moves of the “Those From The Past”. This all happened within the setting of the latest King of Fighters tournament, hosted by Rose Bernstein. The cards have all fallen in this climax for one of the most interesting stories in the King of Fighters story.
I genuinely enjoy a good story within a fighting game, and The King Of Fighters has always been one of my favorites for this. One aspect I particularly appreciate is how it stays consistent to the story when it comes to aspects such as the character roster and their movesets.
Unlike previous entries in the series, The King of Fighters XIII Global Match features a vaguely “visual novel” style story presentation where you pick your team and witness the events of the Tournament. You make choices that affect how much you find out about what is going on, either with the tournament or what Ash and “Those From The Past” are up to. This culminates in a showdown that threatens not only the world but also the flow of time.
I enjoyed this type of story mode, and it’s a shame that they never tried to replicate it in any of the other King of Fighters titles. It can get a little repetitive trying to unlock every scene and figuring out what choice will put you on each one of the four different paths, and I would have loved more team-specific stories, but overall this was a fantastic first attempt. It’s one of the only times I’ve ever been invested in a visual novel style story for a fighting game.
The Wheel Of Fate Keeps Turning
The King of Fighters XIII Global Match is a rerelease of the original King of Fighters XIII, which was released in 2010 on PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360, as well as in arcades. This rerelease has already graced PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch and the version I took a look at was the PC Steam version.
King of Fighters XIII Global Match is a 2D fighting game where you pick a team of three characters for a series of one-on-one matches, with each character representing a round. This has always been the thing that’s set King of Fighters aside from its peers, and it means the games usually have a massive roster. Fortunately, you aren’t restricted to premade teams; the world of KoF is your oyster when it comes to team creation.
SNK and King of Fighters XIII were perhaps stubbornly stuck in an old school mentality with this game. Given Street Fighter IV was released 2 years prior and high-velocity “anime fighters” such as Blazblue were on the rise, King of Fighters XIII comparatively plays it almost deliciously old school. It controls exactly how previous King of Fighters titles do, with the inclusion of the HyperDrive Meter which allows you to cancel moves into other moves. This allows for some truly wild combos. It can also put you in HyperDrive Mode, where you hit much harder and have unlimited cancels for a limited amount of time.
There’s an otherwise traditional super meter that builds whenever you land an attack, a dodge command that sees you roll out of the way of attacks and position yourself somewhere else, a small hop or giant leap as well as a dash. All the movement and options of the best King of Fighters games are here and it all works well to create in my opinion the smoothest King of Fighters game this side of the phenomenal King Of Fighters XV.
A Team For Everyone
The King of Fighters XIII Global Match has a huge roster of over 30 characters. A few of these are unlockable, and it also includes characters that were initially released as DLC such as the infamous “Team $15” that destroyed the game balance when they first dropped. You have all the classic characters such as Kyo, Iori, Terry, Clark, Ryo, and Mai Shiranui alongside series newcomer Saiki, and even some deep cuts like Raiden and Hwa Jai. It’s easily one of my favorite rosters of the franchise.
Alongside the Story Mode, you have a traditional arcade mode if you want to skip the text. During fights you’ll be given tasks such as “Perform 5 Jumps”. These not only help you get used to various mechanics of the game, but tie into which character you’ll unlock when you complete the arcade run. It’s a fun little diversion when grinding out the arcade mode for all the team endings.
You also have a comprehensive training mode with one of the most infamous combo trials in the genre. Some of these combos even have professional King of Fighters players scratching their heads with the execution, but if that isn’t your thing, you can fortunately just set up a training dummy and tech until your heart’s content.
There is also the Character Customization option where you can edit the colors of any character allowing you to make a unique creation to you. Think of it as a light “Create a Fighter” where you can unleash your inner edgelord and make the entire roster look like neon induced Jokers or have your favorite team representing the Powerpuff Girls. It’s a fun little distraction.
Beauty in Combat
The presentation in The King of Fighters XIII Global Match is top-notch, honestly. It’s a marvel in motion that is a testament to how much faith SNK had in drawing sprites for all of their characters. Even if it makes the game look more retro than it is, I can’t help but appreciate just how good this game looks.
In terms of visual polish, the game has just been cleaned up a little to look better on larger screens, but very little has been done from the original release and it still looks absolutely timeless. It’s disappointing they didn’t lean into cleaning up some of the oddities in the animations or some jagged edges in the sprites, but when your source material otherwise looks as good as it does, you really don’t need to do anything to make it modern.
The only issue that I had with the presentation in the game is that the background stages are stationary when playing online. Presumably, the background animations are tied to the frame data of the fighters and would create some rather weird results with the way rollback works. That aside is the only issue with the presentation of the game. The music bangs, the sound effects clearly indicate attacks and the graphics just hit oh so well.
RollFlack
The major selling point of The King of Fighters XIII Global Match was to make the game available on current-generation hardware and provide an online section of the game with the more stable “rollback” netcode. While once hailed as the savior of online fighting games, people are now starting to become aware that while rollback is fantastic when done well, there is also good rollback and bad rollback. Sadly, The King of Fighters XIII Global Match has terrible rollback.
In my experience, the game wouldn’t connect to matches consistently, and when it did I didn’t feel the game felt any better than the previous “Steam Edition” which is the major issue with this package. It is essentially a paid patch for rollback that doesn’t even work properly all of the time, and for some reason has excessive CPU usage in general before you even compare it to the original “Steam Edition”.
It’s such a strange release, as I was so excited to play my second favorite King of Fighters game with rollback. But even with the upgrade option available to existing owners of the Steam Edition, it feels like paying money for a version of the game that runs worse, doesn’t have crossplay, and has even fewer people playing, with only a glimmer of rollback netcode.
Hopefully, Safari Games are feverishly at work addressing the net code issues and the ludicrous CPU strain the game has. But currently, this release has been highly disappointing, and it’s a damn shame one of my favorite King of Fighters titles releases in a state like this.
Verdict
The King of Fighters XIII Global Match should be the definitive way to play one of the best fighting games ever made, and unfortunately, it’s not in the shape it should be. It’s certainly not what I’d want anyone’s first impression of King of Fighters XIII or SNK to be.
If you don’t already own The King of Fighters XIII Steam Edition, then this is the only version you can now buy. I would still say if you don’t own the Steam Edition but are curious about the game, there is an amazing offline game here (CPU usage permitting) that you can take on. If like me you already owned the Steam Edition, there is currently no incentive to jump in and make the upgrade. I do hope the developers are hard at work with a patch to turn this around as I’m itching to play more, but currently, as a supposed upgrade for improved online experience, this more than misses the mark.
WAIT FOR SALE ON THE KING OF FIGHTERS XIII GLOBAL MATCH
If you are looking for another SNK throwback offering, you might want to check out our review of the rerelease of SNK vs Capcom: SVC Chaos.
Many thanks go to SNK for a PC review code for The King of Fighters XIII Global Match.
Pride of utopia & greatest thing ever, I found the One Piece, Collected the Dragon Balls & won the Mortal Kombat Tournament in one night, it was quiet for me that night! Follow me on Twitter @powahdunk
