The King of Fighters '98 The Slugfest / The King of Fighters '98 Dream Match Never Ends (KOF '98)

The King of Fighters '98: The Slugfest, known in Japan as The King of Fighters '98: Dream Match Never Ends (KOF '98), is a fighting game released by SNK for the Neo Geo arcade and home consoles in 1998. It is the fifth game in The King of Fighters series. It was advertised by SNK as a "special edition" of the series, as it featured most of the characters who appeared in the previous games (from KOF '94 to '97).

KOF '98 was ported to the Neo-Geo CD in 1998 and for the PlayStation in Japan in 1999. A Dreamcast version titled The King of Fighters: Dream Match 1999 was released in 1999, featuring backgrounds remade in 3D. The game was also remade for the PlayStation 2 as The King of Fighters '98: Ultimate Match, which expands the number of playable characters, further tweaks the gameplay and features a third fighting style option.

Gameplay

The gameplay does not differ much from the previous game, KOF '97. Like in KOF '97, the player has a choice between two playing styles: Advance and Extra, with a few slight modifications to Advanced mode (unlike in KOF '97, the character will resume to normal if the player performs a Super Special Move in MAX state). This time when one character loses a round, the losing team is given a handicap in its favor. In Advanced mode, this means that the player's stock capacity for Power Gauges is increased by one. In Extra mode, the time it takes to charge one's power gauge to maximum level is shortened, and the maximum remaining health requirement for a MAX Super Special Move is increased.

Characters
Main article: List of The King of Fighters characters
All the regular characters from the previous game return, along with several characters from preceding installments such as Vice and Mature (Iori's teammates from KOF '96), the American Sports Team (Heavy D!, Lucky Glauber, and Brian Battler) from KOF '94, and the Old Men Team (or Veteran Fighters Team) composed of Heidern, Takuma Sakazaki, and Saisyu Kusanagi, all characters whose last appearances were in KOF '95. Rugal Bernstein from KOF '94 also returns as a Team Edit character, with his alter-ego Omega Rugal (the cyborg version of Rugal from KOF '95) serving as the game's final boss in the Single Player Mode. Shingo Yabuki (who originally appeared in KOF '97) continues as a Team Edit character, but also appears as a mid-boss character during the Arcade Mode. Additionally, the game includes EX versions of certain characters, i.e., alternate versions of characters who use movesets from previous games: Joe Higashi, Ryo Sakazaki, Yuri Sakazaki and Robert Garcia are based on their KOF '94 movesets, whereas Kyo Kusanagi is based on his KOF '95 moveset and Terry Bogard, Andy Bogard, Mai Shiranui and Billy Kane are based on their Real Bout Fatal Fury 2: The Newcomers movesets.

Development
In The King of Fighters '96, several moves from Kyo Kusanagi were changed in order to adapt him to the new game system. However, the original moveset was still popular among gamers and as such, an alternative version of Kyo was added to The King of Fighters '97. The introduction of this version was noted to be "a hit" within gamers, the staff kept adding new alternative versions of other characters in KOF '98. Since this game did not have a storyline, the SNK staff decided to return Rugal Bernstein as the boss character noting that "he's the only character who truly represents the ultimate KOF boss." Additionally, some of his special moves were redesigned, which the staff found to have made him the strongest version of Rugal as well as one of their favorites.

Release

Example of an arcade cabinet of the game. The cabinet's screen shows Kyo Kusanagi performing the 100-shiki: Oniyaki on Iori Yagami
KOF '98 was originally released for arcades on July 23, 1998. It was ported to the Neo Geo AES on September 23, 1998, the Neo-Geo CD on December 23, 1998, and the PlayStation on March 25, 1999. The PlayStation version was published in North America by Agetec, becoming the first PlayStation installment in the series to be released outside Japan since The King of Fighters '95. The original game is also included in The King of Fighters Collection: Orochi Saga compilation released in North America and the PAL region for the PlayStation 2, PlayStation Portable and Wii (the game was not included in the Japanese Orochi Hen compilation). The game was later re-released for iOS and Android.

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Developer(s) SNK[a]
Publisher(s)
SNK
Director(s) Toyohisa Tanabe
Producer(s) Takashi Nishiyama
Designer(s) Akiko Yukawa
Chikara Yamasaki
Hiroto Kittaka
Programmer(s) S. Fujinuki
Souta Ichino
Artist(s) Toshiaki Mori
Composer(s) Hideki Asanaka
Marimo
Yasuo Yamate
Series The King of Fighters
Platform(s)
Arcade
Release
1998
Genre(s) Fighting
Mode(s)
Single-playerMultiplayer
Arcade system Neo Geo MVS

#The King Of Fighters 98 #snk #arcade_game