KOF XII – Jaw-dropping awesomeness and a glimpse into the minds of gamer expectation and progress
Okay, so fresh off Kotaku is the news that King of Fighters XII is fully hand drawn. Every single frame of animation, every background, and every detail is 100% by hand. Can you freaking believe that? Holy crap, not even Street Fighter 3: Third strike had that kind of effort!
When SNK showed off The King of Fighters XII at arcade show AOU in Japan and industry event GDC in San Francisco, the unanimous reply was: Nice cell shading. That, or it’s “just” hi-res 2D. Thing is, that’s totally incorrect. And for SNK, who’s been working on the game for the past three years, frustrating!
Most companies don’t do it because it is prohibitively expensive in regards to time. Take a look at this quote:
In one day, one artist would be able to draw one frame and a half for whatever image he or she was working on.
A simple attack – a punch or kick – probably has about 30-40 frames of animation, more if they want extreme fluidity and a pleasing or stylistic appearance. In short, think of just how awesome a scale they must have set for themselves to get this project off the ground. Their roster is something like 32 characters, each with unique attacks and special moves! In other words, HOLY CRAP!
My first thought to this, though – aside from the sheer jaw-dropping goodness that i see in this – is that Gamers take alot of this stuff for granted, either by means of “oh well cool – they should be pushing the bar” or by making this new awesomeness they’re experiencing the standard to measure everything. Either way, the 15 minutes of “oh how freaking AWESOME this is!” disappears in a puff of expectation and progress. Look at Halo, Half-life, or Metal Gear Solid to see how this works. Its amazing to experience the next level of gaming and detail, but its sobering to realize that said experience comes with a price – namely, in setting the bar, you become the bar.
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