The King of Fighters '95

About The King of Fighters '95

The King of Fighters '95 (1995) is SNK's team fighting sequel that introduced Team Edit and Kyo's rival Iori Yagami, as a resurrected Rugal Bernstein stages a new tournament for revenge.

The King of Fighters '95 in Depth

A year after KOF '94, invitations to a new tournament arrive signed only "R". Rugal Bernstein, thought killed in an explosion, has survived and wants revenge on champion Kyo Kusanagi. The USA Team is replaced by the Rival Team, each with a vendetta: Iori Yagami wants to kill Kyo, Eiji Kisaragi wants to beat the Kyokugen Ryu fighters of the Art of Fighting Team, and Billy Kane wants to kill a Fatal Fury fighter in place of his boss Geese Howard. Kyo's father Saisyu appears as a fighter for the first time, having survived defeat by Rugal and been forced to serve him. After beating Saisyu, players face a stronger Rugal, whose powers consume and kill him.

Rules are mostly unchanged from KOF '94: players pick a team of three and fight rival teams until all three members are beaten, using taunts, special moves and combos, while revised dodge and counterattack mechanics make fighters react better. The big addition is Team Edit, which lets players build a custom team from any of the 24 characters instead of using the preset teams. Electronic Gaming Monthly named it Best Neo Geo Game of 1995, ahead of Fatal Fury 3 and Samurai Shodown III, and both EGM and GamePro singled out Team Edit as its best feature, though GamePro felt it brought few other improvements and Next Generation noted it was still always one-on-one fighting.

Making The King of Fighters '95

Masanori Kuwasashi, director of KOF '94, led production at SNK's Osaka headquarters from shortly after the first game's release in winter 1994. The tired staff came up with more ambitious ideas, worked long days and cut back on sleep, but still had to drop many elements for time, and scheduling and balancing issues left it close to its predecessor. Kuwasashi used Saisyu's return, Iori's introduction and Rugal's stronger form to build a more coherent narrative, and bringing team editing to the forefront to give players more freedom was a key goal. It received positive reviews on arcade and consoles, Computer and Video Games calling it one of the best 2D fighting games, but the PlayStation version was criticised for its controls and long loading times.