| The King of Fighters XII | Stories | Move List | Gallery | Soundtrack | Achievements | Credits |
General Trivia[]
- This is the only KOF mainline game to not have Mid-Boss, Sub-Boss and Final Boss, and the only without team formations, despite the 3-on-3 game system.
- This is the only mainline KOF entry with an English dub. An English dub was planned for The King of Fighters XIII, but was cut due to perceived negative feedback. A side-scrolling danmaku game, KOF Sky Stage, has full English voice acting, and is currently the last game in the KOF series to have such.
- This is the very first game in the series to have the announcer not simply say "winner" after an opponent has been K.O.'d. Instead, it has been reverted to the more traditional "You Win" and "You Lose" messages from Capcom's Street Fighter series. This message has also been used in the previous game.
- For 2-player matches, the game would say "P-1 Win" and "P-2 Win", depending on which player wins the round. In The King of Fighters XIV, these two messages would be replaced by "Player 1 Wins" and "Player 2 Wins", respectively.
Similarities to Other Games[]
- This game and The King of Fighters XIII are currently the only mainline KOF titles that utilizes 2D Dot Graphics.
- This game and The King of Fighters 2002 Unlimited Match are the only games with the logo commemorating the series' 15th anniversary (completed in 2009, the year both games were released).
- This game, along with The King of Fighters '98 (and his updated version), The King of Fighters 2003, The King of Fighters XI, The King of Fighters XIII and The King of Fighters XV, are the only games of the series in which the character BGM plays after the round announce.
- This game, The King of Fighters 2003 and The King of Fighters XI are the only games of the series without a color screen after defeating the last member of the opposing team. This feature comes back in KOF XIII.
- This game and The King of Fighters XI are currently the only mainline KOF titles that haven't been re-released on modern platforms in any capacity.
Unused Content[]
- Early sprites shows many differences from the final game:
- Ash's default stance was based off his stance in both The King of Fighters 2003 and The King of Fighters XI rather than his new stance made for KOF XII onwards.
- Kim was originally going to have an entirely new default stance, rather than his updated stance that he has had since The King of Fighters 2002.
- Ralf and Clark were originally going to appear in their KOF XI outfits.
- Leona was originally going to appear in her original outfit she wore from KOF '96 to KOF 2003.
- Ryo was originally going to be based on his Mr. Karate II persona, having his stance and a similar design. This was changed to his original design from the first Art of Fighting in the final game.
- Athena's design, while still based on her sailor outfit she wore in Psycho Soldier, was originally not as "moe" as her final design.
- Iori's default stance originally had his right arm hang down in front of him.
- Elisabeth's had a different default stance than her final design, and was planned to appear in her KOF XI outfit.
- There were also plans of three new characters, although it is not known if they were planned to be playable or NPCs.
- Unused content on the game disc files suggests that Vice, Hwa Jai, Takuma Sakazaki, Mai Shiranui, King, Yuri Sakazaki, Billy Kane, K', Oswald, Classic Iori, and an unknown Boss character were all planned to be playable, but were cut out for unknown reasons. Additionally, there are an additional 7 empty slots on the disc, althought it is not known if there were plans to include more characters along with the 11 scrapped characters.
- Artworks of Mai Shiranui and K' can be found in the official site, implying that they were planned to appear in KOF XII.
- There were also plans to have Teams in the final game, with most of the team lineup would be similar to the lineup of KOF XIII. This can be seen with many promotional artwork posters for KOF XII, which features many characters who do not show up in KOF XII.
- According to a tweet made by Akihiko Ureshino on Twitter, Team Yagami was at one point going to consist of Iori, Oswald, and "a new character wearing a kimono".[1]
- KOF XII was also at one point in development to be as the conclusion to the Tales of Ash Saga, with KOF XIII acting as the "Dream Match" game. However, the final result is the thirteenth game being the final chapter of the saga, and the twelfth game being the Dream Match title, and a beta for the next game.
- An early promotional poster for the arcade version shows Elisabeth, a character that wasn't present in the arcade release and is only playable in the console versions. The same poster also shows Leona in her original outfit from KOF '96, even though she received a new design in the final game.