COF: The CLASH of Fighters XI

COF: The Clash of Fighters XI is the eleventh installment of The Clash of Fighters series. The game continues the story of The Clash of Fighters X.

Story
Father, The Lane Owner of Evil Adult Industries Inc was killed by Rikimaru Kusanagi and his stole the Father's Dark Power in the last tournament, causing confusion and destruction to happen from within sight. Taking advantage of the situation at hand, Darby stole the Chaos Amulet from Isabella and drained her powers in the process. In the advent of a new KOF tournament, new faces are handed invitations, while old faces, such as Kick Buttowski, return to the ring. Among the new COF participants are Kaswagi, Matlok Jade (a Danville's brash fighter himself), Carol Stanzack, and Christopher Robin. All these fighters will find themselves in a tournament full of mysteries and secrets started by motives that they’d ignored. Behind this healthy competitive tournament hides a hidden force called "People from the Past" with a mysterious goal.

Gameplay
Aside from the already known gameplay maneuvers that add much depth to the gameplay, Runs, Rolls, Short Jumps, Guard Cancel CDs and Rolls, Empty Cancels, and the returning Quick Emergency Roll, the four largest innovations COF XI brings to the franchise are the Quick Shift, the Saving Shift, the Skill Gauge and the Dream Cancel.

The Skill Stocks significantly complicate the gameplay of KOF. The Power Stocks that existed previously are still present, and are filled in the usual fashion. Nevertheless, there are now Skill Stocks as well, which gradually build up over time. Each team begins a match holding the maximum of two Skill Stocks. Offensive maneuvers, such as Desperation Moves, Guard Cancels, and Tag Attacks, continue to use Power Stocks. However, more defensive or tactical maneuvers, such as Guard Evasion, Saving Shift, and Quick Shift, use Skill Stocks.

COF XI utilizes the Tactical Shift System from COF X, but makes very important changes. The Quick Shift allows you to change into another character in the middle of any combo, prolonging it, or in the middle of any attack, no matter if it was blocked or not, canceling the frames of animation of the attack, if it's needed. The Saving Shift allows the player to take out a character when he is being hit as soon as he is hit, or in any moment, at the cost of both skill bars. This effectively cuts many combos that otherwise would do a lot of damage, eliminates the possibility of infinities by repeating chains of attacks on the ground (excluding aerial juggles) and brings an element of balance to the game. While it is possible to escape from any combination of attacks on the ground, it is not possible to use Saving Shift to get out from a Desperation or Leader Desperation move.

The same feature of KOF XI is the Dream Cancel. Like the Super Cancel that first appeared in KOF '99, Dream Cancel allows players to use stocks to interrupt a move in the midst of its execution with a more powerful move, allowing devastating combos; however, the Dream Cancel is more deadly than ever, allowing a DM to be canceled into an LDM, at the expensive price of two Power Stocks and one Skill Stock.

Should the timer run down in a match, the winner is no longer decided based upon who has the most life remaining. Instead, the judgment bar, a new bar of circular shape composed of two colors, each one representing one player (red or blue, which are the colors displayed in the portraits of the characters of each side) acts as a quantifier of the skill of each player. Whichever player has the judgment bar towards his side will be the victor if none of the teams win defeating all three characters from the opposite team; rarely, if the bar is exactly in the center, the match will end in a draw and both sides will lose. The bar is affected by each attack that the players get in, combos affect progressively more, and when a character of the opposing team is defeated, the bar suffers a big change against that player. This makes taking care of keeping one's characters alive pretty important, giving strategy to the tags system.

Heroes Team

 * Darby
 * Kaswagi
 * Annie Murakami

Fighter's History Team

 * Ray McDougal
 * Masterious
 * Jean Pierre

World Heroes Team

 * Hanzo Hattori
 * Ryoko Izumo
 * Janne D'Arc

Metal Slug Team

 * Marco Rossi
 * Tarma Roving
 * Kevin Rian

Phineas and Ferb Team

 * Phineas Flynn
 * Ferb Fletcher
 * Perry The Platypus

Alex Team

 * Alex Raven
 * Angela Van Elerie
 * Hyde

Agents Team

 * Monty Monogram
 * Vanessa Doofenshmirtz
 * Jeremy Johnson

Undercover Cops Team

 * Zan Takahara
 * Matt Gable
 * Rosa Felmonde

Doofenshmirtz Evil Inc. Team

 * Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz
 * Norm
 * Kendall Perkins

Rivals Team

 * Christopher Robin
 * Takeru Yin
 * Xiao Lon

Gal's Fighter Team

 * Carol Stanzack
 * Kim Possible
 * Candace Flynn

Rage of The Dragons Team

 * Jimmy Lewis
 * Billy Lewis
 * Sonia Romanenko

Kusanagi-Yagami Team

 * Rikimaru Kusanagi
 * Nikugawa Yagami
 * Pilot Isabella

Mid-Bosses

 * Kim Sue II
 * Chung Paifu
 * Kisarah Westfield
 * Rock Howard
 * Adelheid Bernstein

Sub-Boss

 * Duke Shapiro

Boss

 * Igniz

Exclusive DLC characters

 * B. Jenet
 * Karnov
 * Ron Stoppable
 * Kotaro Fuuma
 * Alfred Hawk
 * Hotaru Futaba
 * Bonnie Rockwaller
 * Isabella Garcia-Shapiro
 * Antonio

Sacred Heroes Team

 * Rikimaru Kusanagi
 * Nikugawa Yagami
 * Isabella Garcia-Shapiro

Justice Team

 * Ray McDougal
 * Muscle Power
 * Perry The Platypus

COF Heroes Team

 * Rikimaru Kusanagi
 * Alex Raven
 * Darby

2003 Heroes Team

 * Darby
 * Xiao Lon
 * Annie Murakami

PNF Girl Team

 * Vanessa Doofenshmirtz
 * Candace Flynn
 * Pilot Isabella

New Generation Team

 * Adelheid Bernstein
 * Rock Howard
 * Any Characters

Old World Heroes Team

 * Hanzo Hattori
 * Kotaro Fuuma
 * Janne D'Arc

Chaos Team

 * Antonio
 * Christopher Robin
 * Kaswagi

Older Brother Team

 * Adelheid Bernstein
 * Ferb Fletcher
 * Monty Monogram

"Older Sister" Team

 * Vanessa Doofenshmirtz
 * Candace Flynn
 * Rosa Felmonde

Lunatic Team

 * Annie Murakami
 * Antonio
 * Billy Lewis

Dream Team

 * Ray McDougal
 * Hanzo Hattori
 * Kevin Rian

Currently Reforming Team

 * Ryoko Izumo (as the leader)
 * Next two members can either be:
 * Isabella Garcia-Shapiro
 * Darby
 * Rosa Felmonde
 * Carol Stanzack
 * Vanessa Doofenshmirtz
 * B. Jenet
 * Annie Murakami
 * Kim Possible

New Challenger Team

 * Any team solely composed of PS4 & Nintendo Switch exclusive DLC characters