The King of Fighters XI
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| The King of Fighters XI | |
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 Promotional arcade poster for The King of Fighters XI. |
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| Developer(s) | SNK Playmore |
| Publisher(s) | Sega (AW) / SNK Playmore (PS2) |
| Platform(s) | Arcade, PlayStation 2 |
| Release date | AW:  October 26, 2005
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| Genre(s) | Gaming crossovers/Versus fighting |
| Mode(s) | Team Battle, One-On-One; Up to 2 players simultaneously |
| Input methods | 8-way Joystick, 5 Buttons |
| Cabinet | Upright |
| Arcade system | Atomiswave |
The King of Fighters XI (KOF XI) is the latest installment of The King of Fighters series. The game continues the story of The King of Fighters 2003. The numerical distinction for the series now is based primarily on SNK Playmore wanting to avoid being locked into a rigorous yearly schedule of releases. A North American version was released on the Playstation 2 on November 13, 2007, as stated on the SNK Playmore USA official site.
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[edit] Storyline
Mukai, a member of a mysterious group, stole the Orochi seal in the last tournament and broke it, causing confustion and destruction to happen from within sight. Taking advantage of the situation at hand, Ash stole the Yata Mirror from Chizuru and drained her powers in the process. In the advent of a new KOF tournament, new faces are handed invitations, while old faces, such as Eiji Kisaragi, return to the ring. Among the new KOF participants are Oswald, Duck King (a South Town veteran fighter himself), Momoko, and Elisabeth. All these fighters will find themselves in a tournament full of mysteries and secrets started by motives that they’d ignored. Behind this healthy competitive tournament hides a hidden force called "People from the Past" with a mysterious goal.
[edit] Game mechanics
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Aside from the already known gameplay maneuvers that add much depth to the gameplay, Runs, Rolls, Short Jumps, Guard Cancel CDs and Rolls, Empty Cancels, and the returning Quick Emergency Roll, the four largest innovations KOF XI brings to the franchise are the Quick Shift, the Saving Shift, the Skill Bar and the Dream Cancels (which are similar to Snapbacks in Marvel vs Capcom 2).
The Skill Stocks significantly complicate the gameplay of KOF. The Power Stocks that existed previously are still present, and are filled in the usual fashion. Nevertheless, there are now Skill Stocks as well, which gradually build up over time. Each team begins a match holding the maximum of two Skill Stocks. Offensive maneuvers, such as Desperation Moves, Guard Cancels, and Tag Attacks, continue to use Power Stocks. However, more defensive or tactical maneuvers, such as Guard Evasion, Saving Shift, and Quick Shift, use Skill Stocks.
KOF XI utilizes the Tactical Shift System from KOF 2003, but makes very important changes. The Quick Shift allows you to change into another character in the middle of any combo, prolonging it, or in the middle of any attack, no matter if it was blocked or not, canceling the frames of animation of the attack, if it's needed. The Saving Shift allows the player to take out a character when he is being hit as soon as he is hit, or in any moment, at the cost of both skill bars. This effectively cuts many combos that otherwise would do a lot of damage, eliminates the possibility of infinites by repeating chains of attacks on the ground (excluding aerial juggles) and brings an element of balance to the game. While it is possible to escape from any combination of attacks on the ground, it is not possible to use Saving Shift to get out from a Desperation or Leader Desperation move.
The last new feature of KOF XI is the Dream Cancel. Like the Super Cancel that first appeared in KOF '99, Dream Cancel allows players to use stocks to interrupt a move in the midst of its execution with a more powerful move, allowing devastating combos; however, the Dream Cancel is more deadly than ever, allowing a DM to be canceled into an LDM, at the expensive price of two Power Stocks and one Skill Stock.
Should the timer run down in a match, the winner is no longer decided based upon who has the most life remaining. Instead, the judgment bar, a new bar of circular shape composed of two colors, each one representing one player (red or blue, which are the colors displayed in the portraits of the characters of each side) acts as a quantifier of the skill of each player. Whichever player has the judgment bar towards his or her side will be the victor if none of the teams win defeating all three characters from the opposite team; rarely, if the bar is exactly in the center, the match will end in a draw and both sides will lose. The bar is affected by each attack that the players get in, combos affect progressively more, and when a character of the opposing team is defeated, the bar suffers a big change against that player. This makes taking care of keeping one's characters alive pretty important, giving strategy to the tags system.
[edit] Characters
The character roster for the game receives a major shake-up, with no returning team remaining unaltered from the previous year, and with five long-time regular characters (Chang Koehan, Joe Higashi, Mai Shiranui, Leona Heidern & Robert Garcia) absent.
However, Eiji Kisaragi returns after a long absence. Also, Robert and Mai, as PS2 only characters, appear on the roster in their Neo Geo Battle Coliseum versions albeit with some minor changes so to fit into the game.
[edit] Teams
- Hero Team
- Fatal Fury Team
- Rival Team
- Ikari Team
- Agent Team
- K' Team
- Anti-Kyokugen Ryu Team
- Kyo & Iori Team
- Art of Fighting Team
- Garou MOW Team
- Psycho Soldier Team
[edit] Bosses
[edit] Mid-Boss Fighters
- Gai Tendo: The Main Hero from Buriki-One.
- Sho Hayate: The Main Hero from Savage Reign/Kizuna Encounter.
Jyazu: The Final Boss from Kizuna Encounter.
Silber: The Final Boss from Buriki-One.- Adelheid Bernstein: The Bad Ending Boss from KOF 2003 and Rugal Bernstein's son.
[edit] Sub-Boss
Shion: An assistant of Magaki skilled in the use of martial arts and weapons, particularly a long spear and Flying Dart.
[edit] Main Boss
- Magaki: The final Boss of the game and a Herald of Orochi.
[edit] PlayStation 2 exclusive characters
- Mai Shiranui (Fatal Fury)
Robert Garcia (Art of Fighting)
Geese Howard (Fatal Fury)- Tung Fu Rue (Fatal Fury)
- Mr. Big (Art of Fighting)
- Hotaru Futaba (Garou: Mark of the Wolves)
- EX Kyo Kusanagi (KOF: NESTS Saga)
[edit] PAL version bugs
The PAL version has several notable bugs when played in 50Hz mode.
- The game exhibits frequent slowdowns.
- Like with many PAL games, the game features black bars at the top and bottom of the screen. However, the bottom bar is blue instead of black.
- Many stages have severe graphics corruption.
- After the end credits, a black screen is shown. If the player presses X, a selection sound can be heard, and the Game Over screen is shown.
[edit] External links
- The King of Fighters XI at the official Japanese website of SNK Playmore
- The King of Fighters XI Official European website of Ignition Entertainment.
- The King of Fighters XI Press release announcing the official North American release
- SNK NeoGeo USA Consumer Message Board features KOF board
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