KOF 1994-2014 – The Game Art HQ Community Tribute for the 20th Anniversary of the King of Fighters Series!
|
Welcome to…THE KING OF FIGHTERS! The biggest Martial Arts Tournament worldwide where fighters from places all over the world participate with their teams to be the best! Meet the Fatal Fury Team from Southtown, The Kyugugenryu Karate Team, The Women Fighters, The Psycho Soldiers, The Ikari Warriors, and many more in our fan art collaboration which is meant as a tribute to one of the best fighting game series ever made.
Thank You @ SNK Playmore and everyone who ever worked on the King of Fighters games!
|
Over 30 KOF fans created this tribute which was published on the 25th August 2014, exactly 20 years after the King of Fighters’94 was released in Japan.
|
This game started the story about the Orochi Power and introduced new characters like Kyo Kusanagi or Brian Battler while it combined Fatal Fury,
The Art Of Fighting, The Ikari Warriors, and Psycho Soldiers characters form a new fighting game series that would become much more than a simple crossover game! |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The King of Fighters’95 continued the story about Rugal Bernstein who was even stronger than before now, the Teams however stayed all the same.
The American Sports Team was replaced with the Newcomer Iori Yagami who teamed up with Eiji Kisaragi from Art of Fighting and Billy Kane from Fatal Fury. It was the first KOF game that got ported to home consoles. Since there were no changes for the Teams we have no specific illustrations for KOF’95 (so far) |
|
The King of Fighters’96 was a huge change for the series, not only were most of the sprites redrawn and the focus switched more from traditional 2D fighting game combat with many projectile attacks to more short-ranged specials and combinations, the game saw also many new faces including the sub-boss Chizuru and the new boss Goenitz.
Leona made her debut as a new member of the Ikari Warriors team, Iori Yagami got Vice and Mature as his sexy team members, Takuma was replaced by Yuri in the Art of Fighting Team and The Women Fighters Team got another AOF character with Kasumi Todoh. Last but not least the Boss Team made its debut with the badass Geese Howard and his team members Wolfgang Krauser and Mr. Big. KOF’96 also introduced the “Hidden” Special Teams which had their own stories /endings and were available through the Team Edit Option. There were only two of them in the game, the Sacred Treasure Team, and Team Goenitz. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The King of Fighters’97 introduced the Special and Extra Modes which changed the gameplay of the characters a bit, based on the previous games, and is the final chapter in the Orochi Saga, with Orochi being the final boss.
Almost all characters saw small changes, many got new moves and while there were changes for some teams, the game also introduced many new characters to the KOF series. There was the “New Faces” Team of the Orochi Followers Yashiro, Shermie, and Chris, and the Special Team which saw the return of Billy Kane to the series who was accompanied by Ryuji Yamazaki and Blue Mary. New in KOF’97 was also the “single entries” Characters like the newbie Shingo as well as Iori Yagami who killed his former team members in an outburst of his Orochi Blood. KOF’97 introduced also the option of alternate versions of characters. This meant that the classic Kyo Kusanagi with his old moves from KOF’94 was available. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The King of Fighters’98 is the first “Dream Match” game in the KOF series. It is no continuation of the Orochi Saga and basically combines most of the characters from KOF-94-97 including the American Sports Team. Characters like Takuma Sakazaki who “retired” are back as well. Rugal Bernstein returned as a boss and was stronger than ever before.
The Dreamcast Port of KOF’98 received a nice animated intro and illustrations of new characters from KOF’99 were unlockable secrets. It was also the first KOF console port with 3D-based backgrounds instead of completely drawn ones. This feature returned in most PS2 ports later. Till today KOF’98 is known as one of the best 2d fighting games ever, some people even prefer it still above its remake KOF’98 Ultimate Match which was released in 2008 and featured all characters from the early KOF games which were missing in KOF’98 like Goenitz, Orochi, Eiji Kisaragi or Kasumi Todoh among other new features like a different gameplay style, more stages, etc. |
|
|
|
The King of Fighters’99 was the start of a new background story and also different gameplay than before. Not only did it introduce many new characters, but it also introduced the new main protagonist K’ (Kay-Dash), and new antagonists with the N.E.S.T Organization and the KOF’99 Boss Krizalid. Both Kyo and Iori Yagami are single entries in the game. The new main protagonist K’ fights together with Maxima, Benimaru, and Shingo.
Players had to select a team of four characters now instead of three, but one of the 4 would be a Striker which can be used like a special move in every match, but only up to three times usually. This changed the gameplay and allowed very different strategies. The Sega Dreamcast got again an enhanced version with additional features like strikers, including Vanessa and Seth which would be playable for the first time in the next game… |
|
|
|
The King of Fighters 2000 expanded the Striker system from the previous year, the player can use a striker now at any time in a match which allowed to use them for combos only possible with a striker attack as an example, but also as a combo-breaker if used in the right moment.
This time, every character has their own strikers, these are sometimes from previous KOF games but also from other games by SNK or completely new characters. KOF 2000 was the last game in the series which was developed by the original SNK before it went bankrupt. Characters new on board among others were Kula Diamond and Vanessa who became both relatively popular characters in the series. |
|
|
|
The King of Fighters 2001 was produced by Eolith but most developers were working on previous KOF games and were familiar with the series.
|
|
|
|
|
The King of Fighters 2002 is the 2nd Dream-Match Edition and combined old characters from the Orochi Saga like the Orochi Team and the KOF’97 Special Team with newer faces like the K’ and NESTS Team members.
Rugal returned again as the final boss, like KOF’98 too it had no own story. KOF’02 went back to the classic 3-on-3 Team Set-up, the whole striker elements were abandoned as well. In 2009, SNK Playmore released a remake of the game known as KOF’02 Unlimited Match for arcades, Playstation 2, and XBOX 360. Both home versions were playable online and besides new music, stages, and 3d backgrounds it changed K9999 to the new character Nameless and also added previously missing fighters which gave it a roster of 66 characters. |
|
|
The King of Fighters 2003 is the start of the “Ash” Saga about Ash Crimson and “Those From The Past”. This game used the classic 3on3 Team Battle again but now it was possible to change the team members during the battle.
It is also the first KOF main series game by the newly formed SNK Playmore and is the last KOF game developed for SNK’s NeoGeo MVS.It was ported to the Playstation 2 and XBOX. Besides the new Tag Elements, KOF’03 also had a Team Leader system which allowed the leader an extra strong special move. Kagura Chizuru from the Orochi Saga returns as the tournament holder officially while she is actually manipulated by Those From the Past. New faces were Ash Crimson, Duo Luon, and Shen Woo who formed the new Hero Team. |
|
|
|
|
| The King of Fighters Neowave is the first KOF developed on Atomiswave Hardware by Taito and basically another Dream Match game with the young Geese Howard from Art of Fighting 2 as the boss. It has mainly the KOF 2002 roster and adds a few more characters. It has Stages with 3D Graphics now similar to the home console ports of previous games. Special effects and some animations were also upgraded. New in this game is the Heat Mode, the player can also choose different playstyles similar to in KOF’97 and ’98. Rumor was that this game was developed by the team to get a feeling for the new Hardware. |
|
The King of Fighters XI continued the story around Ash Crimson and “Those from the Past”. The new antagonists were able to break the seal of Orochi while Ash Crimson was able to steal the Yata Mirror from Chizuru and is now after the Power of Iori Yagami.
The Tag System of KOF’03 returned, and new big gameplay elements were the Dream Cancels and Desperation Moves. KOF XI introduced many characters not seen in KOF games before like Duck King and Tung Fu Rue (PS2 Version only) from the older Fatal Fury games and completely new characters like Oswald and Elisabeth. Unlike previous KOF games, it also had a large number of secret opponents like Adelheid Bernstein, Gai Tendo and Silber from Buriki One, and Sho Hayate from Savage Reign, another NeoGeo fighting game from the nineties among others. Those characters were all unlockable together with 7 additional characters which were based on their NeoGeo Battle Coliseum appearances like Mai Shiranui and Robert Garcia, also additional were special team endings.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The Heroes Team (Ash, Kyo, K’)
|
The King of Fighters Maximum Impact was developed by Noise Factory for SNK Playmore and released in August 2005 for the Playstation 2 and X-Box Platforms.
It is not set in the same universe as the main series KOF games and featured a new story set in Southtown including new protagonists like Alba and Soiree Meira. In 2007 an arcade version called KOF Maximum Impact Regulation A was released which added four characters including Ash Crimson and a 3on3 Team Mode. This version was also released for the Playstation 2 in Japan. The KOF MI Spinoff series started not so great but the 2nd game and its upgrade received mainly positive reviews, sadly this series was not continued till today. |
|
The King of Fighters XII, released in 2009 for Arcades and later the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 platforms was developed on the Taito X2 Arcade Board which allowed HD Graphics and meant a big graphical change for the KOF Series.
For the first time in years, all characters were getting completely new sprites, and the animations and background details were also |
|
The King of Fighters XIII was released in 2010 (Arcade Version) already and meant a return to the 3on3 system and had 34 characters + a few alternate versions (like Mr. Karate) as DLC for the home console versions.
KOF XIII finished the Ash Saga, got high praise for being finally a real part of the series, and is still (2014) part of many big fighting game tournaments like EVO.
|
|
|
|
|
Besides a few spinoffs like pachinko KOF games and a Rhythm game, we did not get a real new King of Fighters now since 2011, but SNK Playmore is working on the next game it seems.
Absolutely no real details are known so far, and as very big fans of the series, we hope it will become another great and modern fighting game.
As mentioned above already, THANK YOU SNK, and also THANK YOU and everyone who participated in our King of Fighters Art Collaboration.
Game-Art-HQ.com / Reinhold Hoffmann
