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Generally favorable reviews - based on 26 Critics What's this?

User Score

Generally favorable reviews- based on 43 Ratings

  • Summary: With a roster featuring over 30 hand-drawn fighters, a number of detailed stages bursting with life, over a half dozen play modes, a refined fighting engine built for speed and complete with new moves and supers, a vastly improved Online mode, and a host of other additions, tweaks, and enhancements, THE KING OF FIGHTERS XIII represents a rebirth for one of gaming's longest tenured franchises and one of the most popular fighting brands ever. Expand
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 20 out of 26
  2. Negative: 0 out of 26
  1. Dec 2, 2011
    92
    King of Fighters XIII is clearly SNK Playmore's attempt to make good on the disappointing KoF XII and succeeds wonderfully. The offline modes are plentiful and fun, while online is actually handled pretty well. It's lean on bells and whistles but delivers a pretty smooth experience.
  2. Nov 30, 2011
    85
    The King of Fighters XIII has multiple offline modes, balanced mechanics, improved online system and all that one KOF must have. It's a great fighting game, not for everyone, but good contender for Blazblue and Super Street Fighter IV.
  3. Jan 12, 2012
    85
    Playing KoF XIII is the closest thing to "work" I have felt here at TPS. I wasn't good and I had to earn every bit of ground I gained. Just know that you won't get your hand held by the game or its players, you'll get it broken.
  4. Feb 6, 2012
    70
    While many, many improvements have been made over its predecessor, The King of Fighters XIII is not without its faults. One of the biggest requests from fans was that of better netcode. The King of Fighters XII was known for its downright terrible and horrendous lag. SNK has stated multiple times that XIII will feature a better online experience but I can't say they've made good on that promise. While input latency has definitely been cut down, it is still quite noticeable.

See all 26 Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 10 out of 12
  2. Negative: 0 out of 12
  1. King of Fighters XIII is probably the best 2d fighting experience you can have in the current generation, and one of the best 2d fighters ever created. Not only has the overall package been extremely improved in both quantity and quality, with tons of modes, new characters, beautiful stages that will remind you of the best SNK games on NeoGeo, new systems that actually add a lot of depth to the game (drive cancel, extra versions of special and desperation moves, and many other things) but the game has also a good netcode that, so far, hasn't let me down a single time. KoF13 has already been a favorite in the competitive scene for some time, and it's likely to gather a decent following in order to build a sizeable community in the future. The 4 CD soundtrack provided by Atlus USA surely helps to improve the value of an already exceptional game. Expand
  2. 10
    while i was burned by kof12's lack of contents and poor online, i must say that kof13 is really different, to the point of being completely different both regarding gameplay and available modes. if kof12 had practically nothing aside from arcade, versus and practice, here we have a great story mode with multiple paths, a nice arcade mode with dialogues between matches, versus, time attack, survival, tutorial, training, missions, a great color edit mode and a competent online mode that is surely on par with most other beat'em ups.

    the new features, like special versions of moves and supers are also welcome additions, and i think anyone remotely interest in this genre should buy this gem asap
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  3. The king of fighters was always a well known and beloved fighting series, starting in 1994. As an snk fan since long forgotten times, these series always had a special place in my fighting spirit. And saying that kof XIII is a bad game is to fail to understand these beloved series.
    Kof XIII is a big inprovement over kof XII, the fighting system is well tweaked and the characters animations and stages look AMAZING!
    the story mode is easy to follow to who really follow the story from previous kof, leaving the new and not-so-interested players a little confused whith all the fuss around the characters, but its a great addition no doubt about it! To those saying this game has cheap bosses, please, tell me that the other fighting games dont have them! if you do... well god help your ability of judgement!

    the online is still a little laggy, but who can say better from all the other online fighters? its a common headache for all, some a little better, some way worse.

    Whith a ton of addictions, the great new stages, a pile of new characters, new and improved (and fun) playability, kof is an excellent choice to al the kof fans and the pixel punching fans in general!

    I give it an 8, the same i give to ssf4, has the same online issues and we have to understand its 2 very different games, the choice is up to you and your taste!
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  4. Finally a finished game. This game is leagues better then XII and has finally added lots of content in SP. The sprites are gorgeous and the game is finally reminiscent of kof98 glory days.Nice balance of character diversity for defensive, grapple, rushdown play styles and no comback mechanics, kofXIII finally heading in right direction. Plus it has 1v1 and 3v3 battles, nice mix. But unless you live in a areas with tournies this game is a huge let down. The online is still below par and it's even worst then Marvel vs capcom 3 and that game has spotty online, face it fighting games are meant to be played with other people. Empty promises by the company to fix the online netcode was met when they announced they'd use the same GSS system as XII. The best thing right now is atlus have started a discussion on their forums of people interested in a patch. Atlus gave us nice bonuses like the 4CD soundtrack and glad they are considering doing online patch if fans want it. Funny how the publisher cares more about fans then the actual developers. But as is right now better off waiting for price drop if it's only SP focused. KOFXIII while improved still has a long way to go to play with the big boys in fighting genre. Doesn't help 2D sprite games like arcana hearts 3 and blazblue have perfected netcode and skullgirls is pulling all punches with ggop, kofXIII is pretty disappointing. KOFXIII could have really benefit from ggop like netcode due to having 1 frame links. Expand

See all 12 User Reviews