The King of Fighters (Franchise) – TV Tropes
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Franchise/TheKingOfFighters
And this isn’t even all of them…
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Picture drawn as of XI.
Kept on rollin’ in ’95.
Pieces fell in place in ’96
It came to the end in ’97.
And now it comes and here we go.
The KOF is here again.
Nothing’s gonna stop it’s 1998.Cipher
, Thematic Theme Tune of The King of Fighters ’98
It all began in ’94.Kept on rollin’ in ’95.Pieces fell in place in ’96It came to the end in ’97.And now it comes and here we go.The KOF is here again.Nothing’s gonna stop it’s 1998.
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The King of Fighters series started out as a crossover fighting game, featuring some of the most popular characters from SNK’s fighting game franchises: Fatal Fury and Art of Fighting, as well as classic SNK games such as Ikari Warriors and Psycho Soldier, splitting them up into teams of three (four in the NESTS Saga), duking it out in one-on-one battles similar to its major competition at the time, Street Fighter.
Although the first game was merely intended to be a simple crossover and Spin-Off, the series became more popular than the other series that inspired it, and an overreaching plot soon developed that took the other SNK fighters along for the ride.
There are currently five major
- The original King of Fighters (known alternatively as the Rugal Saga), focuses on notorious crime lord Rugal Bernstein and his attempt to establish himself as the world’s strongest fighter by staging a grand tournament and inviting contenders from all across the globe. It is strongly associated with the artist Shinkiro, as were most of SNK’s franchises of the time. Though some consider the first two games their own arc, it is sometimes thrown together with the next arc.
- The Orochi Saga arc (’95 – ’97
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’98 is a non-story dream match
), which concerns Kyo Kusanagi (the winner of the first King of Fighters tournament) and a thousand-year blood feud with the Yagami family, who have gained demonic power thanks to a pact with a being known as “Orochi.” Shinkiro
continued to be the lead artist. - The NESTS Chronicles saga (’99 – ’01
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’02 is a non-story dream match.
) about the eponymous organization and their conspiracy to create weaponized clones of the most powerful warriors in the world. As Kyo is absent for the majority of this arc (he doesn’t show until the end of ’99 and remains a supporting character for the remainder of the saga), the main protagonist is a new character called K’ (pronounced “Kay Dash”). It is strongly linked with the artist Styleos,
although Shinkiro handled art in the ’99 and 2000 versions before SNK went under and he left the company; Nona took over as official artist for 2001 and 2002, both by Korean developer Eolith. - The Tales of Ash saga (’03 – XIII
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XII is more a dream match and test run for the new engine they were developing.
), which introduces androgynous French pretty boy Ash Crimson as the new main character. The story involves a sinister plot to capture the powers of the Kusanagi, Yagami, and Kagura clans and use them to seize the sealed power of Orochi, as well as the question of just whose side Ash is on. The main enemy of this arc is a band of enigmatic people named “Those from the Past”. It had Nona,
Falcoon, Shinkiro’s unofficial “successor” Hiroaki and Eisuke Ogura as artists. It also experienced a change of hardware platforms multiple times (’03 on Neo Geo as with all the previous games, XI on Atomiswave and XII and XIII on Taito Type X2) the first in-game Art Shift ever, and turmoil in the parent company, but managed to get on Steam in the end. This is also where the series drops the yearly naming convention in favor of numbered sequels starting with XI. - The Shun’ei Saga (XIV – XV), introduces the titular Shun’ei, a student of Tung Fu Rue as the new protagonist, as well as finally the official addition of another one of SNK’s fighting game juggernaut titles, Samurai Shodown, via their mascot/heroine Nakoruru. The game itself uses 3D graphics (through an inhouse engine in XIV and Unreal Engine 4 in XV) while still retaining its roots as a two-dimensional playing field, similar to games such as Street Fighter IV or Mortal Kombat 9. This arc is notable as the first to not be developed first for the arcades, with Playstation 4 serving as the lead platform for XIV.
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There are currently five major story arcs
More detailed summaries of each arc (and the individual games) can be found in the Recap section.
The home versions of the games were initially released on the (ridiculously expensive) Neo Geo home arcade system, so they had a hard time catching on with North American home gamers, but remained very popular in Japan, as well as with arcade gamers worldwide. It released new editions of the game every year with Madden-like regularity, introducing new characters and rosters into the storyline, while the old characters have seemingly retained their basic sets of special moves throughout the series, probably to dodge the problem of the older games being So Last Season.
In addition to the game entries that compose the main KOF story arcs, there are multiple spin-offs, remakes and “dream match” titles (that combine all the characters of that particular saga into one game).
Aside from fighting games and tie-ins, there were the rather infamous Dating Sim games for mobiles and Nintendo DS, Days of Memories allowed the player character to venture in Southtown and date most of the fighting divas from the series (and from others); later versions also allowed a girl player character to date the male fighters as well. An animated web series loosely adapting the events of the Rugal Saga (as well as the first Fatal Fury game) called The King of Fighters: Destiny began streaming in 2017.
In 2010 a film adaptation was released, starring Maggie Q, Will Yun Lee and Ray Park.
A new game, SNK Heroines: Tag Team Frenzy, stars the majority of the female cast of the IV title (plus Shermie and a gender-bent Terry Bogard) as a 2v2 fighter.
A manga adaptation of King Of Fighters XIV, titled The King of Fighters: A New Beginning started serialization in January 2018. The same person behind that Manga, Kyotaro Azuma, would later release a new Manga starring Shingo Yabuki, The King of Fighters Gaiden: Honoo no Kigen – Shingo, Timeslip! Ikkimasu!, on July 19, 2021.
This is the character sheet. Be warned, though: in this series, SNK most certainly ran away with the concept of having tons of characters.
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List of the KOF media:
open/close all folders
Main Games
Other Games
Other Media
This series names the following tropes:
- Dream Match Game: Both the
trope namer (thanks to the Japanese subtitle of ’98, Dream Match Never Ends) and trope codifier.
- Specifically, ’98 and ’02 are non-canon and include large rosters and characters that are dead in the storyline. While XII is also non-canon, it isn’t really a “dream match” like the other two.
- The Maximum Impact series has its own Dream Match in the form of Regulation A, which also restores the 3 vs. 3 traditional King of Fighters team format (however there aren’t any designated teams like in the proper series).
- It is worth noting that predecessor series Fatal Fury was the very first to employ the term “Dream Match” (when fighting Ryo Sakazaki in the second game), but otherwise it referred only to that battle instead of a whole game.
