It’s good to see them not going back to things like the unselectable teams in King of Fighters ’94 or the drastically reduced roster size in Samurai Shodown 3 for the sake of the plot. SNK also once again has a good balance here between injecting bits of story and character information into the game without it interfering with the game proper. After all of the game changing alterations to King of Fighters ’96, it was smart of SNK continue to embrace its uniqueness by adding characters that generally focus on getting up close to their opponents quickly to keep the aggressive feel they nailed with that game. The new characters are all a deliberate mechanical shift compared to other fighting games, as none of them actually have projectile attacks at all. You would think Shermie would then fall into the weak but agile stereotype to complement the other two characters, but she’s actually a fast grappler with some pretty powerful moves. Chris focuses on lots of aerial kick attacks and combos, while Yashiro focuses on pure power. His gimmick being that his moves are similar to Kyo’s but without the magical flames and super powers he just hits really hard.Ĭhris, Yashiro and Shermie are a new team of characters from the same clan as Goenitz. At the same time, he’s actually fairly powerful and a lot of fun to play as. Shingo is something of a joke character: a guy who idolizes Kyo Kusanagi and his fighting style. The surviving boss from ’96, Chizuru Kagura, is also added to the regular roster along with with four original characters: Chris, Yashiro Nanakase, Shermie, and Shingo Yabuki.

Big, but gains Billy Kane, Blue Mary, and Ryuji Yamazaki from Fatal Fury and Fatal Fury 3: Road to the Final Victory. The roster loses Vice, Mature, Geese, Wolfgang Krauser, Kasumi Todoh and Mr.

Without having to draw completely new sprites for the characters like with the previous year’s game, they were free to focus on adding more moves and animation to the already existing cast. While King of Fighters ’96‘s rushed production resulted in a fun but very unbalanced game, SNK didn’t hesitate to add even more content to The King of Fighters ’97.

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