KOFXIII

Well, it's still not available in the states, as near as I can tell. I guess maybe it's lurking in some arcades somewhere, but arcades are a dying breed, and I don't know where one even is near me that would be likely to have a game like this. And even if I did, I wouldn't have the time or means to visit it frequently, most likely. There still isn't any sign, as near as I can tell, that the game has a home release scheduled, even in Japan much less here in the States. Although there is vague talk about some kind of home release sometimes within 2011. We'll see.

Meanwhile, it is at least out, and if good video and screenshots are rare, there's a fair amount of stuff up on youtube and elsewhere that is hand-held recordings of someone playing, at least. And the resolution of the second Orochi story has been translated and disseminated across the Internet. The nature of "Those from the Past" has also been significantly fleshed out and further elaborated.

And its this last that I want to talk briefly about. Given that I've blogged several times before (including earlier today) about the importance of story to give the fights context as an important element in causing these games to be classics rather than simply fads, it shouldn't be surprising that it's something that I find particularly interesting.

"Those from the past" are revealed to be a time-traveling, non-human, "devilish," European counterpart, in some ways, to the "Hakkesshu" or the original followers of Orochi guys from the '96-'97 titles. But while the Hakkesshu guys were all interested in breaking the Orochi seal to unleash their master on the world, "Those from the Past" are interested in doing so to steal the Orochi power for themselves. Or, more specifically, for the master of the group, who is Saiki. Like Orochi and the Hakkesshu, they are said to be followers of the "will of Gaia" but what exactly that means is not exactly clear. It seems that they are counterparts to Orochi itself, and his followers, rather than counterparts merely to his followers. While Orochi decided that humanity was bad for "Gaia" and needed to be eliminated, it's not clear that "Those from the past" had that aim. Rather, they seem more concerned with their own power, and the magnification of it, and if that means cannibalizing power from their Orochi counterparts, they don't seem to be too concerned with that.

In fact, it seems that they need exactly that--the backstory suggests that they, like Orochi and the Hakkesshu, made war upon humanity, and although their individual power was great, the cumulative effect of all that humanity was that they were gradually losing. This is where the time travel plot came into effect; they were to go to the future, marshal their resources, and then go back further in time after having stolen the power of the Three Sacred Treasures and gone back in time again to defeat their foes when they were still weak and relatively powerless. If this doesn't make tons of sense, remember that this is a beat 'em up fighting game and just go with it.

Ash was their agent who was supposed to run around stealing the power of the sacred treasures and giving it back to Saiki so he could complete this plan. However, Ash decided to turn traitor; he kept the power for himself, defeated and absorbed Saiki himself. Was he trying to merely take his power for his own, or was he trying to save humanity? Not clear. I never was a fan of Ash, and I'm also not a fan of time travel plots. Anyway, Saiki was a strong enough personality, that even absorbed he pretty much took over Ash, and "Dark Ash" ended up being Ash possessed by Saiki. The story kept on going, "Dark Ash" was defeated, and Ash refused to return through the gate. Saiki (and Ash himself) faded away as the time stream was altered--since it turns out that Ash was a descendent of Saiki, and Saiki no longer existed in the past time stream.

Unlikeable protagonists and time travel paradoxes aside, I really like the concept of "Those from the Past." Even without understanding it exactly, I had independently worked up the idea of them that's very similar to what ended up being revealed; they were a shadowy conspiracy group that wanted to steal the Orochi power for its own sake. I had them as more of an Illuminati-like group composed of powerful mortals and immortals alike, riffing off of the Dark Stalkers-like vibe that King of Fighters 2003 and XI had already hinted at.

For very sensible reasons, these various King of Fighters threats are treated separately; it started off with the great but single boss Rugal back in '94, the Hakkesshu and Orochi in '95-'97 (especially '96-'97). The NESTS threat was '99-2001. 2003-XIII was the "Those from the Past" threat. '98, 2002 and XII were "dream matches" that have no canonical implication.

For my glacially slowly budding fanfic effort point of view, I'd want to collapse all those threats into happening simultaneously, though--or at least right on the heels of each other. The Hakkesshu, NESTS, and "Those from the Past" are all out there simultaneously. How do I tie them all together? And how do I include Street Fighter villains to the mix as well?

Here's my thought. The Hakkesshu and Those from the Past are already at odds. Good guys don't want either of them to win. Shadowloo and NESTS are very similar organizations, with very similar aims--cloning, AI, criminal syndicates, take over the world plans, etc. Combine them and Bison and his organization--basically the main Street Fighter villains, are fully integrated into at least one KoF stream. What if the psychic energy that powers the psychodrive and that that Hakkesshu and Those from the Past is trying to use to unseal Orochi is the same power? Suddenly Bison/NESTS have a very important reason to be at odds with the other two supervillainic organizations. And, of course, the good guys still have every reason to stop all of the groups.

In fact, the whole set-up reminds me in vague terms of the Galactic Storm storyline from The Avengers, not that I'm a huge comic book guy, but still. The good guys step in to keep earth from becoming collateral damage in a vast war between the Kree and the Shi'ar, which was engineered by the Skrulls. And, once again, I relate karate supers to modern, post-silver age superhero comic books and the derivative media based on them. I can't help it.