Exactly, there is generally nothing wrong with the new style they got going. A lot of you guys never played RBFF or AoF, they had big sprites like these. It looks good and a nice change of pace.
The real concerns should be directed at the gameplay. The clash system and the overall slower speed of the matches. With some reworking it should be good to go for release. I liked the critical wires that made you bounce against the wall. They were entertaining and didnt feel out of place.
Don’t forget about that Alpha also had different frames, so as SFIV will have different frames too.
We know it has less frames then SF3, since SNK confirmed they kept the frame rate. It’s a fact, not an opinion about which game looks better.
That’s a really stupid comment.
The AoF series has large sprites, yes, but those are well proportioned in relation to each other. Real Bout Special/2 Krauser and especially Franco are admittedly drawn in a cartoonishly exaggerated way, but at least those two are canonically SUPPOSED to tower over most of the cast, whereas Ralf is only moderately taller and heavier than the average KOF/FF/AoF male. Even AoF2 Yuri-Jack and RBS Mary-Franco are far closer in size than XII Ralf-Athena.
My main gripe with the style, size and proportions of the sprites is that some of them do not, IMO, look like they belong in the same game - less so than in Mugen but more so than in CvS2. Aside from the aforementioned Ralf, Terry, Andy, Ryo, Robert and Kim resemble AoF sprites (BTW, the zooming and much of the action remind me of AoF, which, in my book, is not a good thing), while Athena and Leona are simply too small and unassuming. Ash is practically a caricature of himself.
The frame COUNT is about the same for each character as it has been in more recent iterations of the game (Kyo’s jab is X amount of frames, his standing heavy kick is x amount of frames, and so on), but the amount of STILL frames where the previous frame (a still shot of Kyo kicking) would show for multiple frames in the move animation has been lowered and replaced with added inbetween (actual movement) frames where there is constant motion instead of a still limb.
You can see this clearly just by watching, I shit you not. Characters NEVER moved that smoothly, that consistently (IE post-nationalist-Korea-Kim’s flowy pants versus all the rest of his animation) in a previous KOF, that’s because there are more inbetween frames of animation in everything now. What they meant to say when they said they were keeping the “frame rate” of the characters is that they wanted to keep the feel of each character so moves neither lost frame count (appear faster), nor gained frame count (appear slower). Of course, none of this changes the fact that the game ANIMATES far, FAR more smoothly.
In contrast, SF3 didn’t just add inbetween motion to the returning characters (lol shotos), they added MORE frames, or otherwise changed the amount of frames each move consisted of, which changed the way they played and felt.
EDIT: TLDR version below lol.
tazar, they’re talking about the move frames (think frame data). the animation frames haven’t taken any kind of hit due to them basing moves on old frame data.
EDIT: beaten to it
Let them just finish polishing the game, people.
Okay, I think I get what you mean. If it’s really like that, then I was wrong, sorry.
lets let them finish the game first.
If SNK says Ralf is taller and heavier than most of the cast then he is, and IIRC in last KoF ending he was shown with OMGWTF hands. Also, Athena is a school girl with some magic powers, why the hell she should look buff? Leona has orochi blood, she also doesn`t have to be buff or anything. And whole point of Ash is that he looks like a gay, fights like a *** and beats the crap out of you.
And whats wrong with zooming?
Leona’s a soldier who doesn’t give a hoot about social stigmas and stuff…of all the females, she should be the most buff…
Honestly, to be rolling with beefcakes like Ralf and Raiden, all the ladies should really be more muscular than they’re always depicted…but, that’s not going to happen.
Well with the case of Ralf, his official stats are 6’3" and 248 lbs. his previous sprite reflected these stats accurately. His new sprite, on the other hand, looks to be about 6’3" and at least 350 lbs. So officially he’s not supposed to be that massive, unless he indeed found Cartman’s stash of Weight Gain 4000 and gained 100 lbs since KoFXI.
Sure, you could say they’re going for a style change, using more Fatal Fury/Real Bout style exagegrated proportions (e.g. Raiden is 6’7", but in Fatal Fury 1 he looked like he was 8 or 9 feet tall - BTW, Raiden looks about right in XII), but this would be a departure from previous KoFs that had sprites roughly accurate to their official stats, so to see this sudden departure now is very jarring. Ralf is by far the worse offender, but it applies to Terry and Ryo as well, to a lesser extent.
As for why we’re talking about this, well, it’s not as though most of us have actually played the game, plus the gameplay can always be smoothed out (them multiple clashes look sloppy, so that will probably be fixed). The look of the sprites is pretty much set though, so there will probably be discussion/bitching until we get used to it and/or more gameplay info becomes available.
Definitely digging the look. Also, there’s no super flash, which is MAD dope. Everything flows so much better that way.
I mean… Ralf is big… but his previous sprite didn’t look anything like 248 IMO
I honestly like this look better; i’m also pretty fine with Ryo going back to ugly pseudo mullet man
:tup:
As of XI, Ralf is 188 cm. As a reference, that makes him no more than 7 cm (3 inches) taller than Kyo (181 cm). His weight, however, is 110 kg (some 250 lbs.), which does indeed indicate an impressive build - but surely not to that (Daimon-esque) extent. (Shen Woo is the same height and only 13 kg lighter - compare their sprites…)
KOF XI Athena is 163 cm (5’3"), 49 kg (110 lbs.) - not “buff” by any stretch, but consider that the very toned Blue Mary is the same weight, despite being 5 cm taller. Granted, XII Athena is supposed to resemble her shorter, stockier Athena/Psycho Soldier/SvC/NGBC version more closely, but if so, they might as well have gone all the way with the bikini and the sword… this is IMO the worst of both worlds.
Leona, now, is 176 cm, 66 kg (~ 5’9", 135 lbs.) - a mere 3 cm and 9 kg shy of Ryo! Besides, she is a melee fighter in the military, which implies some degree of physical fitness. More importantly, the focal point of her character is that she rejects her Orochi heritage and the superhuman strength it would provide her with were she to give in - she even has a win pose where she states this! In other words, she needs to be larger than her XII sprite suggests.
Finally, Ash. In short, his stats are comparable to K’'s = wiry, but not XI ending art skin-and-bones.
As for zooming, it may be necessary for games with large playing fields (Arcana Heart, for instance), but the effect itself is IMO unsightly and annoying. KOF does not contain screen-climbing Aerial Raves or trap moves that cover significant portions of the screen, and so there is no need for the fighters to vacillate between tiny and huge (exaggeration, perhaps). For some obscure reason, NGBC uses zooming as well, despite having relatively small sprites.
Oh, and AoF gameplay is the pits. Sixteen years of intermittent AoF experience say so. 
Game looks great, Gameplay still seem like KoF…
I’m pissed cause the devs thought “Retro” would be a good thing to do with KOF.
Old Terry
Old Andy
Old Beni
Old Kyo
etc.
I was hoping for an “Orochi Saga Feeling” game with XI’s moveslist. :sad:
Ok, seriously. Is Ralf being built like a tank REALLY going to turn someone off of this game? Is Athena not being buff? Is Terry looking like a trucker instead of a drunk from a bar?
I highly, highly doubt it, and the people that do get pissed probably shouldn’t play the game anyway.
why is it unreasonable that said characters gain/lost the wait from their previous years?
ralf went to war, obviously
no one is really off in terms of height
all i see is QQ
The people that get pissed should be playing RPGs.
Who gives a damn about sprite proportions? The game is going to bomb if it plays like ass… God help us if Mai makes it into this game, there is going to be threads arguing about virtual titties and what it should and shouldn’t be like…
Fanboy 1: The bounce is unrealistic! Look at exhibit A!
Fanboy 2: I disagree, old chap. As you can see with the velocity = (titty) x 2 to the pi exponent of the gravitational d cup factor, I’ve calculated that the bounce corresponds to the movement of the aerola.
Focus on the Game mechanics people, game mechanics…
Mycah: Old orochi style? You mean blue shift and tagging? As awesome as that be, its a general consenus that the a majority of the community hated XI. Its a shame too… I guess they all agreed: Gato top tier? This does not relate to the storyline at all! HATE HATE HATE!