The King Of Fighters XII

Due to the time the developers took to make the sprites, there are 20 playable characters , with an extra two added to the console versions. As it happened with The King of Fighters '98 and The King of Fighters 2002, the game does not contain a storyline, allowing the return of several characters depending on their status in the series. With the exception of the Hero Team from The King of Fighters 2003 and the debut of Raiden from Fatal Fury in the series, the character roster is composed primarily of characters from early KOF games prior to the NESTS storyline, with the majority of them reverting to their classic KOF and pre-KOF designs and move set as the SNK staff wanted to return to the original concept from The King of Fighters series. Raiden, however, was initially meant to appear as his unmasked persona from Fatal Fury 2, "Big Bear"; in order to add more villains to the game, the SNK staff decided to use his Raiden persona, which was one of the sub-bosses from the first Fatal Fury.KOF XII does not feature any of the pre-defined teams traditionally featured in the series, despite presence of members from recurring teams such as the original Japan Team and the Fatal Fury Team. The home versions feature two additional characters: Mature, one of Iori Yagami's teammates from The King of Fighters '96, and Elisabeth Branctorche, who starred in KOF XI as the leader of the Rivals Team. The SNK staff decided to create the new graphics during 2005 and 2006, and commented that they spent more than three times longer developing it than the previous game. A location test was scheduled in April, but it was canceled since SNK was looking at games made by other companies. Producer Masaaki Kukino informed Kotaku that the game is one hundred percent hand drawn, there being zero cel shading in the game. The renewals for the sprites were made due to negative reaction from the remake of The King of Fighters '94; the staff came to the conclusion that they had to make new sprites instead of basing them on old versions as they used to make in previous games. Due to the time it took to make the new designs, the game will not continue the storyline from the previous games.