Originally developed by PlayMagic, the PS4, Xbox One and PC remake shipped in 2020 with numerous bugs and changes to the game’s iconic cel-shaded art style which fans weren’t happy with. The heavily criticised remake of 2003 first-person shooter XIII will receive a major update later this year, alongside the release of a new Switch version, publisher Microids has said. daveMcFlave I’m thinking XIV was more divisive as it wasn’t as fast as XIII and previous entries, they introduced a questionably designed new series protagonist, and the character modeling and lighting was not too great (poor Andy). XV definitely fixed a lot of things. Still not as fast as older titles, but the new game mechanics add a lot to the game.

The development studio reworked the entire game from the art direction to the AI and added numerous technical improvements,” Microids said. Microids and PlayMagic apologised for the state of the game in November 2020 and said they were committed to fixing its issues. The XIII remake, when it was released in 2020, was a disaster. Players complained of poor AI, bugs, missing multiplayer and an art style that abandoned the iconic, cel-shaded look of the original. After almost two years of further work by a different developer, the remake of the XIII remake is now live.Paris – June 29 th 2022 – Microids is delighted to share that a major update for the game XIII Remake as well as the Nintendo Switch version of the game will be released on September 13 th 2022. As a reminder, the game is the remake of the iconic cel-shaded FPS from 2003, and is the adaptation of the 5 first volumes of the Belgian graphic novel of the same name by artist William Vance and writer Jean Van Hamme. This week, Microids said it has hired a different studio to overhaul XIII so that players can “enjoy the game as [originally] intended”. No. Just straight no. Because we're talking about remasters and ports. The original game already had a launch and price tag. The original already had its production costs covered and profit made. When will tech companies understand that innovation is great, but they also have to support the average joe. And the Switch, ironically, is the biggest Average Joe in the market, hell it made an Average Joe look beter than the PS4 could with Alien Isolation. But that was a rare example of a company investing in Switch as a platform, rather than as an easy 'almost mobile' cash grab.

Many of SNK other fighting games such as Breakers, Fighter's History, Rage of the Dragons, Gowcaizer, Kabuki Klash, Ninja Masters, World Heroes, Last Blade, and Sengoku didn't make the cut to be in KOF. Even though there's a Hero Team, no characters from World Heroes ever appeared in the game. While the KOF series is non-canon to the mainline Fatal Fury and Art of Fighting series (as well as those other series that crossover), it is canon as its own separate series. Here's what SNK producer Yasuyuki Oda had to say in a recent interview with Gamereactor (courtesy of Google translate) - mentioning how as much as the team "would love to" release these games on the Switch, there are admittedly "no plans" right now: XIII is a remake of the cult first-person action game that was initially released in 2003. You play as “XIII”, a man without an identity, in a solo campaign with numerous twists and turns. Inspired by the eponymous graphic novel, the game features a completely reinvented and unique cel-shading design. In XIII, players can also take part in fierce multi-player fights. You can watch how this reveal unfolded on the official EVO Twitch channel. It takes place around the 09:15:20 mark.We are fully aware and terribly sorry that the initial launch of XIII Remake on PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC did not reach players’ expected quality standards. A bit more than a year ago we took the decision to hire the studio Tower Five to finish the development of the game. Tower Five worked with us in the past, notably on the great port of Agatha Christie: The ABC Murders on Nintendo Switch. We really wanted to take the time to fix the game and offer owners of XIII Remake a free update paying the best possible tribute to the original game we all love. The Nintendo Switch version of the game will of course benefit from all the work done to improve the game as well as the multiplayer mode, which will mark the end of the game’s development. We can’t wait for players to put their hands on this improved version of the game and (re)discover the classic adventures of Agent XIII, as soon as it’s released after the Summer.” declares Stéphane Longeard , CEO de Microids . The combat system is where the game has lost people, and to be completely frank, it doesn’t get exciting until 10 hours in. That’s a long tutorial. However, it does provide a more strategic system that keeps you on your toes. Greysun Morales from Twinfinite, when I DM’ed him about why he likes Final Fantasy XIII, said, “The combat system isn’t technically amazing, per say, but it does create an inventive mechanic that keeps your team on the ropes and keeps the player thinking ahead. Instead of having those JRPG tropes such as a warrior and a healer, every character in the game was capable of pretty much taking on whichever role they needed to be, which I appreciated. You can even see these combat ideas take play in FF7 Remake too such as the staggering system.” Cult classic XIII received an HD remake in 2020 from developer PlayMagic. The project attempted to update the game for modern platforms, but it fell more than a little short. Which is why, just two years later, publisher Microids has announced that it has handed the game over to a new studio to give XIII Remake a remake of its own. Due to the popularity of the dream match idea and to be able to make the AoF cast meet the FF cast without changing age, the non-canon KOF series was created. While almost all the characters in KOF are from Fatal Fury, Art of Fighting, Metal Slug, Ikari Warriors, Samurai Shodown, Savage Reign, and Psycho Soldier, the game itself also introduced many original characters to the mix such as Kyo Kusanagi, Iori Yagami, K', Goro Daimon, Benimaru Daikado, Ash Crimson, Kula Diamond, and the Sports Team to name a few. Lets see what happens, but I expect a long load in followed by lots of LOD pop in, low frame rate and a patch a month down the line to take out texture detail.

Alas, it looks like this XIII remake its just a prototype for a studio who wants to show they can handle new tools. Not an actual remake by folks who respect the original and want to bring it to modern audiences.XIII, if you've never encountered it, is based on a 1980's Belgian comic series about an amnesiac with the skills of a government agent attempting to discover their identity and in turn uncovering their involvement in a conspiracy to assassinate the US President. The original game was developed by Ubisoft, the same year they also released Prince Of Persia: Sands Of Time, Splinter Cell, and Beyond Good & Evil. A different time. Big_Fudge"surely you have to take into account the work that went into the original game, not just the port" The update also re-introduces online multiplayer for 2-13 players, a feature of the original game but not the remake. The news post on Steam also promises that the update enhances the AI, reworks the HUD and revamps the sound design of the remake.

It said French studio Tower Five (Lornsword: Winter Chronicle) has been working on a significant free title update for over a year. Update [Thu 10th Aug, 2023 17:15 BST]: Physical versions for The King of Fighters XIII Global Match have been revealed by Pix'n Love. On that date, owners of the PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC versions will receive a free update and enjoy the game as intended. The development studio reworked the entire game from the Art Direction to the AI and added numerous technical improvements. Finally, Tower Five implemented the highly awaited online multiplayer mode for up to 13 players. This remake shouldn’t come as a complete surprise, given XIII Remake’s extremely poor reception. Critics weren’t positive about the changes — it has a 33% average rating on Metacritic — and fans weren’t pleased either, giving it an “Overwhelmingly Negative” average review rating on Steam. On top of that, the remake was originally supposed to come out on Nintendo Switch. At EVO Japan 2023 this weekend, SNK announced it would be releasing The King of Fighters XIII Global Match for the Switch.

I never played the original but surely it has to be better than this. The game is terribly optimised and suffers greatly from performance issues. It also stutters and chugs along somewhere between 10fps or below whenever there is more than one character on screen and the amount of screen tearing in this game is absolutely staggering. Character Models/A.I will often be contorted and doing something that they're not meant to be doing. For example, there were many a-time where I'd be in a gunfight with a few enemies for them to only to disperse and run off into a corner and just stand there. Level Design is quite awful as there were a few occasions where I'd wonder around a small area for about 10 minutes with no idea where to go, only for a YouTube gameplay being able to assist me as the Game's Navigator decides whenever it wants shows up. There is very little care or effort put into this title which is quite apparent especially when there is so much clipping issues that often requires a few restarts before key objects correctly appear and there's even grammatical errors in the trophy description. I would also remap some controls (nothing fancy, just changing buttons inputs from "hold" to "press") however, despite these settings getting saved, the game would just decide when it was going to obey them. Cel Shading, as far as I am concerned never actually reached its potential. We have had things that dabbled with perfection, but lagtely everything is about rebuild in new tech, because sales people from companies like UE, or even lower level, physics engines, like Euphoria, or PhysX, put so much focus on taking the latest iteration over actually solving problems like how to make their tech work on most systems. We all know UE doesnt run well on Switch, I get why, It didnt really run well even on last generation consoles. So, if they are going this way then the Switch version can expect a lazy InstaLod middleware implementation to try deal with texture rendering and sluggish performance all round. Microids also listed some of the upgrades that new developer Tower Five is delivering, saying that the studio has “reworked the entire game”: