But for KOF, an annual franchise at the time, that was not an option. The show must go on and it must be ready in the next 12 months. Which means on Septemexactly one year after KOF '98 - SNK released The King of Fighters '99 on the Neo Geo and in doing so tried to upend the entire series.Ī lot can change in five years, especially in the world of video games. When The King of Fighters debuted in 1994 it was groundbreaking for players to choose a squad of characters instead of just one. But by 1999, there were a lot more team-based fighting games on the market. Capcom's VS-series of Marvel fighting games were 2-on-2 contests where switching fighters mid-match was an essential mechanic. Even other Neo Geo games like Kizuna Encounter featured swappable fighters. By comparison, the KOF style of choosing three fighters but only using one at a time was less fresh.
The King of Fighters '99 shook up the format by upping the number of characters per team to four. At the start of each battle, players choose three of their selected characters to fight with the fourth serving as a "Striker" who can be summoned at any time during the match. When a Striker jumps in, they perform a set action and then leave they have no life bar but they can only appear a finite number of times per match.Ĭhanging the number of characters per team was big, but the biggest change was to the roster of characters itself.
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