The first mainline release in the beloved fighting series on the 360, KOF12 generated a lot of hype. I've never really got into the series as the yearly releases put me off, so this was my entry point. Unfortunately for me and those hyped about the game, KOF12 sucks. It's pretty apparent from the moment you put the disk in that the game lacks polish and care. There is a very simple menu, with few options to choose from. Story mode, training, arcade mode, that's about it. The story mode itself is only 5 fights long and there isn't really a story, there is a shockingly low number of stages to fight on too. Also lacking is the array of characters. For a game known for it's huge roster of fighters, 22 characters is extremely disappointing, especially when the fights are 3 vs 3, meaning there are 7 teams of fighters effectively. The graphics are also poor, not that its a huge deal, but when we see how beautiful other 2D fighting games like BlazBlue look, it's almost surprising to see how ugly these character models are. Another complaint at release, which is not so important now, was the netcode for the online play, which was criticised as being laggy and having huge button delay, yet I can't comment on that personally. So as an overall package it feels a bit lacking in terms of polish and features, all this can be forgiven with good play though right? Well KOF12 is lacking in that department too. I'm a bit of a novice in terms of fighting games and I often struggle to get to grips with complex fighting techniques and move lists that require hours of gameplay to master. KOF12 on the other hand felt so simplistic. You have the 4 face buttons for different attacks and that's about it. Each character does have some special moves but when you browse the move list it is again shocking how short it is. On top of this the fighting doesn't really flow. I found myself unable to string together useful combos, with the fighting style feeling slow, sluggish and disjointed. If you can get past all these things the game is playable. It's not intrinsically broken or a real drag to play. It's just not very good.