Want more SNK goodness? Crack shoot over to my Fatal Fury Retrospective - kzfaq.info/get/bejne/r6-moqiY06uueqM.html

Been a hot minute since we've had a, "Yeah, That Makes Sense" moment. Glad to see that running gag still got some life in it.

It's unfortunate that XII had to be the beta test for the much better XIII. Imagine if they actually went through the plans of actually having XII be the finale of Tales of Ash and then XIII be the Dream Match. How different would that be? Also, Oda-san, produccer of KOF XV said that he'd love to do a Garou 2 before he retires. So the chance is there!

As a hardcore SNK fan, I bought the KOF 12 on 360 on day 1, then sold it the next day, a true story.

I cant be the only thinking that the painstaking 3d to pixel process probably led to Mai being left out.

XIII was like a phoenix rising from the ashes of XII but it took a lot of time for us to notice it's mark. I'm really happy SNK continues to make awesome games.

I'm so glad KOF XV is off to such a good start and that KOF XIII has gotten the appreciation and playerbase that it deserves even if it took a few years!

Another great video. The more tragic irony for me regarding KOFXII is that it and KOFXIII still have some of the most lavish and beatiful sprite art I have seen in a 2D fighting game in the HD era... while in the process demonstrating why creating a fighting game with sprite art of that caliber is just not really feasible and why so many classic fighting game franchises have opted for polygonal models instead. On a tangential note, nice joke there with the "algorithh synergy" considering the recent KOFXV launch.

I used to work at a game store about a decade ago, and this game would always be playing on one of the monitors we had set up around the store. Didn't know squat about KOF back then, but this good friend of mine that worked with me was the one to tell me how much XII sucked. He hated it so much lol. He had KOF XI set up on another screen, and we used to play that like crazy whenever we had any down time since he said that was a WAY better game. That's what really got me into KOF. So in a way, I guess this crummy game helped bring me and my love of KOF together in a way.

I remember reading an article that covered the process of creating the sprite asset’s (characters, stages, etc.) for XII & XIII, and while it was awesome to see the results, it would’ve made any level-headed producer turn pale with the time it would take to create a single fighter. I’m happy that KOF XV has made the successful jump to 3D and the series will be in a good state going forward, but I’m bummed that the gorgeous XIII never had the chance to be a success story with how XII turned out.

Would love to see a What Happened for Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective. Not because it was a bad game, in fact it was a critical success, being created by many of the same genius creative minds behind the original ace attorney trilogy. However, because the marketing for it was so nonexistent, it commercially flopped.

17:09 It's back baby, it's back

I remember buying KOF XII and thinking "wow, this is a cool demo, can't wait to see how the full game turns out!"

"Deleted Ash Crimson from Reality" Verse: *Uno Reverse Card*

[Matt McSkullman:I thought you were dead.] [Ash Crimson:My death was greatly exaggerated.]

With all the flaws that KOFXII has, I hated how people chose to criticize the 2D visuals calling them "outdated" and "low-res" compared to SFIV. I think SFIV's 3D models have aged poorly compared to the beautiful 2D sprites of XII and XIII.

Would love to see an episode about No One Lives Forever 1 & 2, and, more specifically, the issues with them getting re-released

I’m hoping there’s a Skullgirls episode somewhere in the pipe, though I can understand holding off until we’re absolutely sure when it’s done or stable.

I always thought it was weird how KOF 12 was a 'dream match' when we had clues of something going on. Iori was missing his flame attacks after the events of KOF 11 and Mature somehow returned to life missing an eye. There were hints of a story but I guess time ran out.

Damn, that 98 intro rap still slaps till today!

That Teams 'boop' scared the shit outta me. Immediately looked at my work laptop to see why I was needed on a Saturday. I thought Kansas was exploding. Don't do that to me, Mr. Musclebones

No way. That was unexpected, you should also talked about kof 2001, they had a lot of problems.

17:10 has certainly aged well

Now we're reaching some gaps on my knowledge. I know who Terry and Mai are, and that's enough for me, so when Mai isn't even in a title, then what's the point?!

KOF 12 may have been a dud, but the merchandise it had was one of the few things It had going for it. To this day, I still use the KOF 12 black mousepad I got from eBay many years ago.

Literally was just checking to see if there was a new What Happened a minute ago, then this pops up. Nice!

We'll never get the beauty of Kim's pants animation again.

Another fantastic episode! Hope one day you'll tackle the Resident Evil : Welcome To Raccoon City movie! Thanks for all your awesome work, Matt.

“Burn Knuckled out of the company’s windows” made me laugh out loud

3:26 Me: (Sees Adelheid) “PLEASE BRING MY BOY BACK IN KOF XV SNK!” “I WILL GIVE YOU MY MONEY!”

Shame it all turned out like it did, really. Every frame of this game is a work of art.

Mai's sprite's idle animation in kof13 is still mesmerizing to this day.

One of the most keening disappointments I've ever experienced. I've always had a tendency to want a root for SNK, I guess because I always root for the underdog, and while I understand the circumstances for this, it really landed with a thud

Love this art style and how both games looks visually. Would have loved to see SNK do more games in this style. I didn't know it was that much of a pain in the ass to accomplish. I'm a fan of XII and XIII. Excellent video Sir!

When they left out Mai Shiranui from the game, my pubescent heart shrunk like it was dipped in very cold water. She had such a great... personality.

There's a cherry on top when talking about KOF XII's Online, and as someone who really tried to like this game, it's worth pointing out. Ever since launch, SNK knew the playerbase was small, so in order for people to get the online Achivements, they had official bots un ranked matchmaking that only threw 5Ls and were there for you to defeat them easily. You could tell because they were all named like SNKBot_001A or something like this. This COULD'VE been a nice solution, but the main problem was that the bots weren't placed in an emergency queue or an auto trigget if you had waited for 10+ mins. These bots were in the actual player pool. So EVEN if you wanted to play with people, 4/5 times you matched with someone, it was a bot. Sometimes not even 30s had passed and you were already being matched with a bot again. We ran some tests with a friend, searching for ranked matches at the same time, same rank, and out of 10 matches, we only found eachother like 3 times. All the rest were bots.

I enjoyed XII but then again, I’m a huge SNK fanboy. In retrospect, it was pretty obvious this installment was patched together with whatever they had ready in order to recoup some development costs; since the process of rotoscoping 3D sprites was so time intensive. I’m glad SNK is finally finding their footing in the 3D space; while XIV was visually lacking, their work on Samurai Showdown gave them the experience to deliver a much more visually appealing XV. Can’t wait to see what the future holds for KoF and SNK!

I want a new, modern Fatal Fury.

Curious. That “Rotoscoping” technique Matt talked about was one ArkSystemWorks also used for their BLAZE BLUE series! It’s why the Pixel Sprites on that series was so phenomenal, and it built the FOUNDATION for the incredible 3D art style from future Guilty Gear games and DragonBall Fighters Z!!! The more you know……..

Had this for a week after release, and returned it. No Mai Shiranui, No K', No Dice. 😠

Yesterday, I bought KoF XIII for PS3 - it's a great game, a fighting game like it should be, easy to learn and hard to master. And all those spriteworks and animations are simply amazing!

KoF is one of those series I've been meaning to get into for years, but just can't find a good entry point

Thanks for finally taking a look at this. The whole story story of the rise and downfall of SNK in the early 2000s is definitely worth an episode of its own.

As a *BIG* KOF fan i really appreciate that intro and tje video it shows how much you like or at least respect the franchise

Just wanna say I discovered your What Happened series last week and I've been BINGING. Really like the style of humour and information. Great work.

I get that KOFXII was bad for having a small roster and no story whatsoever, but the up close camera combat made all the hits look more impactful, especially with the counter mechanic. Kinda wish KOFXIII kept the same camera. Gotta say after looking at the same sprite style for so long, it was very refreshing to see this game for the first time back in the day.

As soon as you said "to coincide with KOF's 15th anniversary," I realised for the first time just how much of a death knell that is for any game... and then you confirmed that realisation literally the next sentence.

Theme of XII I really like a lot. It is one of the few good things that KOFXII has left us. That theme alone is worth unlocking the entire OST on the KOFXV Jukebox.

I’m really loving the What Happun series. Gives more details on games/ companies we grew up with and loved and the events that led to wherever they are now. And I’m glad KOF broke the curse of ending on a bad note. XV is without a doubt a good game imo, and I hope it continues to be successful! Thanks for the upload! Looking forward to many more!

It's a shame that I just found your channel today. But hey, now there are many videos from you that I can binge watch the next days :D I absolutely love your videos and content! Greetings from Germany

Shit with the bell and everything YT didn't let me know about this video coming out, shame on you YT. Thanks a lot again Mat for another cool documentary.

This video made me decide to get KOF XV this week. I was undecided between getting KoF XV asap or waiting a bit for its price to drop (considering I will "have to" pay more for DLC characters)... but after watching your video, I remembered that time when Mai and King were not even in the game. Having them at launch, plus Mary, Whip, Angel, deserves me recognizing SNK by paying full price. Thanks a lot.

KOF 13 is one of the greatest fighting games of all time, crazy it came out of a what happened-level game. I like 14 and 15 a lot, especially since the execution barrier isn't as high, but 13 has some of the hypest tournament matches of any fighting game, even if they all have Mr. Karate

As a newcomer to the KoF franchise, I’m a bit surprised the mixed reception Ash has as a character. He is currently the only charge character I made the effort to learn since he is so fun to play. Also the green flames are kickass

I appreciate you trying the KoF rap. And this is the one KoF I skipped but got on board with the apologetic sequel

4:55 Damn, I have that Mai Shiranui figure right here beside me!

The knowledge on fighting games you have is incredible. i really loves these videos. thanks Mr. McMuscles i played the earlier titles as a kid but dropped off untill KOFXIII so i had no idea about any of this stuff.

17:10 The monkey paw curls its finger.

Wow thanks Matt, I requested that episode for so long!!

Matt your wha happun series has been the most coherently enjoyable series i have seen in years i would love to see an episode centering around the xbox one it would demonstrate how a disastrous revel and launch couldnt tarnish the hard core xbox fans and how xbox mostly resurrected their brand with a cheaper model and alot of effort in creating more exclusive games. I cant wait for your upcoming episodes from Evan Boosel.

"Now, bring back Fatal Fury!!!" I second that. Both in form of a new FF title and/or a new Garou MotW, or even a combination of both. At least we have Gato and Jenet back to KOF for now!

This roster. What a pittance.

Sixteen months for one character man game designing is something

I'm so excited for Metal Slug Tactics and I'm loving KOF XV

It's crazy to think how far the series has come, especially for the last 4 titles. XII will always hold a soft spot for me, being the game that introduced me to the series (and my favorite character Ash), but I cannot deny what was said - it did feel like a rushed game that offered little compared to other titles at the time, not just in the series. For all its flaws, I do still like XII but I'm glad it lead to better titles like XIII and XV.

I'm not 100% sure this is the right place to put this but I downloaded The Takeover a few days ago and it is siiiiick! Haven't been able to put it down. Great tight gameplay and coming from a person who never skips cinematics, the work is absolutely top notch. Great Job on it!

I like how they follow WWE's example and started giving their newer entry sequel number instead of year cause they knew they couldn't keep up annually anymore. After KOF2003, they went straight to KOFXI, then KOFXII, and so on.

3:44 that’s the artist? Of AWESOME Jojo fanart I have seen?!

XII was an incomplete mess, to say in the least. I'd rather play 2001 over that hot mess. The one time SNK dropped Mai from the roster *DELIBRATELY* they backpedaled on that in the console release. But then again, XI wasn't meant for good boys & girls even in the arcades.

I asked about this game a while back! Thanks for covering it, Matt. :)

I really adore this channel, I can't express you much I love your videos.

Great video man! Love it.

6:00 mark Rotoscope is how DISNEY did their old animation. I mean Walt Disney did his animation. Snow White was rotoscoped in 1937.

I've been watching this show almost 2 years now, and only just this week figured out the intro music's the map screen from sims superstars

Everyone always attributes this style and everything 12 did to 13, but I can't really blame them lmao.

Would've never expected an episode on KOF XII. Today is a good day.

I was watching this while working at home and the Teams notification sound scared the crap outta me

Can you please do a What Happen about X-Men Destiny, Alpha Protocol or even early Fortnite about how it started out as a game about zombie storms and fort bases lol. Seems like some decent topics to talk about.

First really would like to thank you Matt for doing this. There's always some folks who think that this game or XIII bankrupted SNK. So hopefully this one helps corrects some of those misconceptions. So on the arcade side of things, KOF XII was also a failure, actually. It ran on the Taito Type X2 board, which was basically the newest arcade board out there then (so it costs quite a lot). What really didn't help XII was that KOF 2002 UM was also released at the same year, and not too far apart (I recall it was like a few months apart, but Wikipedia says XII was April, and 2002 UM was October). 2002 UM also ran on a much cheaper arcade board that is not the Taito Type X series, it's actually called the Y2 System (wiki.arcadeotaku.com/w/System_Board_Y2 ). So with a much cheaper game, and given how they remade 2002 UM into something that's actually really good and fun, XII's arcade version was essentially ousted from the arcade scene in Asia. IIRC SNK Playmore then did claim that XII and 2002 UM were "targeting different markets" but that definitely wasn't the case, in my experience over in Asia, you can find like 2-3 2002 UM machines that's getting constantly played and one XII cabinet that's basically ignored. Old MMCafe forum posts that I recall, but couldn't find anymore then also did mention that SNK Playmore's reputation took a hit in the Japanese arcade scene because to arcade operators, it felt like a bait and switch - they bought the expensive XII arcade boards but it was overtaken by the much cheaper and more popular 2002 UM. I wish I could find that again, but alas.

KOF XII walked so KOF XIII could run. Or whatever. At least we have XV now. When KOF 94, which looks rough (understandable since it was the first one), looks better than KOF XII, a later game, you know something's wrong.

The one thing I remember KoF by is a random video where Athena salutes at the start of the game then gets drop kicked the next second as her opponent rushes her. The comedic timing was great.

Thanks for this video again, and the last segment also clarify WHY they dropped the gorgeous sprites. I wished everyone watches that so they can stop crying about the loss of pixels. They could not keep making games like that, as 12 and 13 were bludgeoning the company t death. XV looks fine and they will keep sharpening their 3D skills.

3:51 Samuari Shodown Sen, that sounds like another What Happened waiting to happen.

Nailed it with the KoF rap there. When's the Ultimate Match remix?

17:10: THEY BROUGHT BACK FATAL FURY

11:24 Almost gave me a heart attack because I work at home with Teams lmao you caught me slacking

Ash Shall never Die. Viva ma team Red! Ash, Mai and Terry for the fucking win!!!!

When that intro music starts up, I know my day is about to get 10 times better. 👏

As a big SNK fan, thank so much for your coverage on KOF 12 (and 13). These two games are the ones that are usually wrongly praised by people who just only see the pretty graphics, one or two pro matches from eons ago and absurdly hard combo trails and blindly go "BEST KOF GAME EVER" while at the same breath have no clue about the real woes that went on with said games, nor where there to actually experience them firsthand. In reality they sold poorly, had tons of cut content, gutted movesets across the board, terribly dysfunctional online netcode, nearly caused a second SNK bankruptcy and forced them away from the genre for over half a decade. With how they've been outfitting their games since KOF 14, saying how they don't regret letting go of that rotoscope spriting method and toning down the top end execution needed for the games, I'm glad they're back on the up and up and providing fun games within their knowledge and cost limits.

One thing KoFXII had going for it was my all-time favourite trailer music. I edited it to make an extended version and still have it on my playlist!

I watched this at work and the teams notification noise in the video freaked me the hell out lol

thanks for this. I was about to look for KOF 13 nostalgia and I was like, "I don't remember 12"

I recently got KOF '98 for the Switch, and need to get around to playing it. Heard a lot of good things. Still, very nice video as usual

Little did he matt know his fatal fury dreams would come true

Love your stuff. Especially when you do anything by SNK. Unpopular opinion...I like the art and HD update of KOF 94 Re-Bout.

Oh hell yeah Poppy! Been wondering about this game for quite a while, perfect timing!

Bless you matt. My dad is in hospice (a plurality of cancers) and videos like yours are how I turn my brain off and try and get right.

Oh look it's Terry, the character from Smash Ultimate.

I remember before the days of 12 and how everything turns out, its gorgeous looking game but even so the game was soo lacking in content its ridiculous, KOF is my fav 2D fighting game and 12 was the least i had fun, no characters and no content, 13 was an absolute gem and return to form, thankfully now SNK is better then ever with KOF14 & Samurai shodown revival and the hype is insane for KOFXV which is FANTASTIC! can't be happier I've been there since 94 this franchise means a lot to me, so seeing its success and being strong as ever is just great! KOFXV roster is amazing, just need Takuma & Kim back 😂 also i love their marketing for XV!

Great episode!! Always wondered what was up with XII, I had no idea the characters took so long to make... 0_0