Neon Retro Arcade - King of Fighters '98

King of Fighters '98

1998

SNK

The King of Fighters series is a hugely popular franchise that appeared on the Neo Geo for many years before moving to other arcade platforms. Starting with KOF 94, this series includes characters seen in other games, such as Fatal Fury, Art of Fighting, and even Ikari Warriors. Most of the series continued between 1994 and 2010, a pretty solid run for an arcade series. Many people debate which version is their favorite, but King of Fighters 98 is often mentioned as one of the best in the series.

Story

Various versions of the series focused on the Orochi Saga storyline, but KOF 98 is actually a standalone game that breaks from the storyline and is designed as a "Dream Match" game, featuring even characters that were believed to be killed off in previous games. By not sticking to a canon storyline, this game was able to incorporate plenty of fan favorite characters and focus on smooth gameplay, which is a big part of why so many publications identified KOF 98 as the best of the series.

Tips & Strategies

When one character loses a round, the losing team is given a slight handicap to help them out (extra Power Gauges or shortened charging time).

This is the last in the series where characters are waiting to fight in the background.

Various characters were given additional attacks, including Rugal Bernstein, who truly represents the ultimate KOF boss.