Trivia / The King of Fighters XII

• Christmas Rushed: Despite the cost in both time and money to give KOF its HD makeover, SNK higher-ups still mandated a Summer 2009 release to mark the franchise's 15th anniversary - and the final product couldn't make this more obvious.
• Troubled Production: After KOF XI was criticized for using outdated sprites and their 3D titles' lukewarm reception from fans, SNK chose to start from the ground up with new, rotoscoped sprites for this game, giving it a hand-drawn look a la BlazBlue. Unfortunately, this proved to be a very costly and time-consuming affair for just one character, let alone the full planned roster. KOF XII was originally planned to be the Tales of Ash saga's finale, with XIII being a Dream Match Game as was series tradition - but due to Executive Meddling mandating a 2009 release for the franchise's fifteenth anniversary, XII ended up becoming the non-canon Tech-Demo Game with a severely cut back roster, with XIII releasing just one year later as the true follow-up to XI. This proved to be the game's undoing, as XII flopped so hard both critically and financially that it almost doomed SNK to bankruptcy for a second time, and XIII couldn't do much to repair the series' reputation at the time even after its release.