The sprites in KOF 13 were higher res but I don't think the animation was nearly as good as SF3's. Skullgirls, however, had more frames of animation and higher res animation so that game was quite the achievement.

Check out Guilty Gear Xrd. The game retains the original series' bonkers animation detail (where characters are constantly shape-shifting during moves) by creating dozens of different models for each character. The whole game, at first glance, looks like a high-res 2D fighter that you can't tell is actually 3D until…

Darkstalkers 2 and 3 have a port for the 360/PS3 called Darkstalkers Resurrection that's quite good.

Yeah, I'm taking KOF XIV as them getting acclimated to 3D development and hoping that they're going to use their improved skills for a new Samurai Shodown where they'll focus on crafting a smaller but much more beautifully animated roster.

Honestly, most of the characters in the old KOF games animated pretty poorly which was clearly a budget/time constraint issue because SNK's other fighters like Fatal Fury, Art of Fighting, and Last Blade had great animation. KOF XII and XIII upped the animation game considerably but sprite-based 2D fighting games were…