A New Rule, In the Time-Honored Tradition (the hell?)
The King of Fighters '94
It started innocently enough, with a gimmick. Street Fighter was more successful than any of their one-on-one tournament fighting games, so someone at SNK got a brilliant idea: Three on three tournament fighting! It's like a tag team battle, only without the tagging in and out, and virtually no teamwork required. To make the deal even sweeter, they gathered up a handful of their most popular characters, and some of their least popular ones as well! And thus, the (new) King of Fighters began.
Anyway, after Wolfkang Krauser kicked the bucket, the enigmatic weapons dealer Rugal Bernstein decided it would be nifty to arrange his own KOF tournament. Never minding the fact that the previous two who had done so had been 'killed.' In a very loose sense of the word.
The official storyline follows Japan team captain Kyo Kusanagi and his two teammates fighting their way through the tournament only to discover the extent of the hosts' madness. However, with Ryo Sakazaki, Athena Asamiya and the rest available, Kyo was kind of overshadowed despite being about the only one the plot dealt specifically with (Rugal was holding Kyo's father Saisyu after defeating him.)
The battle engine was kind of primitive. It plays a lot like Samurai Shodown with Fatal Fury-style hopping and sidesteps (the combat only takes up one plane; the 'sidestep' moves usually just involved the player saying 'whoops!' and looking off balance for a couple frames. There was also no real combo system. In short, it was a really good Fatal Fury with guest stars.
One of the major flaws with KOF '94 (besides its apparent 1995 release date) is the fixed teams. The characters are grouped in threes, tenuously representing various nations. But there was no mixing or matching of fighters into custom teams, which really hurt the versus mode in particular. Thankfully that was one of the first things that was improved in the inevitable sequel. And eventually they dropped the whole 'nations' schtick, probably realizing that Mai Shiranui, Yuri Sakazaki and King made for about as convincing a Team England as Donald Rumsfield would be as a candy striper.
Point and laugh at the U.S.A. Sports Team. It consists of a boxer named Heavy D!, a basketball player/karate expert named Lucky Glauber, and a lobotomized high school jock named Brian Battler. All were loosely based off player names from SNK sports games back in the NES days.
The King of Fighters '95
KOF '95 is a lot like '94. I mean, a LOT like it. But with the edit team feature and the introduction of Kyo's eternal rival Iori Yagami, the KOF universe started to fall into place.
For some reason, some people seem to think KOF '95 is the best of the series. I must say that, from a completely subjective point of view, they're wrong. Although the USA/Rivals Team presented here is pretty interesting and provided the fans something to whine about by making Eiji Kisaragi (from Art of Fighting) a playable character here, then sticking him in the backgrounds from then on.
Even though he was trying to keep it a secret (by mailing out the exact same "R" envelopes as last year, and appearing repeatedly through the course of the game in fairly well-lit cutscenes) Rugal is back, and this time he's freaky! Hooray! With a new cyborg arm and apparently another aircraft carrier, not to mention the aid of a brainwashed Saisyu Kusanagi, he awaits you at the end of the tournament. However, the mysterious power that allowed him to survive a self-destructing aircraft carrier the first time around ends up flaring up and destroying him when he gets too worked up. Kyo or whoever you happen to be is left listening to a mysterious voice saying that he couldn't control that power being out of 'the bloodline.'
The plot thickens.
Thrown Controller Syndrome: A Pantheon of Cheap SNK Bosses (Part one)
SNK is famous (or infamous) for inserting ridiculous, teeth-nashingly tough villains at the end of its fighters. Personally, I can think of companies who are worse about cheap bosses than SNK (something about "Psycho Power" comes to mind), but, whatever. Here are some of the most popular frustrating bosses in more or less chronological order.
Billy Kane (Fatal Fury 1) Billy Kane went on to become one of my favorite characters in later installments, as well as in the King of Fighters. However, his first appearance (in which he appears as an 80 year-old man in overalls in cutscenes thanks to the trend early on in the fighting genre of making everyone as muscly and hideous as conceivable) consists of him endlessly pole-vaulting into you with an unblockable move.
Orochi Geese Howard: Maybe that's not his official name, but he's fast, strong, and surrounded by purple flames. Appearing as a hidden boss in Real Bout Fatal Fury Special, he's a pain even on the easiest setting of play. His charges are now full-screen fiery rushes that segue into excrutiating, life meter chewing combos, followed by him slamming you into the ground in a blast of blue energy, growling "DIE!" Mimic this action with your controller. The original Geese was tough, but this guy's ridiculous. Double Shippuken, my foot.
Lawrence Blood: His little "Ole!" sidestep is REALLY annoying.
Wolfgang Krauser: He redefined 'huge' and 'overpowered.' Except for in the King of Fighters '96, when he plays like Sagat with lead weights on his ankles. Also, his Kaiser Wave set the standard for enormous, hard to avoid projectiles. An American(!) named BJ Love (!!) supplies his voice, which sounds even more incongruous at times than Blue Mary's "Aw yew weddy?" as he rolls out such chestnuts as "KAISER TOMAHAWK!" He has psychotic German style, though, and appears with a 60-piece orchestra and opera singers at times.
Rugal Bernstein: Another psychotic German, fancy that. Rugal is an arms dealer by trade, and a cheap bastard as a hobby. His original form copies Geese's ground blasts and Krauser's Kaiser Wave (which he doesn't even need a meter to perform) and adds the infamously awful Genocide Cutter. It's a jumping kick that slices in a circular motion with EXTREME priority. He keeps coming back as Omega Rugal, GOD Rugal, and the strangely recent Alpha Rugal. Personally I think his KoF '98 incarnation is the worst of all, featuring a multi-hit invisible dash, and a projectile that surrounds him as a barrier as he charges it. And of course, they're insanely strong and go straight through almost any counter-projectiles.
Observation:
Anyone else notice the subtext in the Fatal Fury games that the most powerful fighters have blond hair and blue eyes? (Terry, Andy, Geese, Billy, Mary...)
