Learning About SNK Part 2: The Orochi Saga

I have not stopped being obsessed with SNK since playing King of Fighters ‘94. I’m thinking about these games and characters constantly. They’re showing up in my dreams in spite of dreams about video games not being common for me. I’ve been reading all of the official Team Stories SNK has released and looking into other media like anime and manga. I’ve also been looking into getting a Neo Geo Pocket Color and lusting over the Neo Geo MVS and AES, wishing I had the funds to afford the original hardware to play these games on as opposed to relying on ports and emulation. Shout-outs to my girlfriend also for finding it cute and not annoying when I immediately rush to her to tell her with breathless enthusiasm about the newest plot developments in the character ending I just got.

For this next chapter in my SNK exploration I played through the Orochi Saga, a story arc in King of Fighters spanning multiple games that fleshes out much of the characters and setting of the series. Even after the Orochi Saga concludes, future games in the series have their own multi-game anime arcs just like this. I love this, I've really gotten invested in the world building and characters of SNK through these playthroughs, so I always love seeing where my favourite characters are in each new instalment, the Ikari Warriors especially having me the most invested. King of Fighters ‘95 is a pretty mild introduction to the arc. It more or less feels like a repeat of ‘94 with the same setup and main villain and everything. It's not until the sequels that the parts fall in place and we see everything it sets in motion, with ‘96 and ‘97 both reinventing what King of Fighters is, both in gameplay and narrative.

These are not reviews, as I don't believe I am fighting game savvy enough to do in-depth critique and analysis of these games. These are instead first impressions and me sharing my experiences with playing through these games for the first time.

The King of Fighters '95

Beaten on difficulty level 3 with Ikari, Hero and Women's Fighters Teams. Beaten on difficulty level 1 with every other character.

I don't have too much to say about this one as it's basically just a better version of ‘94 for the most part. At a quick glance, not much has changed other than the introduction of Iori, replacing the American Sports team with the Rival’s Team, consisting of him, Billy Kane from Fatal Fury and Eiji Kisaragi from Art of Fighting 2. I made fun of the American Sports Team to my friends when I first played ‘94, due to being utterly mundane in concept and story, but I’ll admit Lucky Glauber did grow on me a bit by the end entirely because he’s so mundane and out of his element, in addition to having a pretty cheerful personality in contrast to his more aggressive teammates. As I said earlier, even the story is extremely similar, resulting in the game feeling like a bit of a rerun. The amount of refinements under the hood however are plentiful.

First off, specials are nowhere near as finicky to pull off. This was a given and is vastly appreciated, of course. The timing is nowhere near as precise here as it was in the past. Character movesets have also been expanded. Clark is no longer a direct Ralph clone as he’s moving towards being a grappler-type character for instance, while Terry now has his Power Dunk in addition to all of his King of Fighters ‘94 moves. There’s additions to each character along these lines across the board, with many of them finding their unique niche to fill in the roster. You can now also make your own custom team out of any character in the game, opening up a ton of opportunities for you to find your own favourite combination of characters. If you’re playing for story however you’ll still need to use the premade character teams to get their endings, like I did. The sidestep action has also been expanded upon, now allowing you to immediately counterattack out of a sidestep, which is maybe a bit overpowered frankly, given that sidesteps already dodge nearly every attack in the game.

TThere are some aspects I’m not crazy about however. I think the final boss is far weaker this time around, with the strategy mainly involving just shuffling left and forward to bait him into approaching, after which you hit and run. Not nearly as engaging as exploiting the openings left by the brutally powerful special moves of ‘94’s final boss. The translation is also not great. I know it’s an SNK game so that’s not a shocker, but unlike ‘94’s translation, ‘95 also cuts out large chunks of dialogue like all of the unique taunts that characters have for defeating specific teams, instead cutting their win quotes back to just three generic taunts which are often pretty out of character. One of Terry’s quotes being “You had guts kid. Now clean them up off the pavement!” is the most damningly out of character, Terry is way too nice for such a brutal taunt. If you’re interested in seeing the differences between the translation and the original Japanese script, I highly recommend reading through The Mad SNK Project, a site run by Mars, who has retranslated the scripts of SNK’s games from around this era.

Other than those gripes? Damn good game. It's definitely playing things pretty safe for a sequel, but it's still a notable improvement over ‘94 with a lot of refinements. Every criticism I had in my review of King of Fighters ‘94 has been addressed here and the game is far better balanced and accessible as a result.

The King of Fighters '96

Beaten on difficulty level 4 with Ikari team. Beaten on difficulty level 3 with Women's Fighters team. Beaten on difficulty level 2 with Psycho Soldier team. Beaten on difficulty level 1 with every other character.

While ‘95 felt more like an updated release of ‘94 in some regards, ‘96 meanwhile marks a much larger leap forward for SNK. Movement is overhauled, dodging is reworked into a roll mechanic, the team formations have been shaken up much more with a large roster of new fighters, the story is moving towards a more serious tone, the list goes on. If I had to choose a favourite of the Orochi Saga, this would probably be it.

Rolling took some getting used to. Unlike the dodge from previous KoF games which avoids absolutely every attack in the game at the cost of mobility, the roll meanwhile avoids some attacks but not all, but as a trade off it is a much better tool for movement and mobility. Dodging was pretty broken in ‘95 in particular due to that game allowing you to attack out of a dodge, so replacing it with something a bit more balanced was ultimately a good choice I believe.

Movement in general has a lot of new features, some of which are now considered pretty standard in fighting games. You can double tap forward to sprint, replacing the short forward hop that was used when double tapping forward in ‘94 and ‘95, and you can control your jump height depending on how long you hold the joystick up for. The amount of options available is pretty freeing, especially for characters with mid-air dive attack specials such as Mai and Ralph. In the past I've struggled a bit with movement in fighting games, never really getting to the point where the controls stopped feeling clunky, and while I still have a long way to go, King of Fighters is starting to feel pretty fluid and fun to dash and jump around like a flying squirrel in. I personally also prefer this control scheme of double tapping forward initiating a sprint, as opposed to the aforementioned short hop forward used in Street Fighter and previous KoF games.

The final boss this time is probably the one I've had the hardest time with yet. Mastery of the new movement mechanics that I described earlier is integral here, so, if like me, you reach this fight still not even knowing how to do a short hop out of a dash, then you're in for a rough time. The windows of opportunity where he's vulnerable to attacks are very tight, and he is ridiculously good at countering nearly anything you can throw at him, thanks to his ridiculous grab range and his infinite height tornadoes. I don't like it as much as ‘94s final boss as I find ‘96s boss comparatively tedious, but it's definitely a step up from ‘95.

The new characters are pretty great too, even if they come at the cost of some of the older mainstays. Takuma is gone, and I can safely say I will not miss him, he’s my least favourite KoF character by far, at least in terms of personality. This does however come at the cost of Yuri taking his place in the Art of Fighting team, separating her from King and Mai. Taking her place in the Women’s Fighters team is Kasumi Todoh, originating from Art of Fighting 3. Not a bad replacement at all, she’s got a pretty unique counter-based fighting style. More crushingly to me, Heidern is no longer playable. It sucks to not have one of my favourites, but that’s softened greatly by the fact that in his place is Leona, his adopted daughter, who is now also one of my favourites and has a somewhat similar moveset to Heidern. Ralph being like a rowdy but loving and supportive older brother to Leona is so cute. Again, I love these killer assholes. The new Boss Team consisting of final bosses from past SNK fighters is a really cool idea, always great to see Krauser again. I also like Iori’s team here, consisting of himself and Mature and Vice, two of the secretaries of the final boss of ‘94 and ‘95 and massive sadists.

After ‘95 played it so safe, ‘96 meanwhile feels like a proper sequel all around, while also continuing to up the presentation with the best soundtrack so far and a much more interesting story. Great step forward all around.

The King of Fighters '97

Beaten on difficulty level 4 with Ikari team. Beaten on difficulty level 3 with Psycho Soldier and Women's Fighters teams. Beaten on difficulty level 1 with every other character.

‘97 is honestly a better game than ‘96 in my opinion, but in spite of that ‘96 is still my favourite of the trilogy. Why? Well, the reasons I like ‘96 more are pretty shallow and surface level. There's no dialogue at all until the finale, so the cast of characters have less time to shine. Most bizarrely though is the soundtrack. I love ‘96s soundtrack, so I was baffled by how minimalist ‘97s was by contrast. It's mostly ambient noise, very little actual music at all with only a handful of more iconic characters like Terry and Kyo getting actual music themes that play when you fight them, only for that music to immediately cut out the second one of their teammates takes their place. The energetic atmosphere of the prior KoFs is just not there as a result, giving the fights this weird uncomfortable “I don't know how am I meant to feel” vibe when the music playing is just some ambient chatter of distant spectators and someone occasionally beating a drum. Doesn’t suit the energetic superpowered fighting at all.

Now, set dressing aside? ‘97 is the peak. It continues to build upon what its predecessor started primarily with a rework of the desperation move system. Your POW gauge fills up as you use specials just as it did before, but now when it fills up to 100% you’ll add one full POW metre to your stock and start filling up a second one automatically. You can stock up to three POW metres at once. You can use a desperation move at the cost of one of your POW stock, so saving up stock allows you to potentially throw three desperation moves in rapid succession at your opponent, regardless of how much HP you have left. Furthermore, you can also use a POW stock to enter MAX Mode, a temporary buff to your attack and defence which also further strengthens your desperation attacks. The amount of options available in how you use your POW gauge is a ton of fun and can lead to some extremely satisfying payoffs when you get a ton of POW stocked and can unleash hell upon your opponent.

An additional nice feature here is Extra Mode. If you prefer the gameplay of ‘94 and ‘95, that’s an option here in the form of Extra Mode, which is selected on the character select screen. Choosing Extra Mode brings back the sidestep mechanic of the first two games in addition to having the original desperation move system as well. I definitely prefer the new additions of ‘96 and ‘97, they give the player a lot more control and give the game a more aggressive pace, but the option is very appreciated to help keep things fresh on replays.

Single player mode is a bit shorter here, having you only fight six teams before you start the finale, but I’m not complaining because the finale is absolutely where things pick up in terms of presentation and great music. You’ve got five bosses here, each building up a bit more to the reveal of the final boss with more story reveals along the way, and while they’re not the hardest fights they’re still all a ton of fun and very satisfying, both in gameplay and payoff for this three-game long arc. Seeing the series graduate from campy cartoon supervillains to a more complex mythos with antagonists who have actual motivation for their actions beyond just flexing about how powerful they are has been a great time. Not to say I dislike the campy cartoon supervillains however. As I said when I played ‘94, they are very entertaining..

Overall, the Orochi saga has left me extremely satisfied and excited to see what future story arcs the series has ahead, along with the new characters and gameplay systems that will come alongside them. Not a single one of these games was a dud as far as I’m concerned, I had a blast with them all and appreciate the differences between each game and seeing how each sequel builds upon what the last started. If you want to play a game that basically encapsulates all of the gameplay mechanics and characters of the last four games into a single package, King of Fighters ‘98 can fill that void. ‘98 is the first “Dream Match” game, non-canon tournaments where every past character, regardless of if they’re even alive or not anymore, is potentially playable. I’m currently focusing on the canon games in the series so I can get caught up on all of the lore and character stories before starting King of Fighters XIII and XIV, both of which my girlfriend bought me recently and I’m excited to get to. I have however played ‘98 in the past, thanks again to my girlfriend gifting me the PC port a few years ago. It’s excellent, a great way to play with absolutely everything from the first four games.

Page written by MSX_POCKY, 26th October 2024