We have covered many different fighters from SNK on this website so far, from the good to the bad, the iconic to the obscure, the stupid to the…. equally as stupid. You get the picture, we have covered a lot so far, but we have yet to cover… THE SNK fighter, the one that most people gravitate towards when they think of the company, the one that has managed to outlast every single other one and become the flagship franchise for the company. This wasn’t just any simple fighting game though, because we have already had too many of those to count from the company, but instead, it was gonna be a crossover event, one that takes two of the big fighting juggernauts from the company, along with several others, and bring them together for the first time to duke it out, not only to defeat a common enemy, but also to stand as the best of the best. This was the story… of The King of Fighters ‘94……………. or at least, that is what happened when it did get turned into a fighting game rather than a beat-’em-up.

Out of all of the fighting franchises from this company, this is the one that I had heard the most about before checking out for myself, not only because of how huge it had gotten ever since its inception, but because of its entire concept in general. At this point in time, there had never been a fighting game that’s primary focus was to be a full-on crossover game, taking two different universe and clashing them together, so seeing a game not only take Fatal Fury and Art of Fighting and having them duke it out, along with characters from Ikari Warriors and Athena because why the hell not, must’ve been really exciting for anyone who was fans of any of these games. And hey, it clearly paid off at the end of the day, because the game would go onto get yearly installments for quite some time, as well as plenty of spin-offs, side games, and other forms of media released right alongside it to this day. So, now that I am pretty familiar with every single franchise that is represented in this game, I figured it was about time I gave the series a shot with the first game, and to the surprise of nobody, I ended up really enjoying it. It most likely does not come even close to the quality of future titles, and it isn’t toooooooo different from their previous title, but it does manage to not only be a great introduction for the series as a whole, but also a really good fighting game all on its own that i am really happy to have checked out.

The story doesn’t try to be anything more than what you have come to expect, where a new face in town known as Rugal decides to host a brand new King of Fighters tournament after seeing Geese and Krauser do so in the events of Fatal Fury 1 and 2 (as well as Art of Fighting 2, but who cares), sending invitations all over the world which not only reaches the main characters from those games, but also plenty of other newcomers from around the world, so they all come together to form teams of three to take on the tournament, become the definitive King of the Fighters, and figure out what sinister intentions Rugal might be hiding. It’s an SNK fighting game, so it would feel weird for this to not be the plot, and I don’t wanna risk tearing a hole into the fabric of the universe, so I will just accept the generic plot and move along from there.

The graphics are wonderful, having some fantastic sprite work, animations, and designs for all of the characters, stages, and effects, although there are some parts like the drawings for the characters during the ending cutscenes that definitely do look rough around the edges, and is just… ugh, the music is great, having plenty of kick-ass tunes to go along with you kicking your opponent’s teeth in, but of course, you will barely be able to hear it over the sounds of the many sound effects that will be playing as you fight your opponent, and the gameplay/control is mostly what you would expect from a fighting game, but with several changes and gimmicks that would not only become a staple part of the franchise, but would make fights much more interesting as a whole.

The game is a somewhat-typical 2D fighter, where you take control of one of eight different teams, each consisting of three different fighters from other SNK games, or completely new faces that would become regulars in the series, take on plenty of other teams in locations fought all around the world, throw out plenty of different punches, kicks, and special moves to eliminate all members of the team while relying on your team’s special skills, block and dodge accordingly to sustain minimal damage to any member of your team at any time, and bask in the sweet glow of victory for those few moments…. only to then get pummeled by the next opponent who will come by. Most fighting game veterans would be able to comfortably settle into this game and have a great time with it, even with the apparent changes made to the formula, which one can easily adjust to if they know what they are doing, and still have a great time with it.

If you SOMEHOW haven’t caught onto this already, the one big change made in this game compared to every single fighting game before this is how you take control of a team of characters rather then just one solo character, and while this doesn’t affect the gameplay too heavily, it does make just enough of a change to where it does make you think about how to approach matches. Rather than the typical “three rounds and ya win/lose” formula that most fighting games have, each fighter can only be used once per match as long as they aren’t knocked out, and whenever a fighter is knocked out, they are then switched out for the next fighter on the team in the order that you selected. The only other time I have ever had experience with this style of fighting is with Marvel vs. Capcom, so I was fully aware of what this system was gonna be like going into it, and from what we have here, it works out pretty well.

It does make you think more about how you go about winning a fight, based on what character you are playing as, what moves they can pull off, their speed, their attacks, all of that shit, and seeing how you can be using a completely new character on the fly if you fuck up, it adds another level of strategy and complexity that was simple to grasp and incredibly satisfying to master. Not to mention, given how you don’t get a full health bar back whenever you beat an opponent, the game encourages you, more than ever, to play smart, and not just constantly spam the same move over and over again, or just button mash, in the vein hope of winning (even though, with some of these games, I have no choice but to do that).

Other then that though, not too much has changed if you compare this to other SNK fighters, as it is mostly your standard romp. The only real other differences I can see is that there are no bonus stages to take on, and the way that you use special moves is a bit different, but otherwise, you know what you are getting into with this, and as someone who has now played more of these then I can count, I can safely say that this was one really fun. Of course, the combat was rough around the edges, but the flow of fights still felt pretty satisfying, the energy that was there made a lot of the game feel exciting and fun, the little extra story bits here and there were very interesting, and with the fact that you essentially have 24 different characters to mess around with, there is plenty of things to do that will leave you busy, especially if you are going for all the endings.

However, as is traditional with fighting games, we gotta talk about the elephant in the room, and that elephant’s name is Fighting Game Syndrome, where the game’s CPU will not hesitate to pummel your ass to the ground before you even have a chance to comprehend what was going on in the first place. Although, with that being said, I didn’t actually find the difficulty of the game to be that bad when playing through it……. THAT IS, until I reached the final battle with Rugal, who takes on your entire team by himself, and that right there is a dirty, rotten trick. It lures you into a false sense of security, with you thinking “PFFT, three against one? This will be a total cakewalk!”, but then you actually fight him, and you will learn to never trust one of these games again. His first phase is pretty standard, nothing too bad that you can just easily get through if you know what you are doing, but then he throws off his coat, and that is when SHIT GETS REAL. He will be throwing out all these crazy attacks, comboing you before you can do anything to stop it, push you across the screen and slam you into the walls, and it is an absolute nightmare of a fight at this point. Of course, he is beatable, but you need to be pretty skilled at these games in order to take him down, and while I wouldn’t say this boss is as hard as, say, Geese Howard in Fatal Fury 1, he will still have you begging for mercy if you don’t know what you’re doing.

Overall, despite fighting game syndrome being in effect and Rugal needing to go fuck himself in every way possible, this was a great way to start off an ambitious franchise like this, and an overall really good game, having plenty of what SNK fighters had that make them so fun to try out and beat, a gameplay gimmick that shakes things up to where it is much more interesting without sacrificing what makes these games work, and having plenty of fan service from plenty of points in SNK’s history with the characters that you can’t help but appreciate if you have been playing all of these games like I have. I would definitely recommend it for those who are big fighting game fans, as well as those who love the other fighters from the company like Fatal Fury and Art of Fighting, because this game manages to blow both of those out of the water in every single way, and I can’t wait to see what the next installments have in store. But if there is one thing I will ask for, it would be to PLEASE tone down the final boss of the next game so that they won’t be as much of a pain to fight?....... who am I kidding, it’s SNK, they’re not gonna do that. And given what played at the end of the game there, looks like I am gonna have double the fun with it in the next game, so YAY FOR ME!....................... help

Game #572

SNK got the pretty novel idea (at that time) of crossing over its two main fighting games, Fatal Fury and Art of Fighting, in one game. They eventually added characters from other games and created original ones, and that how KoF was born.
To accommodate the rather large roster (once again, at that time), fighting takes place as 3-on-3 team battles. No rounds, just beat every character one after another. You get a bit of life after every victory, so sweeping an entire team is not impossible if you know what you're doing.

Since it's a traditional SNK fighting game, you've got 4 buttons (light/heavy punch and light/heavy kick). Pressing the two heavy buttons makes you perform a "blow back" attack that will knock down your opponent. Pressing the two light buttons instead and you'll do an emergency evasion.
The game being based on both Art of Fighting and Fatal Fury, it borrows elements of those two games for its Super Special system. You can perform them like a Desperation Move in FF when your life bar is flashing, or use them when your special meter is full like in AoF. Of course, you can manually charge that special meter by pressing three buttons, and taunt to make your opponent lose meter.
Another gameplay element is the dash, wich gives precious additional mobility options to your character.

KoF 94' has 24 characters divided in 8 teams, plus one final boss. Like in many post-Street Fighter 2 fighting games, there is a world map and every team represents a country, despite it making barely any sense. Japan is the hero team, represented by three new original characters: Kyo, Benimaru, and Goro Daimon. Kyo Kusanagi is the game's protagonist and his slick character design will make him the popular face of the series. The Fatal Fury team gets the obvious trio of Terry, Andy and Joe, and represents Italy (referencing Andy's stage in FF2). Art of Fighting team gets three Kyokugen fighters with Ryo, Robert, and Takuma. They are sent to Mexico for some reason, which is weird since AoF3 also takes place in Mexico but that game was actually released two years later. Brazil has the Ikari Warrior team with Ralf, Clark, and new original character, Heidern. Athena and Kensou are also helped by a new character, drunken master Chin, and they form together the Psycho Soldier team (China). England is represented by the Women Fighters team with Yuri and King from AoF and Mai from FF (don't ask me why England) (well, actually, I just looked it up and it was supposed to be Billy Kane's team before he got replaced by Mai). Korea Team is composed of Kim from FF and two new characters, criminals called Chang and Choi (or "huge dude with iron ball" and "midget Freddy Krueger"). Last but not least, there's the hilarious US team, or "American Sports team", with boxer Heavy-D, basketball player Lucky Glauber, and football player Brian Battler. Those guys suck so much they inadvertently warp up as awesome (but yeah, they're basically joke characters stuck in a very cool roster).
Final boss is the iconic pain in the ass Rugal Bernstein, a character so broken that the Genocide Cutter sound bite will forever live in your head after playing (suffering) against him.

Visually, the game is a treat. SNK made the choice of slightly smaller but more detailled character sprites than usual. Add great character designs and extravagant backgrounds, and you've got an impressive showing for 1994.
This original KoF has obvious issues though. It's a very rigid game to control compared to the later installments (as if SNK motion inputs alone were not tough enough). Another problem is the absence of team edit. It doesn't bother me that much, but I know it's a deal breaker for some.
Also, a huge warning. If you can't find a poor soul to play a 30 years old obsolete fighting game with, you'll have to play against the CPU, and the difficulty is brutal. Better get your cheese strats ready, or at least put down the difficulty level to 1, otherwise you'll have a very bad time.

Not a bad fighting game, but a pretty forgettable one compared to its glorious sequels. Even if you are one of those "I play King of Fighters for the story" kind of guy (in that case, bravo, you get it), there's nothing much for you there. Oh well.

E iniciamos formalmente el recorrido de The King of Fighters en su camino a las cuspides, junto a su lugar entre los más grandes del género Fighting y con el debut del mítico Kyo Kusanagi en este dream Match que juntaría varias franquicias de SNK con pintorescos newcomers en una entrega... Funcional, pero sobre todas las cosas, memorable.

Si llegó a existir un estigma en los noventa de que varias franquicias emergentes del género de peleas no eran otra cosa que una calca de Street Fighter es porque la segunda entrega de la serie de Capcom puso conceptos tan sólidos en la mesa que era imposible no usarlos como un papiro sobre el que trazar nuevas ideas, si o si notariamos los puntos de otro tejido que dan forma a esta nueva costura y aún así, Kof supo destacar positivamente.

Partiendo en que tal vez varios seguidores de la compañía se encontraban curiosos de ver tal junta de personajes de otros títulos, para el público más general Kof significaba una nueva máquina de peleas en la cual experimentar qué harían los inputs de los distintos personajes y lo que terminó de sellar el trato fue ese atractivo planteamiento de equipos de tres por ronda.

Si, podríamos decir que los luchadores callejeros de la competencia eran su base, pero SNK también tenía sus peleadores leyenda detrás y por tal motivo, además del formato de triadas también tenías varios conceptos únicos de los juegos protagonizados por el joven practicante del estilo Kyokugen y también del Lobo legendario de Southtown.

Pese a ser un juego de marcar tus distancias para poder sorprender a tu rival con proyectiles o cayendole de improviso con algún especial de contacto cercano, Kof te ofrecía el poder cargar a voluntad tu barra potenciadora (como en Art of Fighting) para desencadenar tu movimiento más devastador a la par de ofrecerte un esquivé infalible con dos botones que omitía el daño residual de cubrirse normalmente, este sistema tan propio, que a día de hoy conocemos como el estilo "EXTRA" fue, junto a su formato de batalla y el roster tan variado lo que hizo que la gente pusiera su mira en Kof, quisieras o no deberías amaestrar a más de un personaje para ser óptimo y eso, junto a un gran apartado de sonido y una composición llena de carisma hizo que cualquiera conociera a más de unos de los peleadores de la contienda por ser el rey.

Desde la energética Athena Asamiya hasta las épocas más shotokan de Kyo todo el roster desbordaba gran carisma y personalidad a través de sus movimientos especiales y maneras de atacar, podías usar a Ryo y Terry y ver cómo sus movimientos de toda la vida se adaptaban a este nuevo sistema o aventurarte con algún novato para descubrir sus movimientos y llegar con el ahora infame Rugal Bernstein, el bastardo por excelencia que pone a prueba todo lo aprendido para premiarte con tu victoria no solo con su patética autodestrucción por ser tan frívolo, si no con un ending por equipo con un gran trabajo visual que definitivamente te deja satisfecho, ya que dentro de todo y a diferencia de tipos cómo Mr Karate o M. Bison, Rugal es una cúspide y un reto temible, pero nada donde sientas que las propias reglas del juego estan siendo pisoteadas e incluso ganar depende de haber aprendido las fortalezas de tus personajes antes que trabar a tu oponente con algún truquillo sucio (que de poder si puedes, ¿Pero dónde está la satisfacción en ello?)

En un todo, The King of Fighters 94 fue un debut estrella para esta nueva IP, más si lo comparamos con lo tropezados que fueron los inicios de Fatal Fury y Art of Fighting.

Acá se nota que a SNK le tomo poco menos de 5 años mejorar su calidad general para que el primer trabajo, si bien diste mucho de ser perfecto, sea un juego sin muchos puntos negativos y divertido de jugar, así se sienta que les está costando horrores mantenerse ajenos a pedir conceptos de su competidor más fuerte del momento.

El recorrido de Kyo representando a Esaka recién comenzó y Rugal no puso realmente a prueba las llamas del chico, ¿Encontraría Kusanagi un rival a su altura? Solo el futuro sabe la respuesta...

1. Be @Gare on www.backloggd.com
2. Pick a fighting game, any one at all
3. Set it to the lowest difficulty, one round, and pick the protagonist of that game
4. Breeze through the protagonist’s campaign and tell yourself that if you really like it you’re going to maybe give the others a shot
5. Go on YouTube and watch the endings for all the other fighters

Congratulations, you played enough of a fighting game to mark it as “completed” as far as anyone on www.backloggd.com is concerned

the beginning of the KOF series, which goes on to be SNK's biggest fighter. This game is pretty interesting in that you are stuck with pre-set teams, and can't pick and choose 3 characters that you want to play as. While I can definitely understand why the future games let you create your own custom teams, I think it's actually pretty cool that you have to play as a set team as it forces you to try out characters you otherwise wouldn't, and that's neat. Difficultywise, this is certainly an SNK fighter, which means balls hard. Solid start to a series that will go on to have a billion more entries.

Yep, that was definitely the first KOF game.
It seems almost any early fighting game franchise starts with a rather rough first entry, and KOF is no exception. That being said, I don't think that KOF '94 is a bad game compared to many other first attempts in this genre.
KOF '94 is very basic with it's gameplay. The only notable things here being you can sidestep (light punch + light kick) which is mainly helpful for dodging projectiles, and you can also charge your super meter. Gaining meter in this game is rather weird, you can get it from blocking attacks or charging it yourself. When you reach low health and your bar flashes red, no matter where your meter is you have access to as many supers as you want, which sounds broken but against the computer it really isn't.
The main thing I like about this game is the presentation. Oh my God this game looks fantastic. Each stage has this opening transition which is really appealing, the psuedo-3D wall in the Mexico stage being my favorite. The character sprites look rather goofy compared to what KOF '96-'03 would establish, but since this is the first entry it makes sense for the art style to look a bit experimental. A visually fantastic game even all these years later.
But man, this game's soundtrack. The arcade ost is pretty good, but the arranged soundtrack? Pure bliss on my ears. For an early CD quality audio video game soundtrack, the actual instruments and such used here sound fantastic, and I believe are real instruments. It's a soundtrack that unexplainably gives me joy and other emotions, please experience it for yourself. The sound design is fascinating too, games on the Neogeo always had this satisfying crunch to it, and this game is a perfect example.
The main turnoff for this game is the difficulty. The AI even on the easiest setting can be absolutely atrocious, and you're locked to teams in this game, meaning you can't create your preferred setup. Some characters may give you more trouble then others, but it's when Rugal steps in that fairness is thrown out the window. Now, if you just crouch block and occasionally attack during his first phase, you'll do entirely fine. But that second phase is a total nightmare. I got extremely lucky and was able to time him out by being very careful with my sidesteps from his projectiles and retaliated accordingly. Some people can take up to an hour on this guy which I can't even imagine suffering through.
And so those are my main thoughts on KOF '94. KOF is undoubtedly one of my favorite video game series, and seeing its roots is fascinating. I would not recommend this game to any casual player, but if you're a decently big fan of the series, you owe it to yourself to beat '94 Rugal at least once.
To everyone who has been supporting my reviews, I give my greatest thanks. I never thought I'd make it this far and I hope that you'll continue to enjoy my reviews. Once again, thank you for reading, and I'll see you when I review The King Of Fighters '95.