The King of Fighters '95

The King of Fighters 95 is the second game in the series. The original game was a very ambitious title and with this game, SNK was trying to fix a few of the flaws that their original game had. This was released on many consoles in the day, most notably the Neo-Geo, but the Sega Saturn got a fantastic port and the Sony PlayStation got a port that was not so fantastic.

A True Sequel

One of the most interesting things is that SNK made this as a full-on sequel to the last game. The King of Fighters 95 takes place after the 94 game with, the criminal boss, Rugal Bernstein from the last game wants revenge for the tournament failing in the last game and he has put together another tournament. For a fighting game, the story is kind of cool.

The presentation of the game is pretty much just the same as it was in the last game. To be fair, this had a pretty quick turnaround so I do understand why they were not able to spruce the graphics up a great deal.

Teams Of 3 Fight For Victory!

The gimmick of this series is that instead of picking just one fighter you have a team of three. There is a decent selection of teams including a new one that was not in the last game. The big draw here is that they fixed something from the last game and that is you can now pick any three fighters you want to make your own dream team! This is a feature we take for granted these days, but back then it was a massive step in the right direction.

Many of the fighters have new moves as well, Fatal Fury 3 was released before this for example and the Fatal Fury characters now have the moves that were included with that game. If you were a fan of the SNK fighting games back in the day, you would have got a real kick out of this.

Practice Makes Perfect

The AI is a bit of a mixed bag. Sometimes, you will be just steamrolling your way through fights and then on other occasions, the AI can be very cheap. To be fair this is something many other fighting games are guilty of too. Thankfully, the fighting on offer here is so much fun that you will want to practice a great deal to get good at the game. It is even more fun if you are playing with a buddy. What I like about this series is that it is easy to pick up and play, but there is a lot of depth to it as well.

I will admit that there have been many better games in the series. However, The King of Fighters 95 for a second release did manage to fix the main issue I had with the first game and that was the creating of your own team. The gameplay and presentation may not have improved a great deal, but that was already pretty solid. If you like fighting games, I feel that this is more than worth checking out.

Pros:

• The roster is pretty stacked
• You can now create your own team
• Each character has at least one new move
• It is a game that is easy to play, but hard to master
• It is a ton of fun to play with a buddy

Cons:

• The presentation is pretty much the same as the previous game
• While good, later KOF games are far, far better

SNK has made their name on making fighting games. Following on the heels of Capcom's enormously successful Street Fighter II, SNK released Fatal Fury, which became one of their most popular titles, spawning a number of arcade sequels. Not stopping there, SNK continued with Art of Fighting, a game which has also had its share of sequels. Enter King of Fighters '95, which combines the two games into one, to see just who is King of Fighters.

The PlayStation version of the arcade and Neo-Geo hit is a great translation, complete with all the graphics and animation of the coin-op. The soundtrack is done with red book audio and sounds great coming directly off of the CD.

Where King of Fighters differs from other similar fighting games is that it uses teams in addition to single-fighter matches. The teams come from different parts of the world-Japan, England. U.S., Italy, Mexico, China, Brazil and Korea. There are three fighters per team for a grand total of 24 fighters.

As a fighting game, King of Fighters '95 is showing its age. The '96 version is already out in arcades and on the Neo-Geo home system, and when compared to Street Fighter Alpha 2, KoF is a bit dated. The game has enough features and options to keep any fighting game fan busy for hours on end, but the fighting engine isn't as good as that of newer games.

Putting a 2-D fighting game on the PlayStation also means encountering one more problem: load time. The game loads practically at every turn, and it slows gameplay a lot. In Team Mode, it loads after every round. This is one major drawback to the game. Unfortunately, the hardware isn't well-suited for 2-D, and the memory capacity is reached quickly. Hopefully, programmers and designers will find more tricks to decrease the amount of loading time present in games like this. If companies can get this time down, then 2-D games will be fantastic on the PlayStation.

Added to the PS version is a way to program the top four L and R buttons to perform special moves at the touch of one button. This makes it a lot easier for newcomers to pick up the game and play against gamers who have mastered it. The Street Fighter-esque moves and controller motions are easy to learn, but having the option of one-touch special moves is a great addition.

Team Mode pits three against three, and when a fighter is defeated, the next one on the roster takes his/her place. You duke it out until one side has no more fighters left. At the end, the three fighters from your team go up against Kusanagi and Omega Rugal. These two have lightning-fast moves and can wipe the floor with you in short order.

Single Play pits you against one other fighter in the basic fighting game two-out-of-three match. Fighting every single character in the game can get amazingly long.

Although the computer's Al is good, there's no substitute for fighting against a human opponent. This is where King of Fighters '95 really shines. SNK can be credited for making some of the best one-on-one fighting games fever, and if you can't afford a Neo-Geo, but like the games, then the PlayStation version of will be a great addition to any fighting library.

Gamer's EDGE

When you have selected your team, the next order of business is to select the order in which they will fight. Wait a second before choosing and you can match up your order to best fight the computer opponent's selections. The best order is to go with weaker fighters first to your strongest. That way you won't be stuck at the end fighting with a guy you're not that good at. You can also edit your team to have all fighters that you are good at. If you've edited your team, match characters up that you think will be able to beat your opponents the best.

The game's two Bosses are Sai Shu Kusanagi and Omega Rugal. Your team has only one crack at beating both of the Bosses. If after beating Kusanagi you have only one fighter left, you'll have one shot at beating Omega Rugal.

The two Bosses use a lot of special moves and combos that can inflict a lot of damage in a short time. Avoid their projectiles and try to attack when they're open. Kusanagi. especially, likes to throw projectiles your way. Jump over them and get in a few well-placed hits before jumping away.

Once you defeat Kusanagi. Rugal will transform and become Omega Rugal. hell-bent on stopping you from ruining his plans for the tournament.