The King of Fighters

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.

My thanks go out to Mail-chan for assisting me with this pages layout.