Review #542: The King of Fighters Collection - The Orochi Saga

 A bundle of fighting game nostalgia.

Stylish... the way KoF ought to be!

 Welcome to The Orochi Saga, a collection of five different games: King of Fighters 94, 95, 96, 97 and fan-favorite 98. As with other SNK collections, these are Arcade Ports with very few bells and whistles, the standard bonus art, as well as 'challenges' and bonus arranged music.

 A thing to keep in mind is that, being arcade ports, the difficulty can be rather high, even on the easiest setting. Continuing doesn't even grant you the 'Service' SNK games were known for! Modes are also very lacking, each game has only Arcade, VS Player and a new, somewhat limited, training mode. 'Challenges' are played on KoF 98 and they are silly stuff, like not being able to see the enemies' life bars. The games run relatively well, although the initial loading times are rather lengthy, luckily there's very little in-game loading, the worst culprit being '97. Lastly, controls feel a bit unresponsive on a few games, since they require very precise inputs, you can't just do the shoryuken motion with Right, Down, Down-Right, Right+Punch, you gotta end it exactly at down-right.

Fatal Fury veterans reunite on the battlefield.

 '94  was the very first King of Fighters(Well, technically, Fatal Fury was the first one) and it introduced the staple 3 vs 3 team matches. There's no arrange team so you gotta play as pre-selected teams. Your energy bar fills very slowly when you get hit, so you have to charge it by holding down a couple of buttons, and there's also a dodge move and a knock back move. Seeing these old sprites has its charm, but 94 is not a game you'll spend much time on.

 '95 is pretty much more of the same, but now you can select any three characters and play as a custom team. It also introduced Iori Yagami, the series break-out character. If you liked '94 you'll like '95 even more.

 Poor Sports-Team, only two appearances in over 10 games! And you can own both of them with this disc!

 '96 was the series's first major face-lift. Sure, a lot of sprites were redrawn in '95, but not as many. Sprites are much better, and characters look more badass than ever before... except Benimaru, who lost his neck. The dodge move turned into a dodge. All things considered, '96 was a great game, a great roster and an overarching story that began in 95 and promised to continue the next year...

 '97 shakes things up, now you can play in either Advance or Extra Mode. Extra mode plays pretty much like previous games, but Advance gives you a more streamlined energy gauge, one that charges as you hit and get hit. Since energy stocks are a thing now, you can be more strategic with your team, you may want a character to build up energy stocks for other to use. I liked 97 a ton, and it looked like the series was only improving.

Yamazaki's crazy streak continues in King of Fighters.

 '98 is the final game in the disc, and is one of the most beloved KoF games. Can't say I share the sentiment, since my heart belongs to the NESTS saga, and even Ash's saga was more entertaining that the Orochi one. Regardless, this is a Dream game, it plays just like '97 but brings back almost every playable character from previous years. Honestly, there're better versions of 98 available, even on the PS2, but this is probably the more affordable one. Although this version comes with a nasty but tolerable, audio bug in which the announcer will say 'winner' or 'perfect', depending on how the last round ending, when announcing the start of a new round.

 Orochi Saga was... something I didn't expect to like as much as I did. I didn't care much about KoF until K' brought the NESTS saga, but these first games were quite enjoyable, if to a lesser degree than what is to come. Minor shortcomings aside, this is a great collection to own if you're a fan of King of Fighters.
 8.0 out of 10