The King of Fighters '96
| The King of Fighters '96 | |
|---|---|
Promotional flyer featuring Kyo Kusanagi and the cast below | |
| Developer(s) | |
| Publisher(s) | |
| Director(s) | Kuwayan |
| Producer(s) | Takashi Nishiyama |
| Designer(s) | Eri Koujitani Kaori Kusunoki Masato Yokoyama |
| Programmer(s) | Khozoh Nagashima S. Fujinuki |
| Artist(s) | Toshiaki Mori |
| Composer(s) | Akihiro Uchida Hideki Asanaka Kazuhiro Nishida |
| Series | The King of Fighters |
| Platform(s) | Arcade, Game Boy, Neo Geo AES, Neo Geo CD, PlayStation, Sega Saturn |
| Release | |
| Genre(s) | Fighting |
| Mode(s) | Single-player, multiplayer |
| Arcade system | Neo Geo MVS |
The King of Fighters '96 (KOF '96) is a fighting game released by SNK for the Neo Geo arcade and home consoles in 1996. It is the third game in The King of Fighters series, following The King of Fighters '95. Unlike its predecessors, it features more emphasis on hand-to-hand combat rather than projectile moves. The plot follows a new King of Fighters tournament created by Chizuru Kagura, the heir of the Yata Clan, who wants to find and recruit the protagonist, Kyo Kusanagi, who defeated the previous host Rugal Bernstein. She seeks to recruit him to ask him and his bitter rival, Iori Yagami, to help her in the sealing of the Orochi demon like her predecessors. The final boss of the game is Goenitz, one of the servants of Orochi. Developers made several changes to the cast when compared to The King of Fighters '95, with special focus on a Boss Team composed of famous villains from their other two IPs, Fatal Fury and Art of Fighting.
SNK members had trouble with the development of the game, which continued right up until its scheduled release. This happened because the developers had difficulty making the sprites and special moves of the new characters of the game. The game received mixed reviews from several video games publications. While some reviewers praised the graphical improvements and the addition of new characters in the game, some commented that its gameplay was unbalanced in comparison to its prequels as a result of characters possessing new moves that failed to mesh the ideas of projectiles and hand-to-hand combat.
Like its predecessor, the game was ported to the Neo-Geo CD, as well as the PlayStation and Sega Saturn. Unlike the previous game, the PlayStation and Saturn versions were released only in Japan, with a language setting allowing the player to set the game to English. The game would later be ported to other consoles such as the PlayStation 2, PlayStation Portable, Wii Virtual Console, and PlayStation 4 as part of the King of Fighters Collection: The Orochi Saga, as the story follows a story arc that begins in The King of Fighters '95 and ends with The King of Fighters '97.