Primeiro KOF que peguei pra jogar, no geral tive uma boa experiência

Se trata realmente de um game bem divertido, mesmo adotando o sistema dos antigos, sem trocar bonecos no meio das partidas, apenas a mais franca e sincera porradaria entre os trios.

Os personagens tem uma variedade muito bacana, tendo uma gameplay bem distinta de um boneco para outro, mas aí vem o problema: os "magos" de KOF. Principalmente na reta final, haverão os bonecos que spamam golpes especiais a longa distância, e como um bom noob de games de briga, claro que sofri bastante com isso. Ah, e BTW, vão tomar no centro dos seus cus, Saiki e Dark Ash.

O sistema é mais simplificado a primeira vista, não tendo golpes médios, e ficando apenas nos "lows" e "highs", mas não pense que isso deixará jogo mais fácil, porque tem uns comandos de especiais que fazem o joystick dançar Hare Krishna para poder executar o golpe, e para eu que jogo no d-pad do controle, acabo achando bem complicado (Ou deve ser apenas eu que sou mais limitado mesmo, mas vamos ignorar tal fato)

É certamente um game cativante, visto que foi um ótimo sucessor pro KOF XII, que é considerado um desastre (ainda jogarei para ver como é). Mas KOF XIII tem meu selo de aprovação, é um jogo foda sim, prometo.

Very miffed about this one. KoF is probably my favorite fighting game franchise (Alhough Plus R is probably still my favourite game) because of how solid the system mechanics are, no matter how unbalanced or stripped down the game may be, the games always feel like a dream to control. Having said that, I never actually played XIII until recently, but I kept experiencing it through osmosis via posts and comments saying how beautiful this game looked, how this was the best KoF, how SNK shouldn't have moved to 3D, etc, etc... With all that, actually playing the game, and knowing the game mechanics we had in the Ash saga until now (even including XII), it feels like SNK was putting all their chips into presentation this time around, when the Ash saga's whole deal until this point is that it carried almost no mechanics from the previous games aside from movement related ones.

XIII instead went back to the usual team 3-on-3 format we all know and love but did some serious changes in how the game is actually played. Max mode makes a comeback but uses a whole different gauge outside of the usual super meter, and it introduces EX moves into the series. While having a third version of a special to play around sounds interesting, specially for fighters that we all know how their movesets are going to look like, but this feels like a compensation for absolutely GUTTING some of the characters' movelist. Terry has no Power Charge, no Fire Kick, no Ground Wave, no Power Dunk, and has only access to the absolute bare essentials. Many characters are like this, to the point that i'd say only Ash and Iori (for lore reasons) had additions to their moveset. There is a lot of animation reusing and even some normals were straight up removed. It feels really weird having the exact same throw for C and D and characters not always having close normal versions.

What characters kept has been heavily focused, and what moves they traded or replaced have, a lot of the time, one direct goal, combos. Aside from probably 2002UM this has to be the most combo centric KoF game. Normal into Command Normal into special will no longer cut it, you are heavily encouraged to make use of the Drive gauge for meterless special cancels. Entering Max mode now gives you an auto run which makes it SIGNIFICANTLY easier to land a combo after any confirm. This has the rammifications of only keeping moves the developers had in mind for building combo routes. Clark's other 5 hundred grabs may be gone as he only keeps one this time around, but now he also has EX Vulcan Punch and a hit confirmable string in Close C > 3A which gives him a combo game that he NEVER had, seriously, Clark's big combo used to literally be a single Close C into his super, but had some of the most frightening vortex and call-outs of any grappler in the game, he feels like an entirely different character. He is not the only example, some characters got things added in place of other things, like Ash losing his command grab but now getting a proper Sans Culotte route from a low thanks to 4B links.

Do I like it? I wouldnt say I dislike it directly, I like it when games in a series keep enough of what's important but spice things up a little, I really enjoyed XI for that reason. Doing combos in XIII feels really nice but it does feel like the developers had to sacrifice a lot of other things in the character moveset so things like this grappler getting easy confirms into huge damage with also a lot of grabs to his name didnt get out of hand quickly. Same thing can be said with a lot of characters, that had most tools regarding more esoteric things in the older games, removed or repourposed for keeping that juggle going. You quickly realize this by looking at how much everyone makes a deal about the trials in this game, the developers really wanted to showcase this game's combo possibilites. This is a hugely subjective topic so a lot of my ramblings may feel like crazy talk for people who think this system is the best in the franchise, and I can see the argument of this game being someone's favorite KoF because of these decisions, but i'll just say that there is a reason why a lot of the XIII playerbase only really likes XIII, and a lot of people that play other KoF titles don't, the game was and still is a very divise product in how it wanted to shift priorities around.

What actually feels more plausible for the removal of moves however was that this game costed SNK tons of money. Yeah we have reached the point where we talk about the presentation. Yeah the sprites look good, we all know it, it's an accepted fact...or is it?

Now, I know this game took a lot of time to animate, like a LOT of time, but the end result looks...strange. Many people have commented just how obsessed this game is to giving steroids to every character. Terry plays basketball, he doesnt benchpress school buses, but why does Ryo have no pupils? Why is Takuma walking forward the scariest shit ever? Why is Yuri noodled-arm but when you beat her you can see her humongous rack? Why is the game so obsessed in making every nationality a caricature in the stages? Why did they think Iori's hair was supposed to be a tupé? Has any of the developers actually seen how a woman's boob actually jiggle or did they design Mai's idle pose looking at water balloons?

The game looks bizarre, I sometimes feel like I am looking at skinwalkers. Beautiful skinwalkers, sure, but some of these characters absolutely do not look like how they are meant to. We can talk all we want about how good this game looks on screenshots but seeing it in motion with these things plus the insane amount of 3D effects that look NOTHING like the rest of the game (looking at you Duo Lon's weird smoke-skull thingies). If there is one thing I dont see talked about is how good this game sounds (not even just the music), the sound effects are dope, I dont think I have been scared more in a fighting game than whenever my friend who plays Clark runs up, turns the world into a black void, I see the words Neo Max pop up, a speeding jet lets me know of my sudden, incoming death, just so I get Piledrived into the earth's core while I hear the ground itself crack open on my headphones GOD this game SOUNDS like a dream! But no, everything always comes back to the graphics, which I dont even think look like what KoF is supposed to look like.

This is a KoF game at the end of the day, I am bound to get my enjoyment out of it, I think this game has the best playable version of Ash crimson so my boy being so much fun gets thumbs up for that, but there's always something in the back of my psyche that my conscience doesnt always interpret right away, telling this and that are wrong and shouldnt be like that, but really, developers are free to do whatever they think will move a series forward (except for the racism and sexism please who the fuck actually designed some of these stages I want their names). We live in a era where most of the games are readily available via Fightcade or modern consoles with solid netcode (aside from this one but I'll bet solid gold Code Mystics wont take too long to add it to XIII) so it's not like people are forced to play one over the other (except for XIII god this netcode is cheeks), so if you disagreed on in this review means we both have different tastes and we both have options to satisfy them, which is cool

Except is you like propaganda-level caricatures as your game's stages if that's the case go fuck yourself.

Holy mother of pixel art, this game looks gorgeous. The roster is rather solid too, as this basically takes KoF 12 and makes an actual video game out of it. This game also has the most in depth singleplayer, with things playing out more like a blazblue game with lengthy VN-esque sections breaking up each fight. It does mean we get more time to see the cast of this game interact with each other so I can't really complain. The actual fighting for this game is reportedly extremely mechanically dense but I am too smooth-brained to grasp those kinds of things. If you are a big 2D fighter player you'll definitely have plenty to do here. One of the best games in the series right here easily.

After hearing so much of the hype surrounding this game, I honestly expected more. I've owned this game for almost over a year at this point and I've only played it for a total of three hours. It's just not very engaging to me especially compared to most of KOF '94-XI.
Firstly, let's talk about the presentation, because this is what everyone who discusses this game ever will bring up. I honestly just think it looks ok. The sprites are cool I guess but most of them just don't really feel like the characters they're meant to represent, like Ryo, Yuri, and Leona for example. I like a couple of the new sprites, especially Athena and K', those are cool! Also the stages are so boring. I see people give KOF XI shit for having boring stages but these are infinitely worse. Where is all the color? Actually that applies to the sprites too, why is everything so desaturated looking. I might be crazy but it seems that the sprites have some sort of anti aliasing on them, which just makes them look blurry and ugly. I don't think the game looks bad, but I feel it looks lamer than alot of the earlier games, especially '97-'00.
The gameplay is just your average KOF fare. It's very combo focused compared to other entries and that's neat. Even as someone who loves KOF XI I don't really miss the tag feature much, but I feel they should've kept it in this one just to stay consistent with the other two games in the saga. What I don't like about the gameplay is that most character movesets feel kinda gimped which is lame. KOF has always had an issue of adding and removing moves for characters every entry, but it's stripped down a fair margin here which is disappointing.
The bosses in this game are also boring. What is it with the Ash Saga and having bosses that aren't even shitty in an ironically funny way like the original SNK and Eolith era, instead just being giant enemies that spam projectiles and command grabs everywhere? They're just annoying.
I legitimately do not care for the music in this one, none of the tracks I heard during gameplay made me feel enticed to listen to them in my free time unlike many of the other entries. The music isn't bad, but compared to '94-'00 and XI it's not as impactful.
I don't hate this game. I think it's pretty solid, and I understand why so many fans love this game. But for me, this one just is missing something that many earlier entries had. Especially after the super unique and fun KOF XI, this is such a basic return to form that it hurts. After three hours of game time, I feel like I have exhausted almost all entertainment from this game, and that's honestly kinda sad. Hopefully I can pick up KOF XV this christmas and possibly enjoy that one though!