

- #The king of fighters 98 ultimate match all characters Pc
- #The king of fighters 98 ultimate match all characters series
Where things start to get spicy is the 3 different modes chosen on the character select screen.Īdvanced Mode is the standard KoF playstyle and includes a forward sprint, dodge rolling, and a super gauge with multiple stocks. Combined with other universal mechanics like jumps, throws, and backsteps it’s all pretty standard stuff for a fighting game.
#The king of fighters 98 ultimate match all characters series
There’s also the series staple “Max Mode” which temporarily makes your character stronger at the cost of a stock from the super gauge. Every character also has a set of special moves and super moves used by combining particular buttons with special directional inputs. A is for light punches, B for light kicks, C for strong punches, and D for Strong Kicks. Much like other Neogeo games, Kof 98 primarily uses 4 buttons labeled as A, B, C, and D. What doesn’t disappoint in the presentation department is the soundtrack which is almost a guarantee for any SNK game. In a series about a worldwide martial arts tournament, having 4 stages set in China feels a little excessive. They are all well drawn backgrounds and will even have gathering crowds and day/night cycles between rounds, but they probably could have used a little more variety in the locations depicted. Speaking of looks, aside from the large cast of colorful characters to play as, there’s also a sizable selection of stages to fight on. A classic showdown sure to please any Fatal Fury fan. Fortunately for newcomers, the characters all have appealing visual designs, expressive animations and voice acting, and varied fighting styles so finding a few favorites in the cast probably won’t be as hard as it looks. However, KoF 98 is not connected to the series’s ongoing storyline so the player’s understanding of who these characters are will be limited to how familiar they are with them from other games. The King of Fighters ‘98 is the fifth game in The King of Fighters series and features every playable character from the previous iterations for a whopping 45 characters in total! Part of what makes this roster special is that it includes characters from SNK’s other franchises like Fatal Fury, Art of Fighting, Ikari Warriors, and Psycho Soldier alongside brand new characters created specifically for The King of Fighters series. Now that all the technical stuff has been clarified, it’s time to find out if this game is worthy of being considered a classic of the fighting genre. It also includes the original Neogeo release without any of the additional characters or balance changes which is fantastic for a retro gaming buff like myself.
#The king of fighters 98 ultimate match all characters Pc
For this review I will be looking at the PC port of the game released on Steam in 2014 called Final Edition which featured a few extra tweaks to the game’s characters and mechanics as well as an improved online experience thanks to the implementation of rollback netcode.

The game would later receive an enhanced version subtitled Ultimate Match in 2008 which added characters and stages, reworked certain mechanics, and rebalanced the existing roster. The King of Fighters ‘98 was originally released for the Neogeo in 1998. With The King of Fighter XV right around the corner the SNK hype is at an all time high, so why not ride that wave by looking back on a title many fans consider to be one of the company’s best. Ultimate have gone a long way towards introducing their most iconic characters to a new generation of gamers. Rereleases of their classic Neogeo titles are doing really well on consoles like the Switch, the 2019 reboot of Samurai Showdown became the highest selling game in the company’s history, and crossovers with games like Super Smash Bros. This developer has been through many highs lows throughout its existence, from an arcade empire in the 1990s to bankruptcy in the early 2000s, but recently they’ve had a big resurgence. It’s an old saying, practically a cliche at this point, but there’s no better way to introduce SNK.

It’s not how many times you get knocked down, it’s how many times you get back up. All screenshots taken from the official KoF98UMFE Steam page.
