Sure, there had been kings of fighters before, like, say, in the subtitle to the original
Fatal Fury.
But it wasn't until 3 years later, in... well, you guess the year...
when SNK decided to throw their franchises in a blender and frappé until they had a
tall, refreshing, fighting-game smoothie.
It's an idea that's been rather played to death in the modern era, but back then it
was SOMETHING.
Thus, The King of Fighters '94, the first installment in one of the pillar series of
2D fighters.
The invitations have been sent, the teams have been assembled.
But Kula's not on 'em, cuz she won't be introduced for another 6 years, and that makes me sad.
Apparently, when drug kingpin and arms trafficker Rugal Bernstein gets bored, he summons the
best fighters from around the world (or SNK's catalog) to battle for his amusement.
Because that can't go poorly, can it, having the strongest, fastest, fiercest, and yes,
bounciest combatants, exactly the kind of people who might just have a really strong,
heroic sense of justice, and who would think nothing of pummeling a drug kingpin and arms
trafficker.
Or, alternately, they just beat the hell out of each other because that's fun too.
Bucking the one-on-one trend of fighting games up to this point, though, KOF'94 introduced
three-fighter teams, representing nations around the world that really didn't make all
that much sense.
The classic Fatal Fury cast is the Italian team?
What, did they clean up Southtown then go out for gelato?
But that's all tangential plot and doesn't really have much to do with VIOLENCE.
Good, classic, quarter-circly, 2D fighting from the guys who tried to do Street Fighter
better than Street fighter (and succeeded in some respects).
You've got four attack buttons, your standard back-is-block configuration, and a dodge command
that lets you take a step into the background to let that fireball pass by.
KOF94 also folded in concepts like a power meter for unleashing stronger "lethal" attacks,
taunts that deplete the opponent's power (thereby giving them a tactical use as opposed to just
being a jerk), and defensive attacks by your allies on the sideline.
Let's be fair, there were a lot of games trying to ride on the success of the Street Fighter
II concept, but SNK were usually the ones taking those ideas another three steps further,
culminating in the - again, I go back to the image of the refreshing fighting-game smoothie.
Fortunately, this landmark step in the history of fighting gaming has been remade and emulated
a number of times, from a direct virtual console ports on the Wii and PS3 to inclusions in
compilations like the SNK Arcade Classics collection and the King of Fighters: the Orochi
Saga bundle.
A remastered version called The King of Fighters '94 Re-Bout (yes, "re-bout") hit the PS2 in
Japan, and was planned for a US release on the original XBox, but disappeared in the
middle of night like a fart in the wind.
And that's unfortunate, because KOF'94 really feels like one of those fighting games that
you can actually go back to and that still holds up.
More than I can say about Clayfighter 2: Judgement Clay, let me tell you.