There’s a lot of heat passin’ around right now about the new Street Fighter IV that will be hitting home very soon. It’s received a lot of praise about the new graphical approach its taken, and in that respect its well-deserved. They’ve done 3D exceptionally. The primary factor that drives it above the competition is that it doesn’t try to be photo-realistic or gray and brown but instead achieves a wonderfully stylized vision that suits the series’s roots.

However, this post is actually about a franchise that is also being revamped. Granted, it’s a lesser-known series, but it still has a strong following. The King of Fighters has always held a place in my heart, at least. Whether it’s the ever-changing game mechanics that are fresh in each and every iteration, the sheer amount of characters that is ever-growing still, or even the sprites and animation that each have so much care, detail, and attention attributed to every single one, this fighting series has remained a strong underdog in this shrinking market.

With the latest chapter, SNK Playmore has taken it upon themselves to finally update the graphics from the more-than-a-decade old set they’ve been using for the last 11 or so games, in addition to other titles of theirs not a part of this particular series. Rather than going into the details of the full HD rendered sprites and the soft shadow and lighting effects, here is a fat truckload (go to page 2) of videos from the first location test for the game. I feel these three are the best.

Everyone’s wearing green. There are two matches in all of these videos, so stick around for some rad Goro Daimon action.

Hell, yes, Andy!

The background work here is just fantastic.

Of course, SNK Playmore ain’t the only doing this sort of thing. Arc System Works, famous for the Guilty Gear series, is putting out a new title with the same sort of treatment because there’s a licensing dispute over Guilty Gear with SEGA. Personally, I prefer the KoF XII style and work. BlazBlue seems to look exactly like the old series: exceedingly cartoony (animeish?), relatively stiff, and altogether far too small. But this is just my opinion on the matter, I should really let you make your own decision.

Which do you think is better?