It all began in '94 It kept on rollin' in '95 Pieces fell into place in '96 It came to an end in '97 And now it comes, and here we go The K.O.F. is here again Nothing's gonna stop in nineteen ninety eight
The King of Fighters is one of SNK's most well known titles around the
world. It was one of the first games to incorporate characters from more than one
series, and also the first to require play in teams of characters. In The
King of Fighters '94, the appeal was to allow players to use characters
from both the Fatal Fury (Garoudensetsu) and Art of Fighting
(Ryuuko no Ken) series.
KOF '95 introduced Iori Yagami, and began to set up the
story that culminated in 1997. The story of Orochi and the rival
clans of Kyo and Iori.
The plot advanced in KOF '96, when the fighters learned that
Rugal, the tournament's previous sponsor had tapped into the Orochi
Power, and had been destroyed because it was too great for him. The
game culminated with a struggle to seal the Orochi Power back up and a
fight with Goenitz, one of the Four Elemental Kings of Orochi.
All hades broke loose in KOF '97 when the Orochi clan broke the
seals imprisoning their master, who arose to destroy the world. But through
the efforts of Kyo, Iori and Chizuru, Orochi was at long last killed.
KOF '98 had no story at all. Subtitled Dream Match Never Ends,
the game made up for the lack of plot by returning a great number of characters
who had been lost in previous games including some who were either retired
or dead.
There's now some talk of a forthcoming KOF '99 for the Neo*Geo
which is supposed to have a largely new cast, and a plot that doesn't revolve
around Kyo and Iori. I'll try to post more and I hear about it.
