The King of Fighters 98
Release: July 23, 1998 | Size: 683megs | NGH-242 | Developer: SNK | Publisher: SNK
Author: M.E. Williams
After the Orochi storyline was completed with King of Fighters 97, SNK took all the best bits of the first four King of Fighters games and created a 36 character monster with a whopping 683 mega-bits of memory. With the largest roster of any fighting game to date, and multiple ways to play, King of Fighters 98 was an instant hit and is still played both competitively and casually today.
At the end of the 1990's, arcades around America were closing quickly due to the ongoing race for home consoles to match or exceed what gamers could find in these seedy dins of upstart youngsters. While fighting games helped to reignite the interest in arcades in the early 1990's, after 7 years the general consumer had pretty much had their fill. The advent of 3D fighting games had captured gamers' attention, and dozens of "me too" 2D fighting games of questionable quality left a bad taste in almost everyone's mouth.
Outside of Mortal Kombat and Guilty Gear, not many other 2D fighting game franchises survived into the modern era that weren't produced by Capcom or SNK. To further the dire outlook, both Capcom and SNK released far too many sequels in their own established franchises over a short amount of time. This made choosing and playing any one fighting game as convoluted as following a 90's Marvel comics story line if you weren't already a die-hard fan. Couple that with the very high skill bar associated with the genre and you had a recipe for consumer fatigue.
That said, the arcade scene wasn't dead quite yet and the King of Fighters 98 released to much fanfare both critically and commercially. It saw extremely healthy sales in the arcade, and had a surprisingly wide-spread AES release for a game released this late in the hardware's life. King of Fighters 98 was so anticipated that Famitsu (a popular Japanese gaming magazine) reported it sold over 22k copies on the AES console in its first week alone! To put that into perspective, even the most popular games on the AES barely scratched above 5k.
King of Fighters 98 was also one of the last four releases on the ill-fated Neo-Geo CD, but came with an excellent arranged soundtrack and a special edition with a calendar. It also received ports to the Sony Playstation and the Sega Dreamcast just a year later. Of course it's also received multiple reissues over the years on a variety of platforms and compilation packs. This brilliant game is still fervently played the world over today, and stands tall as one of the Neo-Geo hardware's most sought after games. In this jaded gamer's opinion, the King of Fighters 98 is the best game SNK has ever produced - out nudging even the mighty Garou: Mark of the Wolves. Let's dig in.
The King of Fighters 98 is a "dream-match,: much like King of Fighters 94 and Fatal Fury Special. Rather than following a set storyline, 98 was more of a celebration of everything that was King of Fighters and SNK up to that point. While King of Fighters 97 has its fans, 98 is a greatly updated version of that game's mechanics with rebalanced characters, numerous gameplay and move set tweaks, new moves added, and it also received a generous upgrade in overall presentation. Oh, and the horrible performance slow-down issues that plagued the prior year's entry are all but gone! The King of Fighters 98 was and is the ultimate classic King of Fighters package.
Like King of Fighters 97, 98 allows players to choose their preferred style of play: Extra Mode or Advanced Mode (explained below). While both modes have the same 4 button attack set up and character move sets, the rest of the gameplay flow will change depending on what you choose. What's even better is that each player gets to choose the mode that works best for their playstyle without causing an imbalance in overall gameplay.
Advanced Mode (KOF 97): Hyper Aggressive
Dodge-Rolls - Players can roll forward or backward to evade attacks to keep momentum going.
Running - Characters can run and have a bevy of super jump and hop-jump options.
Stock based Max meter - Once players build a super bar, it will go into a "stock-pile" on reserve. For every character on your team that is KO'ed, you get an extra stock slot. If you are on your last character, for example, you can have up to 5 Max stocks.
Your character's mood can affect whether or not saved stocks carry over into another round after a match. You can check your character's mood before each fight by holding START when choosing your team's order. A bad mood means you will loose a stock, a neutral mood means your stocks stay the same, and a good mood means you gain a stock. This is randomized on each play, unlike 97.
Max Stock break - players can press ABC to break a stock that lends a temporary damage buff and allows the use of a super desperation move while activated. For example, rather than Terry doing a single Power Geyser, he will do the 3 wave Triple Geyser.
Super rolls - upon block, the player can press back or forward + AB to use one stock that gets them out of harms way. This is useful for multi-hit moves that do a lot of chip-damage.
Blow back - you can press both hard attacks on block to blow back the opponent and stop their onslaught. You can also do this move neutral on the ground or in the air. If it hits it produces a guaranteed hard knockdown.
Extra mode (KOF 95): Defense Oriented
AB dodge-counters like classic KOF.
Characters can do a short dash, but not a full run.
The Max bar does not allow you to save stocks, but fills faster and can be filled manually by holding down ABC.
Blowback is present, but you cannot use it as a counter hit on block.
Your life bar flashes red when you're in danger of being KO'ed, and you have access to unlimited desperation moves when in this state. You can do a Super Desperation Move with a full Max meter and red life bar.
The brilliance of King of Fighters 98's gameplay is in its simplicity. Rather than having a million different gameplay systems going on at once, the depth in classic King of Fighters games comes from a bevy of movement options that allow for an intricate game of footsies. The short hops SNK games are known for make the gameplay ultra aggressive, but it also puts a greater emphasis on how you use your normals on the ground to snuff oncoming attacks from the air. For example, the standing light punch, while low on damage, is one of the most useful tools in your arsenal due to its speed and ability to snuff many hopping attacks that would otherwise hit you or leave your opponent at an advantage if you block. There is a lot going on here with how to use hops, so I suggest you check out this primer if you want to really learn how to play the game.
Unlike modern King of Fighters games like 13-15, King of Fighters 98 is about creating small combos that quickly punish your opponent. There are no EX moves with special juggle properties and fewer opportunities to put the opponent in a juggle state. Counter hits often do lead to small juggles, though, and smart timing of counter hits is key to your victory. King of Fighters 98 is also exceedingly balanced for a game of this vintage. Fighting games from the 90's all have at least a little jank, with some games having more than others. For a game with 36 characters and multiple alts, it's astounding there are so few glitches and broken characters. Almost all fighters are viable in tournaments and anything goes even 25 years later...well, expect Omega Rugal. He's banned from tournaments for good reason. The meta in this game is so well understood by the competitive community by this point that newcomers to the game will struggle to keep up - even if they are avid players of modern King of Fighters games.
The bottom line here is that no other fighting game plays like King of Fighters, and no other King of Fighters game is as tight, responsive, and satisfying to play as 98. In this humble, jaded gamer's opinion, King of Fighters 98 is the epitome of the Neo-Geo fighter and it edges out even the mighty Garou: Mark of the Wolves in overall lasting appeal due to the huge cast and litany of options. The focus on footsies and "bread-n-butter" combos without a lot of extra systems make the gameplay in 98 tight, deliberate, and highly satisfying.
King of Fighters 98 carries over the entire cast from 97 and boosts the roster by bringing back fan favorites Vice and Mature from 96, the USA Sports team from 94, Heidern from 94/95, Saisyu Kusinagi (Kyo's father) from 95, and Rugal from 94/95 as the final boss. With 38 immediately selectable characters, King of Fighters 98 had the largest roster of any fighting game until Capcom's Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 in 2001. What's more, King of Fighters 98 also includes alternative versions of 13 characters based on playstyles that were fan favorites in the past, or fit more closely inline with other popular releases of the year, like Real Bout Fatal Fury 2.
Boss Alts:
Rugal (Omega version) - banned from tournaments
King of Fighters '94 Alts:
Ryo, Robert, Yuri, Joe
Orochi Versions Alts:
Yashiro, Shermie, Chris
King of Fighters 95 Alts:
Kyo
Real Bout 2 Alts:
Terry, Andy, Mai, Billy
Compared to prior King of Fighters releases, SNK chose a much brighter color pallet that is more akin to Real Bout Special. The colors pop off the screen and really make the sprites stand out from the intricately designed backgrounds. When the artists on the King of Fighters team began to redraw the sprite animation cycles in the 96 edition, these newly designed sprites would continue to get fleshed out through subsequent games. What we have in King of Fighters 98 is the ultimate expression of these character sprites with multiple new frames of animation and moves added for every character in the roster. Additionally, all sprites saw a slight increase in size compared to prior releases and some character sprites got reworked further with Robert Garcia's sprite sporting a generous size and detail buff.
In a nod to the small sub-plots built up across the series to this point, the art team added numerous special pre-match introduction sequences where two characters will have some sort of small exchange. Ryo and King play into their attraction to each other, Mai is obsessed with Andy, Ralf and Clark flex and show off for each other, Iori and Kyo....you get the picture. There's just so much personality oozing from every character that you can't help but get drawn in by all the subtle detail and animation in these fun little sequences.
Backgrounds are excellent across the board and are bursting with color and subtle animations that keep each arena interesting. From the gently rocking boat floating down a Chinese river, a busy market in the Middle-East, or the broken down elevator that is a neat cameo to the Art of Fighting team's background from 95, the backgrounds here are a generous step above the good but generally uninteresting backgrounds from 97.
The presentation across the game is spartan to make room for the gargantuan cast, but what is there is more than serviceable with a vibrant vibe that quickly gets you in the mood to play. Gone completely is the "televised" presentation of 97, in favor of a razor sharp focus on character art and interesting locals. Character portraits are top notch both in the team order screen and victory screens, and the storyline sequences that do play out during the game and the team endings are very well drawn. The opening intro is stylized and cool, but is not quite as good as 97's. Still, a good OP (opening) is a good OP and it really gets you in the mood to play. King of Fighters 98 is one of the absolutely must see Neo-Geo games - a stunning work of pixel art that is truly timeless.
Where as King of Fighters 97 is well known for its dearth of music, King of Fighters 98 has one of the most expansive soundtracks in series history! Each team has their own theme that plays when you fight them, and many characters in 98 have their own individual theme or even special themes that play when two characters with a history are pitted against each other. While much of the music is pulled from other games in the series or even other franchises (like Real Bout Fatal Fury), there are plenty of new tracks and remixes of old favorites made for this edition. The arranged soundtrack is bonkers good, though, and the Orochi themes for Chris and Shermie shouldn't be missed!
Not to be missed, most of the dedicated King of Fighters cast got brand new voice overs for this edition as well. Characters brought over from other franchises use their voice overs for the most recent game in their respective series. Overall, the voice work for King of Fighters 98 is well above any other fighting game to date. The remainder of the sound design, like impact sound effects and others, are top notch and further add to the excellent game feel a gamer can expect while playing.
Listen, if you buy only one King of Fighters game, make it 98. It has a huge roster of interesting characters that are all uniquely their own, outstanding presentation, wonderful music, and deeply satisfying and balanced gameplay. I've put hundreds of hours into this game over the last 25 years, so it comes in high, high regard from an old pro.
So, how should you buy it? Well, because it had such a wide release on AES it isn't too expensive - even for a complete Japanese copy that includes the commemorative art book. If you pay more than $350 it better be minty fresh. You can nab a good condition copy around $270 if you're patient. It's worth every penny. The US edition is worth well over $2000 at this point. If your aim is just to play the game on hardware, stick with the Japanese version as it will work in any AES console. Be warned, though, playing the game in anything but a Japanese console will censor blood and remove Mai's breast bounce animations. King of Fighters 98 also isn't too expensive on Neo CD at less than $70 bucks. It is also very affordable on MVS, as it was (and is still) wildly popular in the arcades.
What if you don't want to spend the big bucks on an AES release? Well, there is the Arcade Archives release for $8, but I don't recommend this route unless you're playing on the Nintendo Switch as it looses the extra modes found in the AES release - like the training mode. You can also get the fleshed out and updated King of Fighters 98 Ultimate Match on most modern gaming storefronts for download, or a physical copy on Playstation 2. It includes a host of additional characters, backgrounds, and modes. Additionally, the Steam release of Ultimate Match received an updated Rollback Netcode patch in early 2021 to smooth out the online play. Personally, I vastly prefer the balance and presentation of the vanilla Neo-Geo release, but the only way to play the vanilla version of the game online is to download the Fightcade client on PC. While emulation based, it is mostly accurate and the online play is great! If you're used to playing on original hardware, though, the input lag from the emulator, plus online, plus any lag from your display will affect high-level play considerably. For casual fans, or for fans that don't play on original hardware, Fightcade is free and is the preferred way to play the vanilla release online. Fightcade also has some of the best players from around the world actively engaging in competition, so you'll definitely get to test your metal against the world's best. It's one of the top 3 games consistently played on the service even in 2023, typically with hundreds of people in the server lobby at any given time!
If you're after classic console ports, you can snag King of Fighters Dream Match 99 on the Sega Dreamcast. Don't let the 99 fool you, it's really 98 with the arranged soundtrack and 3D backgrounds that are...fine. If you're a Dreamcast fan, this isn't a terribly expensive game and is a great port overall. King of Fighters 98 also released on Playstation 1, and I advise you to stay far, far away from this port. The PS1 is vastly under powered to handle such a RAM hungry game and as such the animation, sound, and voice overs suffer considerably. That's on top of the long and frequent load times.
If you are a King of Fighters or fighting game fan and you're just getting into the Neo, King of Fighters 98 should be your day one purchase along with Fatal Fury Special and Samurai Shodown 2. This game is not only a masterpiece on the Neo-Geo, it is a masterpiece of 2D game design. It is a must have, must play title that even non-fighting game fans should experience at least once.