The prolific console edition makes its long-awaited debut on PC!

King of Fighters has been my favorite fighting game series for as long as I can remember. I loved going to the arcade, bringing a stool so that I could see the NeoGeo machine and playing my favorite character Terry Bogard. While I haven’t been able to get used to the longer combos and high execution HD combos found in King of Fighters XIII, I have to say that as an adult I’ve found a new appreciation for the series. King of Fighters XIII Steam Edition is the truly definitive version of King of Fighters XIII. The Steam Edition is actually a mixture of the console release version and King of Fighters XIII Climax.

Stream Edition uses the menus from the console release while using the gameplay of Climax. These changes start from things like removing weird counter-hits that shouldn’t happen to removing certain infinites.

I believe that the largest change to happen to this version is actually to the netcode. One of the largest problems plaguing KOF XIII players in small communities or players with no interest other than online was that KOF XIII‘s original netcode didn’t work very well. This caused a lot of players who didn’t have people to play with to end up dropping the game. I was fortunate to have friends who wanted to play in my own city and in Chicago that allowed me to enjoy the game more. While testing the new netcode out of 30 matches I only ended up having a small 1 second lag spike after I had just sent my opponent flying across the screen. This didn’t really bother me as I was used to the original netcode which allowed Shen players to charge his “dash punch” into a full super with no real way of being able to block because the lag, even on 18 mbps, was up to 6 seconds long.I think that this single change will help this game gain a great online following.

The second great change would be the switch to King of Fighters XIII Climax‘s gameplay many bugs were removed in this update and many balance changes were put in place. Professor at MMCafe actually shared some of these changes such as:

“Shen
- Shen will no longer receive a counter hit penalty when he’s hit during his Far C
- Shen will gain some power meter when he bounces off anything stronger than an EX projectile with his Danken(Projectile parry)

Ralf
- Fixed issue where Ralf and Raiden’s positions will change and command has be input in reverse when doing Bareback Vulcan (DM) > MAX Cancel >NEOMAX

Saiki
- Fixed Normal throw so that it no longer raises the opponent’s meters.

Benimaru
- Fixed issue where doing cl.D>HD bypass will make the characters switch position when the opponent is facing back

Billy
- Took out invincibility on HD bypass

Raiden
- Changed damage on short hop & hyper hop C from 72 to 70

Flame Iori
- Fixed issue where MAX canceling too late from normal Maiden Masher wouldn’t target lock the NEOMAX.
- Changed input frames for canceling from Maiden Masher.
- Fixed issue where repeatedly blocking low would display his standing block for a split moment.

Hwa
- Changed cr.B so that it can be HD bypassed.”

Another great feature about KOFXIII:SE is that you have adjustable settings that allow you to play the game on settings that would allow someone with an older system to still play the game. This with the obvious support for controllers and arcade sticks makes for an easy way to enjoy this game both on and offline.

With all these points along with the great Price point of $29.99, including all three DLC EX characters (NESTS Saga Kyo, Power of the Flame Iori, and Mr. Karate) which is a $15 value in itself, the intact and very in depth combat system, and a very helping and caring community surrounding this game. I can’t see a reason on why not at least trying King of Fighters XIII Steam Edition. Many people in my area that had originally dropped the game now enjoy it more with the viable online and with great community members, like James Jr., AGE Romance, the former AGE member Mario, Luis Cha, KaneBlueRiver, Juicebox and many others who support the scene by either making content or sitting down and giving tips to newer players on how to improve, this version gives a breath of new life to a game that I believe deserves to be featured in tournaments for a long time.

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