The King of Fighters '96

1996 · Fighting · Neo Geo

About The King of Fighters '96

The King of Fighters '96 (1996) is SNK's third KOF, shifting the focus to close combat with rolls, runs and short hops, as Chizuru Kagura's tournament leads to the Orochi servant Goenitz.

The King of Fighters '96 in Depth

A new tournament is hosted by Chizuru Kagura, heir of the Yata Clan, who wants to find Kyo Kusanagi, conqueror of Rugal Bernstein, and ask him and his bitter rival Iori Yagami to help seal the Orochi demon as their ancestors did. The final boss is Goenitz, one of Orochi's servants. The cast was reshuffled, notably with a Boss Team of famous villains from Fatal Fury and Art of Fighting, and both Chizuru and Goenitz can be unlocked as playable characters. Unlike earlier games, the emphasis moved from projectiles to hand-to-hand combat.

Teams of three still fight through the tournament, but the old Dodge is replaced by an emergency evasion that rolls away from or towards the opponent, possibly ending up behind them. Players can choose short or high jumps, perform counter-techniques to cancel attacks, and run instead of hopping forward. Super Special Moves are available when the Power Gauge is full or life is flashing red, and with both at once an even stronger version can be used. It was also the first game with the Rush combo counter. Reviews were mixed: some praised the graphical improvements and new characters, while others felt new moves that failed to mesh projectiles with close combat left it unbalanced; Sega Saturn Magazine later called it a "disappointment".

Making The King of Fighters '96

SNK struggled to create the sprites and special moves of the new characters, and development ran right up to the scheduled release; staff found it hard to design new characters as appealing as the series' popular ones, and tight deadlines left balance problems and bugs. Game Machine listed it as Japan's most successful arcade game in September 1996, the AES version sold 33,323 copies in its first week, and GameSpot said it helped spark "a modest resurgence" in AES sales. The Saturn port sold 109,752 copies in its first week in Japan. PlayStation and Saturn versions were released only in Japan, and it later appeared in King of Fighters Collection: The Orochi Saga. Overall it sold over 188,000 copies.

The King of Fighters '96 Trivia

Mature and Vice were missing from location tests because the staff had no time to finish them.
Its 362-megabit size made it the first game to break the technical limits of the MVS system.
It took a year to make, compared with two for the first KOF.
Yasuyuki Oda called it the most important game in the franchise, the basis for most of SNK's later work.
EGM named it Neo Geo Game of the Year, ahead of Metal Slug and Real Bout Fatal Fury.