The King of Fighters

S
K', Iori, Mature, Kyo

A+
Elizabeth, Kula, Maxima, Andy

A
Shen, Robert, Yuri, Takuma, Benimaru, Raiden, Ash

B
Daimon, King, Duo Lon, Ryo, Vice, Clark, Kim, Chin, Hwa, Mai, Leona, Kensou, Athena, Terry

C
Ralf, Joe

in un certo senso meno male che è provvisoria anche perchè tutti MID mi pare strano

B:10,no make that more 5 years....14 is stiil more young..
K:What?What are you Talking about?You Talking about me?
B:Man,Iwould like to meet you 5 years after.That will be so much better
K:Better?How Come?What happend after 5 Years?Come on tell me

l'Utente non ha messo l'ultima frase in quanto Benimaru dice una porcata o qualcosa del genere

Not exactly a precise translation, since you folks know already I'm an unbalanced indivual, hyo hyo. I also don't like words per words translations, unless it's for an opera or something. I didn't include some small details because they didn't interested me enough.

There is also the chance that I got some things backwards since I'm special


The answers come from Yamaguchi, the art producer of the game.

- What is the concept of "alternative character" (裏カラー)?

Alternative characters are in KoF XIII as part of some "gameplay elements" that I have been trying to include since long and is there only for fun, even though it was something a little unreasonable, I'm happy to say that it actually ended up being done quite satisfactory.

- How was this done?

The team responsible for the dotting are of the characters was more or less instructed to create several dot seccion areas for the characters, and the characters where more or less constructed by "leaving out" the color from the dot areas that don't belong to what you selected at that given time. This type of effect can also be reflected on the Special KO animations from Yuri and King

- And the idea behind the alternative color?

This idea has been in consideration since long ago. Initially we would have been happy only with Big Bear and Mr Karate. Eventually thoughts about Yuri's lost ponytail struck us and then a lot of another ideas started popping out. It was certainly a lot of work to achieve in so very little time, and it added a lot of work hour to the designers, that pretty much shows how we had a tight schedule until the end (har har)

- How was the fan reaction to this feature?

This little feature was pretty much thought of thanks to the fan reaction. When fans selected Joe or Ralf 10th colors at the location test I wanted to gather input, but having thought a 10th special color for these two very low usage characters was quite a miscalculation (har har)
During the Shinjuku location test several players where using Ralf in his carno pants, and when Joe's tiger pant where discovered, they started to show up all over the place.
At time time, the main producer was working like crazy in the reported bugs and testing the sturdiness of the game and increasing the programmers work hour at that time would have been difficult, as that the main producer Kikuno told me how the those 10th colors input was pretty much interesting, and that if I wanted to add more work to the team on that then it would be entirely my call. Yamaguchi being not a programmer but a producer, agreed instantly.

- Working as the producer may have been quite stressing... Any thoughts on the alternative colors?

Andy -> "That's definitely a ninja", it was carefully thought with darker palettes and a better variation of colors.
Joe -> "Just... What's with that color?" we wanted to give that expression

- One animal is creeping out in Osaka, lovely isn't it?

Raiden -> Big bear is it. During development there it was an argument over black basic colors or blue basic colors for this character, we had to go back to fatal fury 2 to check that one out.

- We can't possible overlook our main masked fighter

Takuma -> Mr Karate. Mr Karate and Big Bear where decided from the start since they are different set of characters. In order to achieve the frightening feeling of the color of a Tengu we choose really different colors for this one.

Ralf : This camouflage patter game much more problems than what I originally thought, since the start this color was decided due to some amazing illustrations that Eisuke Ogura showed to us and right away we thought "that's cool".

- Desert partern camouflage If doing camouflage in hight def can be a pretty mean handy work compared to coloring him grey, that's what I honestly believe.

Yuri -> Her new hair cut was well liked, but in development many people made an statement on how it was missing and thus some different mindsets where created with like and dislike. We worked on including all of the 4 original AoF 2 color palettes.
K' -> Modifications made for him to be a masterpiece by the producer, that's what we thought when we saw him. His 10th color is an tribute to a popular card game. (Toxico -> so it's not a windows reference )

- Lastly a thank you.

As a developer, I expect that those 10 extra colors will turn characters into "unexpected" feeling. Extra coloring these 7 characters was quite fun... Now working on the other 24 on the other hand would be... (laughs)

- A big thank you for Yamaguchi, certainly I think that everyone thanks him for his work as well.

Yamaguchi: .... (laughs)

For those 10 colors we really wanted fans to "explore". Next update will be about the stages.

Teamups with a special illustration after the credits
Already discovered:
Ash Kyo K'
Athena Yuri Kula
Elisabeth Mai King
Ash Duolong Shen

Not yet on Net:
Benimaru Robert Andy (Sub hero team)
Hwa Chin King (Booze team)
Goro Raiden Maxima (Giant men team)


Changing the stage music
In the beginning of the match, hold on the start button until the fight begins. The music will change to the opponent team's theme from KOFXI. Exceptions are Kim's team (KOF96 theme) and Female team (KOF2003 theme).


Last boss path
Score determines whether there's a boss battle after the 6th match during single player mode. Get over 2.5 mil points.

The mook doesn't have Adel. There are however, flat, Rumblefish-like sprites of two unused characters (same way we saw Rumblefish-style sprites for everyone from XII in the Encyclopedia), both really cool.

One is a Yagami-team member that has a Vice-esque stance (her other stance) and haircut. He looks kind like K9999 dressed in a long suit (not him, though - he has a "Yakuza crossed with a J-Rocker" feel) and the other is a Magaki/Saiki-looking boss in a wedding-gown-like outfit. They're both very angular, pure Nona. Lots of personality.

This adds up to five characters that got into early spriting that got scrapped.

The original version of Kula has a flatter chest, sharper angles and her hair is bulkier/cuter. From waist up looks definetly better than what we got. Legs are exactly the same, though. Mai looks more agressive (sharper angles, asian eyes, same pose but leaning more to the enemy), and you see more of her breasts. She looks like she means business, not friendly like the final version.