Life Meter
Different from what you may be used to from other fighting games, all characters in The King of Fighters XIII have the same amount of health points. If the health bar of your opponent runs out, you win the round.
- The health bar has been nicely segmented into equal parts which are all worth 100 points, adding up to a total of 1000 points. This segmentation is quite useful as it can give an accurate reading of exactly how much life an opponent has left.
- There is no damage scaling (sometimes called "guts" or "rage") based on how much life a character has remaining. A character with 20% health takes the same amount of damage from an attack as a character with 100% health.
Strategy Corner
With the incredibly freeform combo system, players will often have the choice to maximize damage at the expense of meter. Knowing how much your combo will do without using meter, and how much it will with, is essential to avoid unnecessarily spending meter. The lifebar segmentation can help making the correct judgment about which follow-up to use.