The King of Fighters '99

The King of Fighters '99
Poster of the game featuring Kyo Kusanagi and K'
Developer(s)	SNK
Publisher(s)	SNK
Producer(s)	Takashi Nishiyama
Artist(s)	Shinkiro (Toshiaki Mori)
Series	The King of Fighters
Platform(s)	Arcade, Neo Geo, Neo-Geo CD, PlayStation, Dreamcast, PlayStation Network, Wii Virtual Console, Microsoft Windows, Nintendo Switch eShop
Release	July 22, 1999 Arcade JP: July 22, 1999 Neo Geo NA: September 23, 1999 Neo-Geo CD JP: December 2, 1999 NA: 1999 PlayStation JP: March 23, 2000 NA: April 22, 2001 Dreamcast JP: March 30, 2000 NA: October 25, 2001 PlayStation Network JP: June 28, 2007 NA: May 14, 2009 Microsoft Windows JP: December 22, 2000 Wii Virtual Console JP: December 18, 2012 NA: May 16, 2013 PAL: July 4, 2013 Nintendo Switch WW: May 25, 2017
Genre(s)	Fighting
Mode(s)	Up to 2 players simultaneously
Cabinet	Upright
Arcade system	Neo Geo
Sound	Yamaha YM2610

The King of Fighters '99: Millennium Battle, also simply referred as The King of Fighters '99, is a 1999 head-to-head fighting game by SNK released for the Neo Geo arcade and home platform. It is the sixth installment in the company's The King of Fighters series, introducing a new story arc centered around a young man named K' associated with a a group known as NESTS. The game introduces several changes to the established KOF format, most notably an assisting character labeled "Striker". The game was ported to the Neo-Geo CD and the PlayStation as the final KOF game released for both platforms. A Dreamcast and Microsoft Windows version was also released under the title The King of Fighters: Evolution in which the stages look exactly the same as compared with the arcade counterpart only to be exclusively remodeled into 3D. That version was released both in Japan and North America. Both the Neo Geo and Dreamcast versions are included in The Kings of Fighters NESTS Part compilation released for the PlayStation 2 in Japan.

The King of Fighters '99 originally meant to remove previous main characters Kyo Kusanagi and Iori Yagami but they instead ended up as hidden characters. The former's popularity in his previous incarnations resulted in him being given "clones" that wear his original clothes and perform his previous moves. The cast in general gave SNK problems as it meant balancing the age of the characters and teams.

Critical response to The King of Fighters '99 was generally positive based on its fighting system though the use of Strikers system was generally positive. The Dreamcast port of the game was generally better received than the PlayStation one due to its better loading times and graphics. The Nintendo Switch port also received similar response as reviewers did not find dated despite being released several years later. While sales of the game were positive, they were still inferior to the previous one as a result of the consoles' poor sales.

Gameplay

Maxima (left) calling Striker K' to attack Terry Bogard (left). The bottom bars indicate how many Strikers can the player use.

Instead of the three character teams from previous KOF games, each team now has four members. Before a match, the player chooses three of the characters to use in the actual fights, while the fourth member becomes the designated "Striker", a character the player summons during battle to help their character out by performing one of their Special Moves against the opponent. A striker can only be summoned a limited number of times during a single match, which is determined by the number of "Strike Bombs" at the bottom of the screen.^[1]

The selectable fighting styles, Advanced and Extra, from The King of Fighters '98 have been removed. Instead, the game has a single playing style modeled after the Advanced mode from the previous game, where the player fills their power gauge by attacking the opponent or performing special moves. This time, there are two powered up states the player can choose during battle depending on the button combination used. Counter Mode increases the player's offensive strength and allows the player to use their character's Super Special Move infinitely, as well as combo that transitions from a Special Move into a Super Special Move by using a "Super Cancellation Attack" or a "Moving Attack". The other powered up mode is Armor Mode, which increases the character's defensive strength, allowing the character to take more damage from the opponent; however, the player cannot use Super Special Moves during Armor Mode.^[1]

Depending on the player's performance, a score will be given when the fight is finished. Should a high score be reached, the arcade mode will offer the player an extra fight following the final boss.

Plot and characters

Two years have passed since the last King of Fighters tournament and nobody has seen Kyo Kusanagi or Iori Yagami since they defeated Orochi at the climax of the 1997 tournament, but out of the blue, new invitations are sent out to many characters, inviting them to a brand new tournament, though this competition is more of a secretive affair than the ones in '96 and '97. Unlike in previous games of the series, there are four characters per team instead of three, with the fourth serving as a "Striker", a fighter whose function is only to enter a match, attack the opponent and leave without replacing their teammates. In total, there are seven teams, each containing four characters, four Team Edit characters and a boss.

The increased number of characters per team, as well as the story element of the missing Kyo and Iori, lead to the reshuffling to the character roster. K' is introduced as the new protagonist of the game along with his partner Maxima, who joins forces with Kyo's former teammates, Benimaru Nikaido and Shingo Yabuki, to form the new Hero Team. Takuma Sakazaki rejoins the Art of Fighting Team as its fourth member, while Mai Shiranui finally becomes an official member of the Fatal Fury Team for the first time in the series. King joins forces with Blue Mary (formerly with the "'97 Special Team") to form the new Woman Fighters Team along with Kasumi Todoh (last seen in KOF '96) and Li Xiangfei (from Real Bout Fatal Fury 2: The Newcomers). The other three returning teams each gained a new member as well: Whip for the Ikari Team, Bao for the Psycho Soldier Team, and Jhun Hoon for the Korean Team. The game also introduces two clones of Kyo Kusanagi, Kyo-1 and Kyo-2, as Team Edit characters based on previous playable incarnations of the character, while the real Kyo, along with his rival Iori, also returns, but only as secret playable characters. The antagonist of the game is Krizalid, a clone of K' employed by NESTS to carry out one of their nefarious schemes. He is faced in two states: first he appears with a coat that analyzes an opponent's data, then once he is beaten, he takes off his coat and increases his strength while having stronger moves.^[2]

Development and release

The King of Fighters '99 initially meant to remove Kyo Kusanagi and Iori Yagami from the series due to the introduction of the new lead character, K'. However, due to negative fan response in location tests, they decided to add them as unlockable characters.^[3] Kyo was also redesigned for this game, but the developers still liked Kyo's school uniform outfit. As such, based on the concept of adding EX versions from various characters in previous games, the staff created the Kyo clones, which would feature Kyo with classic movesets (Kyo-1 using the first two games' movesets, while Kyo-2 uses the '96 and '97 movesets).^[3][4] To contrast the previous protagonist of the series, Kyo, K' was made to be the "dark hero".^[5] The staff wanted to create a Robo Army Team. However, this idea was abandoned but they later made it a tribute in The King of Fighters 2000 by introducing Rocky, a character from Robo Army as a striker for Maxima.^[6] The character Whip was originally meant to appear in The King of Fighters '96, but due to Leona's introduction in that game, the staff decided to wait until KOF '99.^[7]

Developers also found troubles with the large number of young characters appearing in the game; as such the staff also designed older character such as Seth and Vanessa (who appeared only in the Dreamcast version as a Striker, and would not officially debut until the next game) to balance the game.^[8][9] In contrast to this, Bao was added to the game in order to reduce the average age from the Psycho Soldiers Teams (which changed from 42 to 34 with Bao's introduction).^[10] The boss character, Krizalid, was designed "with a straight, stylish appearance and earnest strength." However, the designer in charge mentioned he "overdid it." Due to the large number of unused graphics accumulated on the Neo Geo version, some of Krizalid's graphics were removed. With the release from the Dreamcast port, the staff could add Krizalid's graphics due to the capacities from such console.^[11] Vanessa was also meant to be playable in the game, but due to time constraints, she was only a striker character in the Dreamcast port.^[9]

KOF '99 was originally released for the Neo Geo arcade on July 22, 1999. A port for the Neo Geo and Neo-Geo CD consoles were released on September 23, 1999 and December 2, 1999, respectively.^[12][2] The PlayStation port was published on March 23, 2000 in Japan and on April 22, 2001 in North America. In Japan it was later republished for the "PlayStation SNK Best Collection" on March 29, 2001 and once again on July 25, 2002.^[13] After being released on Wii Virtual Console between 2012 and 2013, the game was released as part of the ACA Neo Geo range on the Nintendo Switch eShop, on May 25, 2017.^[14]

It was remade for the Dreamcast as The King of Fighters '99: Evolution. This version had different stages and a few new selectable striker characters. The new strikers are Kyo Kusanagi, Athena Asamiya (in her school outfit), Goro Daimon, Billy Kane, Ryuji Yamazaki, Chizuru Kagura, Syo Kirishima, Alfred Airhawk, Vanessa, Seth, Fiolina Germi, and Gai Tendo. Additionally, the game can be connected to the Neo Geo Pocket Color game The King of Fighters: Battle de Paradise. Points won in Battle de Paradise can be transferred to The King of Fighters '99: Evolution to speed up the leveling process for the Extra Strikers. ^[15] It was published in Japan on March 30, 2000, and it was reprinted on October 25, 2001 with the logo of "SNK Best." In North America, it was published on May 10, 2001.^[16] Both, the Neo Geo and Dreamcast versions are included in The Kings of Fighters NESTS Hen compilation released for the PlayStation 2 in Japan.^[17] The game was also made available for the PlayStation 4 but only in Japan.^[18]

Series' writer, Akihiko Ureshino, wrote a novelization of the game under the subtitle of Beyond the "K". It was released in November 1999 by ASCII.^[19]

Reception

Reception
Aggregate scores Aggregator Score GameRankings 75.33% (PS – 6 reviews)[20] 73.50% (DC – 6 reviews)[21] Metacritic 67 (DC)[22] Review scores Publication Score GamePro [23] GameSpot 6.1/10 (PS)[24] 6.6 (DC)[25] IGN 8.5/10 (DC)[26] Nintendo Life 7/10 (Switch)[27] GameSpew 8/10 (Switch)[28] Bonus Stage 9/10 (Switch)[29] Uvejuegos 80/100 (DC)[1] Gaming Age B+ (PS)[30] Video Games 80% (Neo Geo)[31]

The King of Fighters '99 enjoyed high popularity within its release. In GameSpot's "The History of SNK" article, KOF '99: Evolution was regarded as one of the best fighting games on the Dreamcast, along with Garou: Mark of the Wolves. However, due to the fact it was released during the PlayStation 2's launch and the Dreamcast's ending, it did not have very good sales.^[32] The Dreamcast port sold 67,833 units in Japan during 2000.^[33]

Various video game publications have commented on the game. The Dreamcast port from the game received a 67 by Metacritic based on four reviews.^[22] GameRankings gave it a 73.50% and a 75.33% to the PlayStation version, with both ports' percents being based on six reviews.^[20][21] While the fighting system was well received, critics had mixed feelings involving the striker system.^{[23][34][26][1][30]} Gaming Age saw the changes of the sequel as right step in the series' direction despite finding assist characters useless. He specifically noted SNK made proper balances such making Kyo Kusanagi less overpowered than in previous games among others changes. The inclusion of the new lead K' was also met with good response based on his distinct fighting style.^[30] IGN's Anthony Chau commented that although "people are probably tired of 2D fighting games, saying that they all play the same", he found KOF '99: Evolution to be very distinct. He found the new gameplay to be very entertaining despite knowing some "KOF purists hate the Striker system".^[26] GameSpot noted the striker system to be "clearly derived from the tag system from Capcom's Marvel fighting games" and complained about how there are popular characters who only appear as strikers in the game when he wanted them to be fully playable.^[34] The game was criticized by GamePro because the new gameplay of strikers "simply doesn't fit in the King of Fighters series, though, and is more of a novelty than a game mode." ^[23]

There were mixed responses in regards to the ports. German magazine Video Games praised the Neo Geo port, giving it a 80%.^[31] There have also been multiple comparisons between the Dreamcast port which is regarded as better than the PlayStation one.^[24][23] The use of 3D backgrounds was met praise regardless of the version.^[24][30] GamePro felt the Neo Geo's quality was not well put into the PlayStation resulting in issues with the graphics and long loading times. Nevertheless, he found the additional material to be pleasing for fans of the series.^[23] Andrew Seyoon Park of GameSpot found the PlayStation port to be very good considering the limitations from the console. He gave complaining about the animation and the voices. Additionally, he found the reduction of characters from KOF '98 to be disappointing, noting also that the boss Krizalid is very hard to beat.^[24] Uvejuegos stated that while the game did not make a major update within the characters other than Kyo Kusanagi's redesign, it still managed to keep release with quality based on its fighting system with new lead K' and the final boss Krizalid being found as entertaining.^[1] Gaming Age was more critical to Krizalid finding him to difficult to defeat to the point he found previous bosses Rugal Bernstein and Orochi easy in comparison,^[30] with GameSpot agreeing to the found the reviewer felt the boss fight removes the enterainment value from the game due to the hard challenge.^[25]

The Nintendo Switch port of the game ended having positive responses. Critics agreed that the gameplay and graphics were still ahead of its time.^[29][28][27] Nintendo Life gave the game's rerelease a 7 out of 10, praising the variation of the cast and new gameplay mechanics despite not finding it as appealing as its predecessor.^[27] GameSpew felt that the mechanics and multiple option from the port avoided the game from feeling dated. The combat was described as a fast enough to appeal to gamers.^[28] Bonus Stage found the graphics appealing despite the console for which it was originally released and priased SNK's focus on giving the game a storyline despite being an arcade fighter.^[29] In retrospective, 1UP.com stated that while players were bothered by how this game removed Kyo and Iori from teams and the Styker system, the inclusion of K' was one of SNK's best decisions based on his fighting style.^[35]

References