The King of Fighters '94

The King of Fighters '94 (KOF '94) is a fighting game released in 1994, developed and published by SNK for the Neo Geo MVS arcade system, AES, and CD home consoles. It is a crossover game, featuring characters from SNK's previous titles such as Fatal Fury and Art of Fighting, updated versions of characters from Ikari Warriors and Psycho Soldier, and new, original characters. The story centers around the tournament organized by the villain Rugal Bernstein.

SNK designer Takashi Nishiyama recruited Masanori "Kuwa" Hashi as the game's director after admiring his work at Irem. Hashi's first project at SNK was Baseball Stars Professional, where he met Toyohira Tanabe. Tanabe would later become the series' battle designer. Together, they aimed to create an all-star fighting game combining famous SNK characters with new ones, most notably the Japan Team, led by the new protagonist Kyo Kusanagi, a high school delinquent skilled in martial arts that utilize fire.

KOF '94 was developed with the concept of bringing together characters from several of SNK's existing games to attract their fanbases. The character designs and the innovative team-based gameplay system, where players use three-member teams, were widely praised. The game's success led SNK to launch the King of Fighters series, beginning with KOF '95, which eventually became the company's flagship franchise.

In 2004, to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the series, SNK released a remake titled KOF '94 Re-Bout for the PlayStation 2, featuring higher-resolution graphics and 3D environments. KOF '94 has also been included in SNK Arcade Classics Vol. 1 for the PlayStation 2, PlayStation Portable, and Wii, and is available individually for digital distribution on modern platforms.

The basic gameplay system of KOF '94 is similar to SNK's previous games like the Fatal Fury series, Art of Fighting and Samurai Shodown. The game uses a four attack button configuration similar to Fatal Fury 2 and Fatal Fury Special, that consists of a light punch, light kick, strong punch and strong kick. Like in Fatal Fury 2, specialized techniques are performed by pressing combinations of buttons, allowing the player to dodge an opponent's attack or to launch a character's powerful knockdown attack. As with most other fighting games, each character has a set of basic, unique, and special moves that can be performed by the player with a specific series of joystick and button inputs.^[1][2]

Each player has a power gauge at the bottom of the screen which charges when the character is blocking or taking attacks. It can also be filled manually by pressing and holding three buttons at the same time, however this leaves the character vulnerable to an attack. Once the power gauge is filled, the player's basic attacks become stronger for a short period. When the characters are in this state, their players can also perform the character's Super Move, which immediately consumes the entire power gauge. The players can also access their character's Super Move when the life gauge is 75% empty and flashing red like in Fatal Fury 2. Taunting an opponent can reduce their power gauge, slow down their manual charging, and stop them from reaching the maximum level.^[2][3]

KOF '94 replaced the traditional round-based format used in preceding fighting games with a format consisting of 3-on-3 team-based matches dubbed the Team Battle System. Instead of choosing a single character, the player selects from one of eight available teams, each consisting of three members. Before each match, the player chooses the order in which their team members enter the battle. When the match begins, the members chosen to go first on their respective teams will fight. When one character is defeated, the following member of the same team will take his or her place, while the character on the other team will have a small portion of their life restored (if energy was lost during the previous round). If a character is losing a match against the opponent, then the player can call one of the remaining teammates standing on the sidelines to jump in and perform a support attack. The match ends when all three members of either team lose.^[1]

Rugal Bernstein is a notorious and ruthless but skilled and influential black-market weapon and drug dealer bored from lack of competition. He decides to host a new King of Fighters (K.O.F.) tournament. Rugal sends out 24 invitations to individuals around the world. Unlike the previous three K.O.F. tournaments depicted in Art of Fighting 2, Fatal Fury: King of Fighters, and Fatal Fury 2, the new King of Fighters is a team tournament, with eight teams of three, each representing a different nationality.

At the tournament's conclusion, Mature, Rugal's personal secretary, invites the Japan team to fight their final match within Black Noah. Rugal reveals the true purpose of his tournament: to defeat the winning team and add them to his grisly collection of previous challengers who had been turned into statues. Kyo sees his defeated father among the statues and decides to avenge him. As Rugal is finally beaten, he triggers the self-destruct mechanism on his ship. The team escapes and reflects on their victory.

The game has 24 playable characters comprising eight teams of three fighters. The final boss is not a part of any of the teams, is unplayable and fights the player's team alone. Five teams consist of characters from other SNK series while the rest consist mostly of KOF originals. Each team represents a different country, though this only affects the stage on which the team is fought and the characters in many cases don't share nationalities with the country they represent. Unlike later games in the series, the player cannot freely build a team and must choose one of the eight preset teams. Teams include:

• Team Japan (Protagonist Team):
  • Kyo Kusanagi, a high-school student whose family possesses an ancient set of pyrokinetic abilities. He fights using Kenpo.
  • Benimaru Nikaido, a model who fights with shootboxing and also has electrokinetic abilities.
  • Goro Daimon, a large judoka who has geokinetic abilities.

• Team Fatal Fury:
  • Terry Bogard, the protagonist of the Fatal Fury series who has been trained in various fighting styles such as karate, kickboxing and kung fu. He can also attack with ki-based techniques he learned from his master, Tung Fu Rue.
  • Andy Bogard, brother of Terry, who is trained in Koppojutsu and Shiranui-Ryu Ninjutsu. He also has ki-based techniques he learned from Tung Fu Rue.
  • Joe Higashi, a Muay Thai fighter with aerokinetic abilities.

• Team Art of Fighting:
  • Ryo Sakazaki, protagonist of the Art of Fighting series and first champion of the KOF tournament who practices Kyokugenryu karate, which is similar to Kyokushin karate but also contains ki-based techniques. He fights with a traditional version of Kyokugenryu.
  • Robert Garcia, Ryo's best friend and friendly rival who fights using a kick-heavy version of Kyokugenryu karate.
  • Takuma Sakazaki, Ryo's father and a master of Kyokugenryu karate, the only one who can perform the most advanced techniques of the style.

• Team Women Fighters:
  • Mai Shiranui, a kunoichi who practices her family's own martial art, Shiranui-Ryu ninjutsu.
  • Yuri Sakazaki, younger sister of Ryo, who fights with an unorthodox take on Kyokugenryu karate.
  • King, a bar owner who fights with her own kick-heavy take on muay thai. She can also throw ki-based attacks with her kicks.

• Team Ikari Warriors:
  • Ralf Jones, protagonist of the Ikari Warriors series. A mercenary whose fighting style is based on hard punches.
  • Clark Steel, Ralf's best friend and the other protagonist of the Ikari Warriors series. He fights with a wrestling-based fighting style.
  • Heidern, the commander of the Ikari Warriors mercenary unit, whose hands can cut like knives and who can also throw slashes as projectiles.

• Team Korea Justice:
  • Kim Kaphwan, a taekwondo master with a strong sense of justice who is trying to rehabilitate the two criminals in his team.
  • Chang Koehan, a very large criminal who fights with a large metal ball attached to a chain.
  • Choi Bounge, a very small criminal who fights with Freddy Krueger-esque claws.

• Team Psycho Soldier:
  • Athena Asamiya, the protagonist of Psycho Soldier and an idol with psychokinetic abilities and kung fu training, though her fighting style emphasizes the former.
  • Sie Kensou, the self-proclaimed love interest of Athena. He has the same psychokinetic abilities as Athena, though his fighting style emphasizes his kung fu.
  • Chin Gentsai, master of Athena and Sie and a master of various styles of Kung Fu, though he fights primarily with drunken boxing.

• Team American Sports:
  • Heavy D!, a professional boxer who was banned from regular competition after severely injuring his opponent.
  • Lucky Glauber, a former professional basketball player and a karate champion with a penchant for street fighting.
  • Brian Battler, an American football player who also makes use of wrestling.

• Final Boss:
  • Rugal Bernstein, an arms dealer and the organizer of The King of Fighters tournament. He is capable of copying any technique after seeing it performed once and he makes heavy use of Geese Howard's Reppuken and Wolfgang Krauser's Kaiser Wave ki-attacks. He also has techniques of his own, such as a slashing kick named Genocide Cutter.

SNK game designer Takashi Nishiyama brought Masanori Kuwahashi into the company after seeing his work at Irem. Nishiyama would then turn him into the director of The King of Fighters '94. His first work at SNK was Baseball Stars Professional, where he met Toyahisa Tanabe. Tanabe would become the series' battle designer.^[4] According to an interview with veteran designers of The King of Fighters series, the prototype version of the game was a Double Dragon-style side-scrolling beat 'em up, titled Survivor. It would only use core characters from the Art of Fighting and Fatal Fury series, specifically allowing players to play Robert Garcia and Terry Bogard for location testing. However, the idea was eventually abandoned. Since SNK were attached to the idea of the two-series crossover, they eventually agreed to make their idea into an all-star fighting game. Vintage characters from Ikari Warriors and Psycho Soldier were also added to the roster. The concept of a three-man team was one of the ideas kept from the side-scrolling version.^[5] The title "The King of Fighters" was reused from the subtitle of the first Fatal Fury game, Fatal Fury: King of Fighters.^[6]

The King of Fighters series director Toyohisa Tanabe asserted that the Art of Fighting and Fatal Fury fighters were added specifically for adults, and the newer KOF characters were aimed to appeal to younger audiences. Characters such as Benimaru Nikaido and Chang Koehan were added to have an offbeat variety to the cast, which Tanabe had previously deemed to be too serious.^[7] The team aimed to compete with the Street Fighter fighting game series by providing a team-based system in response to the single fighters from Capcom's games. This led to the desire for a total of 24 playable characters, even if the roster felt too large by then-current fighting game standards.^[8] SNK artist C.A.C. Yamasaki commented that although the lead programmer thought the game would not sell well, he believed it would eventually become popular. While only ten people arrived at the first location test, more people came to subsequent tests.^[9] SNK also had trouble advertising the game due to a lack of advertising budget and reportedly low-quality ads.^[10]

Kuwasashi expressed concern about creating a young lead who would clash with veteran fighters, but he still thought it would be beneficial for sales. After several discussions, the staff decided to create the new hero Kyo Kusanagi, focusing on the idea of a more realistic fighter than the ones seen in other fighting games, especially due to his younger age, relationships, and stylish clothes.^[11] Designers wanted a new, "snazzy" lead character who would easily compete with Fatal Fury and Art of Fighting characters.^[12] Masahiro Nonaka was inspired by the late musician Yutaka Ozaki when voicing Kyo and gave him an appealing personality despite initial doubts.^[13] Fellow Japanese character Benimaru Nikaido was also meant to contrast common fighting game characters like Liu Kang from Mortal Kombat or Sagat from Street Fighter with his slender look.^[14] The boss character, Rugal Bernstein, was developed to be "the mightiest (most violent) and most evil boss character ever".^[15] The game was developed to have a "Fugitive Team" composed of Chang, Choi, and an unknown criminal, but Kim Kaphwan was placed in their team.^[16] The English Team was composed of King from Art of Fighting along with Billy Kane and Big Bear from the first and second Fatal Fury games. Designers had several problems with Big Bear concerning capacity, and the Art of Fighting staff insisted on adding Yuri Sakazaki to KOF. Yuri replaced Billy Kane, and later Mai Shiranui took Big Bear's place to form the English Team (later known as Women Fighters in the following games).^[17]

Most of the characters from other games were meant to have some of their moves changed or removed in order to balance them with KOF's new characters. However, designers focused on balancing the characters without removing any moves, and creators of the series noted that the Art of Fighting characters were the strongest ones in the game.^[18][19] Nevertheless, other characters such as Terry and Andy Bogard got the designers' utmost attention and were given new moves.^[20][21] There was also a careful approach when designing the background stages, with the Japanese stage being based on the developers' office areas.^[22] Tanabe and his team worked to properly balance the cast through trial-and-error, although they intentionally made Heidern one of the most overpowered characters.^[23] Though the team found freedom with the Neo Geo hardware, it was difficult to maintain the same quality on ports to other platforms. The game was popular because most of the team was composed of relatively young people, and the Sony PlayStation and Sega Saturn ports were successful. However, they received negative responses to the bland stages and characters.^[24] Despite the early negative responses, Kuwasashi and his staff were surprised by the popularity the video game got, most notably becoming the winner of a Gamest award involving fighting games.^[25][26]

The King of Fighters '94 was released in Japanese and North American arcades on August 25, 1994.^[27] Home versions of the game were released later that same year for the Neo Geo AES on October 1 and for the Neo Geo CD on November 2nd.^[27][28] The home version was censored outside Japan in two ways, removing Mai's breasts bouncing animations and blood effects (the blood also could be disabled by arcade operators).^[29]

On November 6, 2007, an emulation of the Neo Geo AES version was re-released for the Wii Virtual Console in Japan, for a price of 900 Wii Points. The North American and European releases followed on November 23, 2007, and January 7, 2008, respectively.^[30] Another emulated version/type of the game is included in the compilations SNK Arcade Classics Vol. 1 and The King of Fighters Collection: The Orochi Saga, both released for the PlayStation 2, PlayStation Portable and Wii.^[31] The game was also re-released by Sony Computer Entertainment for the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Portable on December 21, 2010,^[32] as one of the first games in the NEOGEO Station line-up.^[33] In 2012, KOF '94 was announced to be included in the set of twenty pre-loaded games being shipped with SNK Playmore's new handheld game console Neo Geo X,^[34] but it was ultimately replaced by The King of Fighters '95. The arcade version was emulated and released as part of the ACA Neo Geo series for the PlayStation 4 on October 27, 2016, with releases for Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Playstation 5^[35], Microsoft Windows, Nintendo Switch, iOS and Android following afterwards.^[36]

In Japan, Game Machine listed The King of Fighters '94 as the second most popular arcade game of September 1994.^[46] In North America, RePlay reported it to be the third most popular arcade game of September 1994.^[47] Play Meter also listed it as the 32nd most popular arcade game of October 1994.^[48] The game was well received, with reviews generally praising the deep combat system^[1][38][49] and the matching up of fighters from different SNK franchises,^{[38][40][43][49]} though the inability to choose team lineups in Team Battle Mode was a near-universal complaint among critics.^{[1][38][40][43][49]}

A reviewer for Next Generation argued that King of Fighters '94 was a particularly worthwhile arcade game, since the three-character teams meant the player would effectively get three lives for each credit, providing a high value per quarter at a time when most arcade games were much more expensive than they had been in the past.^[43] Reviewing the Neo Geo home version, GamePro remarked that the character selection is massive, but very unbalanced, and that most of the new characters are "goofy looking" and underpowered compared to the other fighters. They nonetheless concluded that "The King of Fighters is the very best non-Shodown game available for the Neo Geo, and it's one of the most playable fighting games ever", citing enjoyable gameplay additions such as the dodge move and juggle combos.^[49]

In a review of the Virtual Console release, Lucas M. Thomas of IGN praised KOF '94 for its graphics, fluid animation and vibrant colors, but concluded that buyers might be better off waiting for the improved sequels to arrive on the Virtual Console.^[1] According to IGN's Jeremy Dunham, the game "was essentially a cross between Fatal Fury and Art of Fighting," with a faster control response. He added commented that the creation of three-on-three battles was an advanced feature for a game from 1994 and the idea of 'borrowing' characters from other games from the company was also innovative.^[50] Reviewing the Virtual Console release, Dan Whitehead of Eurogamer identified the use of characters from multiple franchises and the Team Battle Mode as the most distinctive points. He concluded the game to be "a solid, technical fighting game that, like most SNK outings, skews more towards the hardcore player than the casual punching aficionado."^[40] According to Kyle Knight of Allgame, the graphics and sounds, while better than most games of the time, were subpar by SNK standards. He concluded The King of Fighters '94 is "a very good fighting game, but it lacks some refinements that would have made it great."^[38]

Electronic Gaming Monthly gave KOF '94 its Game of the Year awards in the categories "Best Fighting Game" and "Best Neo-Geo Game" of 1994; additionally, Mai Shiranui was awarded the title of "Hottest Game Babe" of the year.^[51] In Japan, the game was awarded the title of "Best Game of 1994" in the Eighth Annual Grand Prize by the arcade magazine Gamest, also placing first in the categories of "Best Competitive Fighting Game" and "Best Direction", fifth in "Best Graphics", and third in "Best VGM" (several characters from the game were also featured in their list of 1994's top 50, including Athena at #3, Kyo at #4, Yuri at #7, King at #8 and Mai at #10).^[52]

The game was acclaimed in a number of retrospective articles and top lists by several publications. G4 noted that The King of Fighters '94 was regarded by some fans as the "Street Fighter beater" and was unique due to its team system.^[53] Maximum similarly called it "the first beat-em-up to offer more than the Street Fighter series" and said that the game "helped spearhead the SNK renaissance".^[54] 1UP.com lauded the game for its large and well-balanced cast of characters, calling it "a hell of a cast in 1994".^[55] In 2010, UGO.com listed it among the Top 25 Fighting Games of All Time,^[56] while GamePlayBook ranked it as the seventh best 2D fighting game ever made.^[57] Complex writers ranked it as the eighth best fighting game of all time in 2011,^[58] as well as the eleventh all-time best SNK fighting game in 2012, commenting that "the unique team selection and elimination style matches of the series made their origin in this great '90s fighter."^[59]

Next Generation reviewed the Neo-Geo version of the game, and stated that "Every fighting fan should take a look at this one either in the arcades or in the home."^[44]

A remake, titled The King of Fighters '94 Re-Bout, was released for the PlayStation 2 in Japan only on December 28, 2004, commemorating the tenth anniversary of the franchise.^[60] Re-Bout features both the original 1994 game and an enhanced version featuring higher-resolution graphics, a Team Edit option feature similar to the later KOF games, the ability to play as Saisyu Kusanagi and Rugal Bernstein, arranged music, new stages and an online versus mode.^[61] SNK Playmore commented that they received negative fan feedback regarding the game's simple upscaling and smoothing of character sprites, so they decided to create new, high-resolution sprites for the following games in the series.^[62]

A North American version was meant to be released for the Xbox. It was completed and even reviewed by some publications,^[63] but was canceled on March 23, 2006, for an undisclosed reason.^[64] In Japan, the game sold 28,482 units.^[65]

The game received a variety of licensed media released in Japan in 1994 and 1995:^[3]

• The original soundtrack The King of Fighters '94 (PCCB-00162) and the arranged soundtrack The King of Fighters '94 Arrange Sound Trax (PCCB-00165), both released by Pony Canyon.
• The art book The King of Fighters '94 (GMC-2) published as part of the Gamest Mook series by Shinseisha.
• The Laserdisc audio and video release The King of Fighters '94 (PCLP-00539) by Pony Canyon LD.
• Several manga published in the Gamest Comics collection by Shinseisha:
  • A Yonkoma manga by various artists, titled The King of Fighters '94 4-Koma Ketteiban (ISBN 4-88199-150-7).
  • A selection of illustrations and short strips by various artists, titled The King of Fighters '94 Comic Anthology (ISBN 4-88199-196-5).
  • Ryo Takamisaki's six-volume adaptation series titled The King of Fighters '94 Gaiden (beginning with ISBN 4-88199-168-X).

• Entry on The King of Fighters 10th anniversary official website
• The King of Fighters '94: Re-bout official website (in Japanese)
• The King of Fighters '94 Virtual Console edition official website (in Japanese)
• The King of Fighters '94 at MobyGames
• The King of Fighters '94 Re-bout at MobyGames
• The King of Fighters '94 at the Killer List of Videogames