KOF XIII is one of the best 2D fighters in recent years.
Lets start off with the game play. The game play for KOF XIII is amazing, and deep to say the least. There is a super gauge that can fill up to 3, 4, or 5 stocks depending on which round the character is on. The super gauge can be used for "EX" special moves which are powered up priority moves, one stock can be used for finishing moves, two stocks can be used for more powerful EX versions of finishers, and with three stocks (and in Hyper Drive mode), you can perform a Neo Max desperation move, which ends up dealing a lot of damage. The super gauge adds a lot of variety to the game play, letting you decide on whether to use the stocks up right away, or to save them for powerful moves. Another game play feature is the Triple Cancel, which lets players be able to cancel any move at any time. It depends on how many stocks you have on the three-tiered Hyper Drive gauge. Each time a cancel is performed, the Hyper Drive gauge decreases a little bit. KOF XIII's game play may intimidate players at first, but it gets easier once you play it a little more.
Now the characters. There are 30+ playable characters in the game, each with their own unique move set too, and it also adds a lot of variety as well. The characters featured in this game also have a lot of personality which might appeal to some people. During arcade mode, there is pre-battle text for every single character, and before every battle. The fact that every character can talk to each other adds even more development to the characters.
KOF XIII features a variety of game modes like Tutorial, Arcade, Story, Versus, Mission, and more. There is also an innovative customization made which allows the player to change the color for almost every part of the character's sprite. Some characters even have extra or alternate costume pieces. For example, the player can choose to put the Mr. Karate tengu mask on Takuma, or the player can even choose to change Kyo's default jacket to his original KOF '94 jacket. The customization mode is definitely ground breaking, and all fighting games should have it.
The graphics are very impressive. All characters have enormous, unique, hand-drawn character sprites and animations, similar to KOF XII's. There are also many stages in the game, which are all packed full of animations, color, and many cameos from characters in the previous games. Some of the backgrounds even have 3D rendered graphics which add a nice contrast to the beautiful character sprites. Overall, the visuals are stunning, and the game can even be played in 1080p which looks absolutely amazing.
I think I covered a lot of needed to covered in this review. All fighting game fans should give KOF XIII a try. With solid gameplay, awesome characters, amazing graphics, and a wide variety of game modes, KOF XIII is completely worth playing and is worth all the money I spent. If you've never played any KOF games before, this one would be a good one to start out with.