The King of Fighters 96

1996 was both a good and bad year for fighting games. On one hand, there were a litany of fighting game sequels and even new IP that released, making 1996 one of the strongest years for the genre across its 30 year history. On the other hand, this litany of releases added even more bloat to the tsunami of fighting games that had already been released in the five years since the debut of Street Fighter 2 in February of 1991. Due to the wild popularity of the prior year's entry, though, the King of Fighters 96 saw no trouble getting the recognition it deserved. Not only was it one of the top grossing arcade games in Japan in 1996 according to Game Machine, the Japanese publication Famitsu reported that the first week of AES sales were over 33k! That's a staggering number considering the niche market and high price of the AES games. 

King of Fighters 96's development is contentious due to many anecdotal accounts on the internet that "SNK worked on the game up to the last minute which led to numerous bugs and glitches." I mean, that could describe just about all arcade fighting games in the 1990s. There are no real developer interviews to corroborate this claim, even in the King of Fighters Visual History book published by Bitmap Books in 2022. What we can glean from the interviews in that volume, and just from playing the game, is that King of Fighters 96 changed the paradigm of what gamers could expect from the now annual franchise and the development team took every step they could to inject new and exciting ways to play and interact with the characters.

The innovation on display in King of Fighters 96 kept the series from falling into the "Street Fighter 2 Trap," as I call it. Rather than release another slightly more refined version of a prior year's entry, SNK would update and refresh their key IP every few years. This constant need to innovate and stay ahead of the game was 90's SNK's biggest strength in game design, and helped them to stay ahead of the curve even when stubbornly using antiquated technology to build cutting-edge games. While SNK would make many, many bad business decisions in the later half of the decade that would ultimately lead to their infamous bankruptcy after the turn of the century, their successful run through the better part of the 1990's was nothing short of legendary. The King of Fighters series was a key part of this success, and the 1996 entry upped the ante on what gamers could expect from SNK and truly challenged SNK's competitors to keep up with their feverish output of innovative fighting games.

According to interviews from the development staff in the King of Fighters Visual History, the team was more confident with this release and wanted to change up the formula to keep things fresh. Thankfully they were allotted a gargantuan memory footprint for the day at a whopping 362 mega bits, which is roughly 46 mega bytes. This is significant because this is the second game on the Neo-Geo to break the proposed 330 mega bit limit of game cartridges for the console (the first being Real Bout Fatal Fury the prior year). This unprecedented amount of space not only allowed the team the flexibility to include more characters, but also refresh the overall animation cycles for returning characters.

Due to the excellent presentation, character animation, and music, the King of Fighters 96 was a breakout success for SNK. This was one of the most impressive 2D games released in 1996 full-stop and the gaming community definitely took notice. The excellent artistic qualities of the game are marred a bit by some questionable design choices in character move sets, woefully unbalanced roster, and mechanics that straddle the line between the two prior games and the rest of the King of Fighters series. King of Fighters 96 is an excellent entry in the series, and some would say it is the most important entry as it's the earliest game that modern King of Fighters fans will be able to go back to without much trouble. There's a lot to unpack here, 362 mega bits of stuff in fact! So strap in.

The King of Fighters 96 continues the Orochi Saga storyline that kicked off in the 1995 edition. Rugal, the tournament sponsor and boss from the prior game, is now presumed dead and a new tournament organizer appeared - Chizuru Kagura. Like most King of Fighters storylines, the tournament sponsor has ulterior motives, although for this year's event Chizuru isn't out for world domination. Rather, she's seeking the help of series protagonist Kyo Kusinagi and his rival Iori Yagami. Chizuru is part of the Yata Clan who, along with the Yasanaki (Yagami) and Kusinagi clans, sealed Orochi away hundreds of years prior. Chizuru, Iori, and Kyo are the holders of sacred treasures that keep the demon locked away. The difficulty here is that Kyo and Iori are bitter rivals due to a feud between clans that began generations prior to the present day.

Throughout the tournament and various character endings, the player learns that Iori has Orochi blood running through him and can summon the power of the demon in uncontrolled moments of absolute rage. After Kyo's team defeats Chizuru in the final match, Goenitz appears and introduces himself as the Heavenly King of the Orochi Hakkeshu - basically the kingpin over an organization bent on reviving Orochi. King of Fighters 96 culminates with Benimaru winning the tournament, Iori, Kyo, and Chizuru stopping Goenitz, and Iori outright murdering his two team mates Vice and Mature, thus fully awakening the Orochi power within him. 

Given the much larger cartridge size for the 1996 season, the King of Fighters team took this opportunity to change up the series considerably, including the roster. Missing from the this entry are Billy Kane, Eiji Kisaragi, Heidern, and Takuma Sakazaki. Teams are as follows:

The gameplay in King of Fighters 96 straddles the line between the more methodical mechanics of 94/95 and the faster mechanics modern King of Fighters fans have become accustom to from 97 onward. This is a pretty big list of changes: 

• A+B standing dodges were replaced with the now traditional forward and backward dodge rolls.

• You can now press A+B right before landing to safe fall from a knockdown in most situations.

• Run cycles were introduced instead of the limited forward dash.

• You can super jump out of a run.

• Super jumps are now more consistent to pull off.

• Hop jumps were introduced, as well as super hop jumps (which leads to ultra aggressive gameplay).

• Players still have a POW meter that fills when you use a special move, or you can charge it with A+B+C held down.

• SDM (Super Desperation Moves) were added, which is a powered up Desperation Move (DM) you can use if you have both a full POW meter and flashing red health bar.

• Flashing red health bars still allow you to do an infinite number of regular DMs.

• You can use a full POW meter to do a super dodge roll to get out of multi-hit moves with a lot of chip damage on block.

  • Press A+B and forward or back on the control stick while in block stun.

• Pressing C+D together while blocking will do a Blowback.

• Most projectile attacks were removed entirely or changed into a short wave or burst. Only Iori, Mai, King, Kensau, Krauser, and Athena have projectiles that function normally. All other projectile based characters, like the entire Fatal Fury and Art of Fighting teams, were changed significantly.

While there are a bevy of new mechanics, there were some odd omissions that hurt the overall gameplay. For example, all command normals (pressing a direction on the stick plus an attack button) were removed from the game entirely, which is an odd choice after SNK implemented so many for King of Fighters 95. Thankfully, command normals were added back in the next year's edition. If you're coming from the more modern releases, though, not having access to command normals in this game make it feel a bit shallow comparatively. 

Another oddity comes from the special move input motions. Many special move motions became more unified across the board, so muscle memory for controller motions could be used more universally across the cast, which is welcome. Where this breaks down are instances where characters have half-circle-and quarter-circle motions mapped to the same button. For example, Mai's Ryu-en-bu (fire tail) is quarter-circle back + punch, and her command triangle jump is half-circle back + punch. Often you'll do the triangle jump by mistake, which flings her all the way to the opposite end of the screen from your opponent instead of following through with her fire tale mid combo. Any avid fighting game player knows this is a big no-no as you'll end up doing the half-circle special on accident rather than the quarter-circle. This isn't a "git gud" situation, it's just a poor design decision and happens all too often mid-match. 

The gameplay overall is more than serviceable, but you can tell the majority of resources went into the actual mechanics design and presentation and little to actual balancing. An acquaintance once said of the gameplay in King of Fighters 96: "It wouldn't be so bad if an old man lying on his back couldn't body 80% of the cast." That's accurate. Two-in-One combos, like going from a standing hard punch to a fireball, also have very strict frame times compared to other fighting games which makes the flow of your combos inconsistent until you play the game for a good while. There's just far too many glitches, overpowered moves, sprite height (hit box) issues, and general jank to recommend the game as a serious fighter. As a fun curio with excellent sprite work, presentation, and music, though - there are few Neo-Geo games with this level of panache.

Where the gameplay is good but rough, the presentation is the very definition of SNK hype in the 90's. All returning characters received a generous sprite overhaul that saw much of their animation cycles redrawn entirely with a healthy amount of new animations added. There are plenty of left over frames and animations from the prior year's entry that were quite good, like Terry's walking cycle. So, basically, these aren't completely new sprite sets. Still, some characters got more special treatment than others, like Joe Higashi. The artists went a long way to further differentiate the characters from each other, and the sprites overall have a level of detail that is a noticeable step above the prior two games. SNK would go on to further refine these sprite sets through the 1998 edition, with King of Fighters 99 seeing the next big sprite update in the series.

The backgrounds are excellent overall with plenty of animation, character cameos, and detail far into the distance. Still, SNK had to cut some corners here so there are two repeat backgrounds: the Tokyo bridge and the USA Mid-West. Each of these backgrounds are used twice with slight variations to make them feel somewhat unique. The music that plays on these backgrounds changes with the team represented, though. That said, there are some real standout backgrounds in the game with the Big Boss' team being the highlight. With it's underground canal and exuberant animation work in the NPCs that dance around the outskirts of the water filled arena, it really is quite impressive.

If the excellent sprite work wasn't enough, the overall presentation is also a significant step above the spartan approach of the prior two games. From the pulse-pounding drum beat that opens the well animated introduction sequence, the rocking "card centric" character select screen, and the exceedingly well drawn portraits that adorn the post-fight sequences, every corner of this game presents the King of Fighters artistic staff at their most confident to this point.

Not to be outdone by the art staff, the sound team at SNK went wild with this release and created a soundtrack with a varied and interesting soundscape that keeps you energized during a fight and rocking out when listening to the tunes outside of the game. With subdued remixes of popular tracks from other SNK games (like Big Shot from Fatal Fury 3), to new takes on old ideas (the Art of Fighting team's theme), and amazing guitar and synth solos (Team Korea's theme), the music is expertly produced and varied. I'll take this further and say that the AES' OST is even better than the Neo CD's arranged soundtrack in this game. The awesome bass, and pounding feel of the AES original just can't be beat. Listen to Kim's theme on YouTube from both the OST and AST to get a feel from what I'm talking about. Maybe that's just my personal nostalgia talking as most fans prefer the Neo CD's AST.

Overall, the King of Fighters 96 is a mixed bag of tricks that is more of a curio in the King of Fighters series rather than a must play classic. While the presentation will wow you, the game feels undercooked with the removal of most projectile attacks, no command normals, questionable special move inputs, and some oddly placed hit-boxes. If you were a King of Fighters fan in 1996, this game would have blown you away and you'd easily forgive these short comings. Since we live in a post 1996 world, though, there isn't much the game can offer you mechanically aside from a neat trip down memory lane to see what one of the more experimental games in the series had to offer. As a less serious fighting game, there's a lot of fun to be had here. 

Due to the over abundance of AES copies produced in Japan, you can pick up a very good conditioned Japanese release for less than $150 in the 2023 retro game market, and I feel that is still an excellent price for this game. The US release, per usual, is well over $3000 at this point. If you plan on PLAYING your video game, go after the Japanese release. The MVS and Neo CD releases are under $50 USD, though, and also an excellent way to play...despite the long and frequent loads of the Neo CD version.

There is a fun companion CD to this game called the King of Fighters 96 Neo-Geo Collection that is home to character interviews, interviews with voice artists, command lists, storyline overview, and more. It's usually under $50 these days. That said, it's entirely in Japanese and never had a US release. The excellent folks at Shmuplations did translate most of the data on the CD, so this is one obscure piece of Neo-Geo history that actually got some love in the modern era. 

Like most King of Fighters games of the mid-90's, 96 did see some ports to popular home consoles of the day. The Saturn release uses the 1mb RAM expansion cartridge. So, while it's not arcade perfect, it is very close to the Neo CD version. The Playstation port is predictably the weakest of the two with many missing frames of animation, muffled voices, and a few other omissions here and there. These ports can be picked up pretty cheap in the import retro game market, but neither release had US or European distribution. If you're just after a good copy of the game to play, check out Hamster's Arcade Archives series on modern platforms for $8. While classic ports are often good fun, modern emulation beats them out every day for providing a more accurate experience.

So, should you get a copy of King of Fighters 96 on your new AES? Well...that's honestly a tough one. If you're after all King of Fighters games you'll get this one eventually. If you aren't into the mechanics of fighting games and just want a pretty, sprite-based game to button mash with some friends, you could spend your money worse ways. While I'd say save up and get a copy of King of Fighters 98 first, as it's truely a masterpiece all around, it is double the price of 96 these days. Still, that's my recommendation. When you're paying hundreds of dollars for a video game, and you aren't an ardent shelf-collector, go for the best bang for your buck. You also aren't at risk of this game rising in overall value anytime soon - there are FAR too many copies in the market and the price has been plateaued for years.