Throughout the 90s, there was probably only one developer that could genuinely rival Capcom. And that was SNK. I mean sure, Street Fighter had its mainstream challengers. Games like Mortal Kombat and Killer Instinct certainly had some big sales. But when it came to actually competing at the same quality level as Capcom, SNK was a bonafide threat.
In many ways, the history of The King Of Fighters is totally fitting. Capcom's original Street Fighter was developed by Takashi Nishiyama and released in 1987. Nishiyama then left Capcom, so a new team worked on Street Fighter II, which was released in 1991. So when Nishiyama had a chance to make a new one-on-one fighting game at SNK, he created his own vision of what Street Fighter II would have been under his control. This resulted in Fatal Fury: The King Of Fighters, released the very same year as Street Fighter II. Comparing and contrasting those two seminal games is an interesting study in itself, but one best left for another time. I can only tell you that at the time, I loved both Street Fighter II and Fatal Fury. In 1994, Nishiyama had an epiphone. What if he created a new fighting game that was a big crossover of all of the characters that SNK had access to? And thus, The King Of The Fighters 94 was born. It was a game that pitted favorites from Fatal Fury, Art Of Fighting, Ikari Warriors, Psycho Soldier, against a slew of newly created characters. It was in a word: brilliant. I mean, without KOF, we'd have no Smash Bros today. The major thing that KOF brought to the table was team fights. You don't choose one fighter, you choose three. And you win a match by having your three fighters outlast the opponent's three. This creates a new kind of fighter where it isn't enough to just main one fighter. You have to learn three at minimum to be proficient. And it's a system that has endured in other series as well (see: Marvel Vs Capcom). The King Of Fighters was so popular in arcades (and to spoiled children who owned Neo Geo home consoles) that it went on to spawn new annual entries in the series. Think of it as the Madden or Call Of Duty of the fighting game circuit back in the day. Obviously some entries were more notable than others. KOF 98 and 2002 both had insanely large rosters, for instance. After KOF 2003 the release schedule slowed down. Obviously there's a whole story behind SNK's financial woes and all that. But there was no new game in 2004, instead The King Of The Fighters XI was released in 2005 and was a hit with fans. But it was another four years until The King Of Fighters XII, which did not do well thanks to its relatively small roster. The King Of Fighters XIII arrived in 2010 and was legitimately awesome. Going toe-to-toe with Street Fighter IV was no small feat, but it was nice seeing KOF and Street Fighter both striving in the new era. And then it was a long six years until The King Of Fighters XIV arrived on the scene with all new polygonal graphics. And guess what? It's actually awesome. And guess what? It came out the same year as Street Fighter V. And to be honest, I'm pretty sure that I prefer KOF XIV to SFV. Just saying. Ironically, The King Of Fighters XIV was directed by Yasuyuki Oda who had previously worked on Street Fighter IV. The new graphics here are great looking. Obviously as a dude who's been playing KOF since it started, I appreciated the sprites. I honestly loved the two dimensional HD art of KOF XII and XIII. But I have to admit that the polygons look wonderful here, and do justice to the 2D art that inspired these characters in the first place. The story mode is appropriately ridiculous. I love that it references that it's been a long time since the last tournament. But the other modes make things shine. Personally, I love the practice mode that lets you pick a character and an opponent and then tweak the enemy AI however you see fit so you can just sit there and learn how to play a new character. Speaking of characters, there's over forty of them here. It's a big roster. Given the breadth of the series, I've got more than a handful of personal favorites. Ioro Yagami - He's cool. He's got good range with his kicks. He started out in KOF 95. Terry Bogard - Who doesn't like Terry? He's pretty much the posterboy for KOF. He's been around since the first Fatal Fury game. He's made his appearance in Smash Bros even. In many ways, he's the shoto taking the place of Ryo way back in Fatal Fury. But he's still awesome. And he's got a cool baseball cap. Mai Shiranui - I mean. At this point, she's probably even more iconic than Terry. Premiering in Fatal Fury 2 as probably SNK's version of Chun-Li, she definitely attracted many a teenage boy to arcade cabinets. She's also awesome. I just wish I was a little better at using her. I've played her in many games, but I've only ever been pretty good with her. Athena Asamiya - Legendary. Totally legendary. Athena actually predates any of SNK's fighting games. She started out in the platformers Athena (1986) and Psycho Soldier (1987) before finding herself in the first KOF and becoming a series mainstay. I love Athena, and generally play her in any SNK (or Capcom) game that allows me to. Nakoruru - Another big favorite of mine. She comes from Samurai Shodown (1993), but has also appeared in some other crossovers like Capcom Vs SNK, and SNK Battle Coliseum. This is the first KOF game to make her an officially playable roster entry unless you count her hidden appearance in the Game Boy port of KOF 95. Choi Bounge - This dude is crazy. I played him a lot in KOF 98. He's pretty much just a Freddy Krueger homage, except he has two razer gloves. I've never been very good with him. But he's really ridiculous and tough to not want to experiment with. Kula Diamond - She was sort of the face of KOF 2000. She's got blue hair and is fast and fun to use. Again, I'm not very good with her, but the beauty of KOF is that the rosters are generally huge and encourage you to try a lot of fighters. Blue Mary - Another old favorite of SNK fighter fans. She first appeared in Fatal Fury 3. I'm pretty clueless how to use her well. But she's cool and iconic. I even had a little figuring of her at one point back when I had a gaming room and a place to display such trivial things. Maybe you can tell from all my rambling here that I'm fired up about KOF XIV. But yeah, I am. I guess I kind of love that as I write this 2023, we're back to a kind of fighting game renaissance that reminds me so much of the glory days of the 90s. It's amazing to me that thirty years after the heyday of arcades, both Capcom and SNK are still hanging around and knocking out new fighting games that can not only compete with each other, but maybe even push each other to one attempt a one-up. You can't fake that kind of nostalgia.
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