221-485: The King of Fighters XIII (KOF XIII) is a 2010 fighting game in The King of Fighters series, developed by SNK Playmore , coming a year after The King of Fighters XII (2009). Released on Japanese arcades , it was ported to Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 globally in 2011, and an updated version for arcades followed in 2012 subtitled Climax . The game is set after the events of The King of Fighters XI (2005) and
442-479: A 3rd Strike semi-final match held at Evolution Championship Series 2004 (Evo 2004) between Daigo Umehara and Justin Wong . During this match, Umehara made an unexpected comeback by parrying 15 consecutive hits of Wong's "Super Art" move using Chun-Li while Umehara had only one pixel on his health bar. Umehara subsequently won the match. "Evo Moment #37" is frequently described as the most iconic and memorable moment in
663-650: A Windows port of Climax in 2013, and later a version with multiplayer rollback netcode subtitled Global Match in 2023 for Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4 . KOF XIII was succeeded by The King of Fighters XIV (2016). The game removes some of the gameplay system features used in the prior game : the Guard Attack, the Critical Counter, the Clash System, as well as the dynamic, zooming camera. In their place, three new features have been added. The first of
884-486: A "leading lady" character. The developers also describe her fighting style as "orthodox with subtle tricks [to it]" despite her minimal moveset. She initially invites Benimaru Nikaido and Duo Lon to France to form the Rival Team. She eventually reveals her acquaintance with Ash Crimson , whom she scolds for seeming to forsake their mission. Elisabeth did not appear in the arcade version of The King of Fighters XII , but
1105-449: A "show off". Since his introduction, Ash has been taking the three regalia of Japan guarded by Chizuru Kagura and Iori Yagami. This attacks resulted in SNK giving Ash the strongest techniques from his two victims. Returning characters such as the K' Team were adjusted so that they would play in a similar fashion to prior titles, which resulted in several revisions of mechanics. K' in particular
1326-431: A 14 year old girl in the illustrations. Nevertheless, he claims he grew attached to drawing her alongside K'. Yumi Kakazu has voiced Kula in all of her appearances. In KOF: Maximum Impact 2 , Falcoon gave her a color palette that makes her look like fighter Ash Crimson as well as the robot Candy. Her alternative costume is that of a coquettish ice skater. Falcoon also once envisioned an adult version of Kula for
1547-559: A best-of-three matches format like later fighting games, and has training bonus stages . The Player vs Player edition of Karate Champ , released later that year, is also the first fighting game to allow two-player duel. It influenced Konami 's Yie Ar Kung Fu , released in October 1984. The game drew heavily from Bruce Lee films, with the main player character Oolong modelled after Lee (like in Bruceploitation films). In contrast to
1768-472: A boxing game featuring a behind-the-character perspective, maneuvers such as blocking and dodging, and stamina meters that are depleted or replenished by blows. Karate Champ was developed by Technōs Japan and released by Data East in May 1984, and is credited with establishing and popularizing the one-on-one fighting game genre. A variety of moves can be performed using the dual-joystick controls. It uses
1989-479: A brief confrontation with the Rival Team. In The King of Fighters XIII , Kyo, Benimaru, and Goro enter the tournament to relive their old days as the Japan Team, while Shingo look after Chizuru until her Yata Mirror recovers. Following the tournament, Iori regains Yasakani no Magatama and his flames, and fights Kyo to an unknown outcome. In The King of Fighters XIV , Saisyu Kusanagi (Kyo's father) informs Kyo of
2210-512: A brutal and gruesome finishing move onto the defeated opponent. Prompted by the announcer saying "Finish Him!", players have a short time window to execute a Fatality by entering a specific button and joystick combination while positioned at a specific distance from the opponent. The Fatality and its derivations are arguably the most notable features of the Mortal Kombat series with cultural impact and controversies . Fighting games often include
2431-462: A chance to escape from Kim's grasp during the end of each tournament but fail due to speaking out loud their scheme near Kim. During the NESTS saga, Jhun Hoon (Korean: 전훈 Jeon Hoon , Japanese: ジョン・フーン Jon Fūn ), a childhood friend of Kim and rival, took noticed of Kim's rehabilitation project and after seeing the ethics and methods of training towards Chang and Choi, he decides that he would show Kim
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#17328921020512652-411: A character's health, and the round continues until a fighter's health reaches zero. Hence, the main goal is to completely deplete the health bar of one's opponent, thus achieving a " knockout ". Games such as Virtua Fighter also allow a character to be defeated by forcing them outside of the arena, awarding a "ring-out" to the victor. The Super Smash Bros. series allows players to send fighters off
2873-813: A downloadable EX form for regular Kyo. As a result of a technical error, the patch was delayed to January 1, 2012, for the PlayStation 3. A new DLC including bugfixes (mainly on online mode) and Mr. Karate (Takuma Sakazaki's alter ego, but loosely based on his Serious version from SVC Chaos: SNK vs. Capcom ) as an EX form for Takuma became available on January 11, 2012. Elisabeth Team Japan Team Fatal Fury Team Art of Fighting Team Ikari Warriors Team Psycho Soldier Team Women Fighters Team Kim Team Yagami Team K' Team Single Entry Mid-Bosses NPC Bosses DLC EX Versions SNK Playmore announced The King of Fighters XIII in February 2010. There
3094-549: A downloadable character in Koei Tecmo 's fighting game Dead or Alive 6 . In her story chapter, NiCO pulls her into the Dead or Alive dimension while experimenting with subspace portals. Kula and NiCO briefly spar, and NiCO later thanks her for providing "interesting data" while swearing her to secrecy. The printed adaptations of The King of Fighters retell Kula's role in the NESTS' story arc where she constantly clashes with K', having
3315-399: A falling out each other because he and Maxima are too busy over capturing remaining NESTS’ remnants instead of taking vacation for a while with her, causing her to join a team consisting former NESTS Agents, Angel and a mysterious agent who is in fact K9999's current identity, Krohnen McDougall, unbeknownst to Kula. Kula is also present in the spin-off games, Neowave which does not feature
3536-477: A famous heel professional wrestler and Hwa Jai , a former Muay Thai champion who was defeated and lost his title to Joe Higashi in the past , to Southtown after he believes that they are still employed by Geese Howard , and takes them in as his new students. However, unknown to Kim, Raiden and Hwa has since cut their ties with Geese and have already reform for quite some time. Instead, they trick Kim into thinking that they are still working for Geese and enter
3757-470: A fixed-size arena along a two-dimensional plane , where characters navigate the plane horizontally by walking or dashing, and vertically by jumping. Some games allow limited movement in 3D space, such as Tekken , while some are set in fully three-dimensional environments without restricting characters' movement, such as Power Stone and Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm ; these are sometimes referred to as "3D arena" fighting games. The fighting game genre
3978-511: A game that featured unprecedentedly detailed pre-rendered 3D graphics and vastly improved on the core concept of combos, presenting a way faster gameplay than most other games of that era, specific combo-breaker maneuvers, and the "Ultra", a series of combined finishing moves surpassing the number of 20 hits. Many of the games of that period were low budget clones of the more popular games, and in some cases this led to controversy; in 1994, Capcom USA took unsuccessful legal action against Data East over
4199-417: A greater number of animations, but otherwise play like those rendered in two dimensions. Games that are fully three-dimensional without a 2D plane are sometimes referred to as "3D arena" fighting games. Aside from restricting movement space, fighting games confine the player's actions to offensive and defensive maneuvers. Players must learn each game's effective combinations of attacks and defenses. Blocking
4420-404: A high school student who idolizes Kyo and dreams of being able to wield flames, becomes a friend of the team and appears as an edit entry character. During the NESTS saga which began in The King of Fighters '99 , Benimaru and Shingo are invited to participate in the tournament but were assigned to a “special team” with newcomers K' and Maxima . Winning the tournament, they learned that NESTS
4641-482: A hit when countering zoning. The opposite of turtling , rushdown refers to a number of specific aggressive strategies, philosophies, and play styles across all fighting games. The general goal of a rushdown play style is to overwhelm the opponent and force costly mistakes, either by using fast, confusing setups or by taking advantage of an impatient opponent as they are forced to play defense for prolonged periods of time. Rushdown players often favor attacking opponents in
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#17328921020514862-449: A major overhaul over players' response. Meanwhile, the fighting system relied on both common Desperation Moves and the new HD mode, with the latter created to appeal to new combos possibilities. In regards to the story, it is meant to end Ash Crimson's story arc which caught people's attention for how different was he as a protagonist when compared with previous leads as several gamers wondered about his antagonistic portrayal which remained as
5083-620: A member of the game's Hero Team. His overall look was based on anime title character Vampire Hunter D . He is a member of the assassin group, the Flying Brigands—or Hizoku ( 飛賊 , Hizoku ) —and the half-brother of Xiao Lon . He is an acquaintance of Ash Crimson and Shen Woo . Hoping to hunt down the clan's traitor, Ron , he agrees to enter the tournament with them. However, after discovering Ash's true objectives, he teams up with Elisabeth Blanctorche and Benimaru Nikaido . Information on Duo Lon's design graph revealed he
5304-512: A more antagonistic characterization until the events of 2001 and 2002 . She also appears in the CD dramas from KOF 2000 , in which she attacks K' before the events of her the story. However, this ends when K' is knocked out by Maxima for fighting with his wounded arm and the fugitive escapes with the unconscious K' from Kula. A cyborg named Rugal Bernstein kidnaps Kula during the 2002 storyline to absorb her powers. Using this, Rugal manages to defeat
5525-401: A more efficient way of management for the criminals and joins the team as the fourth member for the '99 and 2000 tournaments. In The King of Fighters 2001 , the team was set to enter the tournament as usual. However, before the tournament started, Jhun broke his right arm while chasing an image of Athena Asamiya , of whom he is a fan of. Down one member, Kim decides to have May Lee ,
5746-414: A mystery. In choosing characters, developers wanted to include ones that would give a notable contrast and balance between teams rather than popularity within fans, expanding the "KOF-ism" theme. Characters like Kyo Kusanagi were made to fight at short distances rather than his original forms from the series' first two games where he relied in attacks performed from distance to emphasize the balance within
5967-454: A new story arc, revolving around K′ , a young man who seeks to destroy the mysterious NESTS organization because they kidnapped him at an early age and stripped him of his past memories, so that they could force him to be a fighter under their control. In The King of Fighters 2003 , a new character named Ash Crimson enters the tournament, to steal the powers of the clans who sealed the Orochi in
6188-462: A new threat which will cause untold chaos. On his father's suggestion, he convenes with Tung Fu Rue and Nakoruru to investigate, while entering the tournament with Benimaru and Goro as the Japan Team. After winning the tournament, Kyo advises Shun'ei to keep training to control his powers. At the airport, he tells his teammates to go home without him and travels to Hungary . In Hungary, Chizuru had called him there for his assistance after Iori found
6409-485: A new, "snazzy" hero who would easily fight against Fatal Fury and Art of Fighting characters. Initially, this character was called Syo Kirishima, but late in the production, his name was changed to Kyo Kusanagi. This was done in order to relate him with the Yamata no Orochi legend, which was used as the inspiration for the first arc (and specifically featured a majestic sword known as Kusanagi no Tsurugi ). To continue with
6630-602: A number of games that sparked another surge in fighting game popularity. Super Smash Bros. Brawl was released in early March 2008 to universal acclaim and went on to set a new record in sales, at one point selling at 120 units per minute. Another game was Street Fighter IV , the series' first mainline title since Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike in 1999, which was released in early 2009 also to critical acclaim, having garnered praise since its debut at Japanese arcades in July 2008. The console versions of Street Fighter IV , as well as
6851-456: A party, much to Shingo’s dismay. However, Shingo is scouted by Kyo’s father Saisyu and becoming the elder Kusanagi’s student instead. In The King of Fighters 2003 , Benimaru, Goro, and Shingo enters the tournament as the Benimaru Team while Kyo and Iori going solo to investigate suspicious activities concerning the Orochi and saving their Sacred Treasures teammate, Chizuru. Later, Kyo's team
The King of Fighters XIII - Misplaced Pages Continue
7072-430: A perky teenager and a student of Kim who have always admired the team, replace Jhun as the fourth member with the task of keeping an eye of Chang and Choi during the tournament. During the tournament, May Lee surprised the audience and her teammates with her unique taekwondo style and gains much praise. When the tournament ended, the team return home and are celebrated as heroes for ending NESTS (despite not actually winning
7293-431: A player at any time. The game also introduced pressure-sensitive controls that determine the strength of an attack, though due to causing damaged arcade cabinets, Capcom replaced it soon after with a six-button control scheme offering light, medium, and hard punches and kicks, which became another staple of the genre. In 1988, Home Data released Reikai Dōshi: Chinese Exorcist , also known as Last Apostle Puppet Show ,
7514-602: A popular genre for amateur and doujin developers in Japan. The 2002 title Melty Blood was developed by then-amateur developer French Bread and achieved cult success on the PC . It became highly popular in arcades following its 2005 release, and a version was released for the PlayStation 2 the following year. The late 1990s and early 2000s saw the rise in online gaming . In 2004, Mortal Kombat: Deception , Dead or Alive Ultimate , and
7735-441: A realistic fighting engine that features three-dimensional environments while abandoning time limits and health bars in favor of an innovative Body Damage System, where a sword strike to a certain body part can amputate a limb or decapitate the head. Video game enthusiasts took an interest in fictional crossovers , which feature characters from multiple franchises in a particular game. An early example of this type of fighting game
7956-512: A response to hackers of the original Street Fighter II game to add new features. However, criticism of these updates grew as players demanded a true sequel. By 1995, the dominant franchises were the Mortal Kombat series in America and the Virtua Fighter series in Japan, with Street Fighter Alpha unable to match the popularity of Street Fighter II . Throughout this period, the fighting game
8177-461: A response to issues found in the arcade versions. Downloadable content was also made available, including variants of existing characters. An iOS version was also released on July 7, 2011, under the title of The King of Fighters-i . It was also brought to Android -based devices on March 22, 2012, as The King of Fighters Android . Kei Yamamoto was also in charge of this version, but the development team consisted of another one that did not work on
8398-609: A series of bosses , and Enter the Dragon (1973), about an international martial arts tournament. Other inspiration is Japanese martial arts works, including the manga and anime series Karate Master (1971–1977), and Sonny Chiba 's The Street Fighter (1974). Before martial arts games, the earliest video games with fist-fighting are boxing games , featuring battles between characters with fantastic abilities and complex special maneuvers. Sega 's black-and-white boxing game Heavyweight Champ , released for arcades in 1976,
8619-480: A set number of lives (called stocks) for each player (usually three), and if the score is tied between two or more fighters when time runs out, then a " sudden death " match will take place by delivering a single hit to an opponent with 300% damage. Fighting games widely feature health bars , introduced in Yie Ar Kung-Fu in 1984, which are depleted as characters sustain blows. Each successful attack will deplete
8840-485: A set number of rounds (typically three ), beginning with the announcer's signal. If the score is tied after an even number of rounds (such as 1-1), then the winner is decided in the final round. Round decisions can also be determined by time over, which judge players based on remaining health to declare a winner. In the Super Smash Bros. series, the rules are different. Instead of rounds, the games usually give players
9061-473: A single-player campaign or tournament, where the player must defeat a sequence of several computer-controlled opponents. Winning the tournament often reveals a special story-ending cutscene , and some games also grant access to hidden characters or special features upon victory. Tekken introduced the concept of story modes in 1994 with the first arcade full motion video cutscenes for each character's victory. In most fighting games, players may select from
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9282-525: A story and KOF: Maximum Impact 2 where looks for a doctor to repair Maxima's cybernetic body. She also appears in The King of Fighters '98: Unlimited Match Online and The King of Fighters Online . She is also present KOF: Sky Stage , Neo Geo Heroes: Ultimate Shooting and SNK Heroines: Tag Team Frenzy . In SNK Heroines , the female fighters must fight their way home but are confronted by Kukri and defeat him before he can initiate his grand plan on
9503-642: A teammate of Ash's team from the previous tournament, are invited by Elisabeth Blanctorche to enter the tournament as the Rival Team to track down Ash. Near the end of the tournament, the growing presence of the Orochi from Magaki causes Iori to snap and enter into the Riot of the Blood state, nearly killing Kyo and Shingo. Ash appears thereafter and steals the Yasakani no Magatama within Iori's body, along with his flames and escapes after
9724-518: A temporal paradox (via trapping Saiki in the present time), leading to the current events taking place in the KOF universe, with Shun'ei himself wielding a multiversal power known as Amplified Specters, which are the crucible of souls that connects all universes and converging all possibilities in the multiverse. However, these can only be perceived as illusions, and only a limited few are capable of controlling them. Ever since Shun'ei had inherited two halves of
9945-465: A type of action game where two (in one-on-one fighting games) or more (in platform fighters ) on-screen characters fight each other. These games typically feature special moves that are triggered using rapid sequences of carefully timed button presses and joystick movements. Games traditionally show fighters from a side view, even as the genre has progressed from two-dimensional (2D) to three-dimensional (3D) graphics. Street Fighter II , though not
10166-482: A variety of playable characters with unique fighting styles, special moves, and personalities. This became a strong convention for the genre with the release of Street Fighter II (1991), and these character choices have led to deeper game strategy and replay value. Custom character creation, or "create–a–fighter", is a feature of some fighting games that allows a player to customize the appearance and move set of their own character. Super Fire Pro Wrestling X Premium
10387-426: A variety of computer-controlled fighters, Street Fighter II allowed players to play against each other. The popularity of Street Fighter II surprised the gaming industry, as arcade owners bought more machines to keep up with demand. Street Fighter II was also responsible for popularizing the combo mechanic, which came about when skilled players learned that they could combine several attacks that left no time for
10608-548: A weaken state, Orochi was released from its seal and Goenitz leaves satisfied. Before her death, Maki passes on the responsibilities of the seal to Chizuru, begging her to bring the three clans together to defeat Orochi. Ten years afterwards, Chizuru becomes a very successful and prestigious businesswoman and the owner of Kagura Enterprises. During this time, she secretly kept track with the King of Fighters tournaments since it began with Geese Howard and comes up with an idea to bringing
10829-562: A weakened Orochi and seal it together once again. While the Sacred Treasures Team reunite in order to investigate the revived New Faces/Orochi Team in The King of Fighters XV , Kyo had also insist for Benimaru to accompany Tung Fu Rue’s last disciples from the previous tournament, Shun’ei and Meitenkun per the Hakkyokuseiken grandmaster’s request. In the spin-off series The King of Fighters EX , there are two additional members of
11050-453: Is Ash's, the one fighting is Saiki as represented by his black flames. Despite early pressure about that, once seeing Saiki's similarities with Ash, Ogura managed to draw the Evil Ash easily. The idea behind this character was giving an vibe of a repulsive person. SNK Playmore worked in order to make him balanced as they aimed for a neither superior Kyo or an inferior Kyo within the cast, giving
11271-516: Is a basic defense against basic attacks. Some games feature more advanced blocking techniques; for example, Capcom's Street Fighter III features a move termed " parrying ", which can be immediately followed by counter-attack, skipping the temporary stun a block would have put them in. A similar stun state is termed "just defended" in SNK 's Garou: Mark of the Wolves . An integral feature of fighting games
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#173289210205111492-451: Is a common element of gameplay . Fighting games emphasize the height of blows, ranging from low to jumping attacks. Thus, strategy requires predicting adversarial moves, similar to rock–paper–scissors . In addition to blows, players can utilize throwing or grappling to circumvent blocks. Most fighting games allow a grapple move by pressing two or more buttons together, or simply by pressing punch or kick while being directly adjacent to
11713-518: Is also the conclusion of Ash Crimson 's story arc , which started in The King of Fighters 2003 . It follows another King of Fighters tournament secretly hosted by Those From the Distance Land, the organization behind the events from the two prior games that are trying to break the seal of the demon Orochi and take its power. The game was directed by Kei Yamamoto who wanted to bring elements from prior The King of Fighters titles and fix issues from
11934-491: Is ambushed by Ash Crimson , who steals the power of the Yata Mirror from Chizuru and vows to steals the powers from both Iori and Kyo. In The King of Fighters XI , Kyo, Iori, and Shingo enter the tournament together at the convalescent Chizuru's behest (Shingo's presence serving ostensibly to keep Kyo and Iori from being at each other's throats) to stop Ash as the '"Kusanagi & Yagami Team". Meanwhile, Benimaru and Duo Lon ,
12155-529: Is composed of characters originating from the United States of America . First appearing in The King of Fighters '94 , the team consists of Heavy D!, a famous boxer who was expelled after seriously injuring an opponent during a match, Lucky Glauber , a former basketball player and a karate champion, and Brian Battler , the MVP football player of the year better known for his brash and violent behavior in
12376-462: Is considered the first video game with fist fighting. Vectorbeam 's arcade video game Warrior (1979) is sometimes credited as one of the first fighting games; in contrast to Heavyweight Champ and most later games, Warrior is based on sword fighting duels and uses a bird's-eye view . Sega 's jidaigeki -themed arcade action game Samurai , released in March 1980, features a boss battle where
12597-496: Is considered to be the "Dark Age" of fighting games. The two most prolific developers of 2D fighting games, Capcom and SNK, combined intellectual property to produce SNK vs. Capcom games. SNK released the first game of this type, SNK vs. Capcom: The Match of the Millennium , for its Neo Geo Pocket Color handheld at the end of 1999. GameSpot regarded the game as "perhaps the most highly anticipated fighter ever" and called it
12818-472: Is defeated, the team returns to the Wudang Mountains where Shun'ei tells his teammates that Kyo advised him to continue his training to keep his powers under control to which Shun'ei vows to train harder. It is revealed that Shun'ei's special abilities had originated from a result of Ash Crimson's act of erasing the latter's ancestor Saiki (and consequentially, his own self) from existence by orchestrating
13039-458: Is distinctly related to the beat 'em up genre, which pits many computer-controlled enemies against one or more player characters. The first video game to feature fist fighting is Heavyweight Champ (1976), but Karate Champ (1984) actually features the one-on-one fighting game genre instead of a sports game in arcades . Yie Ar Kung-Fu was released later that year with various fighting styles and introduced health meters , and The Way of
13260-476: Is mitigated by technology such as GGPO , which synchronizes players by quickly rolling back to the most recent accurate game state, correcting errors, and then jumping back to the current frame. Such games include Skullgirls and Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike Online Edition . The first fighting games were fundamentally inspired by martial arts films , especially Bruce Lee 's Hong Kong action cinema . Films include Game of Death (1972), where Lee fights
13481-564: Is no longer an active member in King of Fighters , his story and character have not been abandoned. He is a member of the assassination group, The Flying Brigands—or Hizoku ( 飛賊 , Hizoku ) Clan in Japanese—which is apparently on the brink of ruin. The agent Seth entices him to enter the King of Fighters tournament in order to find their clan's missing leader, Ron . After learning that Ron had defected to NESTS for his personal greed, Lin tracks
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#173289210205113702-606: Is not a port , but a separately produced game based on the same premise. Capcom released Street Fighter III in 1997 which features improved 2D visuals, but is also unable to match the impact of earlier games. Excitement stirred in Japan over Virtua Fighter 3 in arcades, and Sega eventually ported the game to its Dreamcast console. Meanwhile, SNK released several fighting games on its Neo Geo platform, including Samurai Shodown II in 1994, Real Bout Fatal Fury in 1995, The Last Blade in 1997, and annual updates to its The King of Fighters franchise. Garou: Mark of
13923-401: Is one of the nine children of Ron, an assassin who chased after his own father. Elisabeth Blanctorche ( エリザベート・ブラントルシュ , Erizabēto Burantorushu ) (spelled "Elisabeth Branctorche" in The King of Fighters XII ) is one of three original characters debuting in The King of Fighters XI . Her initial character concept was to be the rival to Ash, though developers decided to change her into
14144-464: Is seen as being safe and forms a friendship with her original target and allies. In the story-less game, KOF 2002 , Kula appears as member of a team with Ángel and K9999. In KOF 2003 , she appears in the ending of the K' Team where the group go to recruit her following an apparent threat. She participates in KOF XI and KOF XIII with K' and Maxima as her allies, having also joined forces with
14365-717: Is the 1996 arcade release X-Men vs. Street Fighter (which later became the Marvel vs. Capcom series), featuring comic book superheroes and characters from other Capcom games. In 1999, Nintendo released the first game in the Super Smash Bros. series, which allowed match-ups from various franchises, such as Pikachu vs. Mario . In the early 2000s, the fighting genre boom turned to bust. In retrospect, multiple developers attribute its decline to its increasing complexity and specialization, and to other factors such as over-saturation . This complexity shut out casual players, and
14586-454: Is the final boss in the arcade mode. The mist steps also allow combos to be performed as a manner of "crouch dashing," or when the Mishima player could run to the opponent while crouching since regular running prevented executing easy combos. Polygonal fighters became trendy and many developers started to make them. Further all-new titles were released in 1995: Zero Divide on the PlayStation,
14807-508: Is the use of "special attacks", also called "secret moves", that employ combinations of directional inputs and button presses to perform a particular move beyond basic punching and kicking. Some special moves, which play an animation portraying an aspect of the character's personality, are referred to as taunts . Originated by Japanese company SNK in Art of Fighting (1992), these add humor, and they effect gameplay in certain games, such as improving
15028-430: Is to force an opponent to take significant risks to approach the zoning player's character, or to stall out the in-game timer, which causes the player with more health (typically the one doing the zoning) to win. The effectiveness of the latter strategy varies from game to game, based on the effectiveness of zoning tools as well as the length of the in-game timer and the rewards characters can receive for successfully landing
15249-489: The Gundam: Battle Assault series. This genre is distinctly related to beat 'em ups, another action genre involving combat, where the player character must fight many enemies at the same time. Beat 'em ups, like traditional fighting games, display player and enemy health in a bar, generally located at the top of the screen. However, beat 'em ups generally do not feature combat divided into separate "rounds". During
15470-457: The Art of Fighting and Fatal Fury fighters were added specifically for adults. The newer King of Fighters characters were aimed to appeal to younger and newer audiences. He adds that every original character for the series was added based on the developers' strong desire to make one. For example, he agreed to include characters such as Benimaru Nikaido and Chang Koehan to add an off-beat variety to
15691-498: The Climax release for arcades. A Galaxy Edition also based on the Climax release was released on GOG.com on September 14, 2018. A version of the game, The King of Fighters XIII: Global Match , for PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch with rollback netcode online play was announced at Evo Japan 2023. Three open beta tests took place on throughout 2023 and the game was fully released on November 16, 2023. An official guidebook from
15912-589: The NESTS Chronicles . She was to add excitement to the story as an enemy and a foil of K'. Newly hired female staff designed her to depict a "14-year-old girl" with "appropriately girlish" gestures. The unnamed character designer was pleased with Kula's design saying: "Kula had an easy delivery. She didn't give me any pain." Despite being K' 's foil, Kula's was designed to closely resemble her rival as both fighters wear similar leather outfits with contrasting colors. According to artist Hiroaki, Kula does not look like
16133-609: The PlayStation 2 version of The King of Fighters 2000 , the American Sports Team appear as optional strikers for the Fatal Fury Team with Heavy D! being a striker for Joe , Lucky for Andy , and Brian for Terry . Antonov ( アントノフ , Antonofu , Антонов) is a Russian billionaire and the president of his own company, the Antonov Corporation. After being reinvigorated for his love of fighting, he purchases
16354-549: The Real Bout Fatal Fury Team with Terry Bogard and Duck King as they want Kim to enjoy himself for once after Kim believes that Chang and Choi are finally “rehabilitated.” Following the tournament, Chang and Choi realize that Kim will be on the look out for more criminals to help rehabilitate. Despite being deem “rehabilitated”, Chang and Choi are still in Kim's custody. In The King of Fighters XIII , Kim summons Raiden ,
16575-451: The Tekken , Soul and Dead or Alive franchises continued to release installments. Classic Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat games were re-released on PlayStation Network and Xbox Live Arcade , allowing internet play, and in some cases, HD graphics. The early part of the decade had seen the rise of competitive video gaming, referred to by the term Esports . The rise in esports saw
16796-642: The Unreal Engine , the original game had more realistic visuals but they clashed with character designs of Kula and Athena Asamiya . The designs looked like those in an anime series so the designers opted for the current look. A programmer with the alias of "Ando" designed the blades on Kula's boots during special attacks. Kula was the first character in KOF XIV to be given this type of design, requiring multiple attempts to work with her 3D character model. Ando further believed Kula could wield other type of weapons based on
17017-652: The Xbox version of Street Fighter Anniversary Collection became the first fighting games to offer online multiplayer and have received positive reception from critics. While the genre became generally far less popular than it once was, arcades and their attendant fighting games remained reasonably popular in Japan during this time period, and remain so even today. Virtua Fighter 5 lacked an online mode, but still achieved success both on home consoles and in arcades; players practiced at home and went to arcades to compete face-to-face with opponents. In addition to Virtua Fighter ,
17238-406: The samurai player character confronts a boss samurai in one-on-one sword-fighting combat. One-on-one boxing games appeared on consoles with Activision 's Atari VCS game Boxing , released in July 1980, and Sega's SG-1000 game Champion Boxing (1983), which is Yu Suzuki 's debut at Sega. Nintendo 's arcade game Punch-Out was developed in 1983 and released in February 1984, as
17459-470: The 1980s to 1990s, publications used the terms "fighting game" and "beat 'em up" interchangeably, along with other terms such as " martial arts simulation" (or more specific terms such as " judo simulator") and "punch-kick" games. Fighting games were still being called "beat 'em up" games in video game magazines up until the end of the 1990s. With hindsight, critics have argued that the two types of game gradually became dichotomous as they evolved, though
17680-466: The 1993 arcade game Fighter's History , which supposedly plagiarized Street Fighter 2 . Data East's largest objection in court was that their 1984 arcade game Karate Champ was the true originator of the competitive fighting game genre, which predated the original Street Fighter by three years, but the reason the case was decided against Capcom was that the copied elements were scènes à faire and thus excluded from copyright. Sega AM2 debuted in
17901-573: The Amplified Specters from Verse, he has been suffering from recurring nightmares of being ordered to destroy everything in sight until Tung gave him a pair of headphones to help silence the malevolent voice inside Shun'ei's head while also keeping his powers in check. While Tung retires from fighting, Shun'ei and Meitenkun are enlisted to be accompanied by Benimaru Nikaido at Kyo's behest due to Kyo himself having an important mission in teaming up with Iori Yagami and Chizuru Kagura to help investigate
18122-474: The Dream Cancels from The King of Fighters XI . The console version is based on the 1.1 update of The King of Fighters XIII arcade which fixed several issues from the original version. It also contains a story mode that is influenced by the player's actions with various perspectives being available. The mode is presented in visual novel style alongside fights, something considered to be hard to include in
18343-642: The Exploding Fist (1985) further popularized the genre on home systems. In 1987, Capcom 's Street Fighter introduced special attacks , and in 1991, its highly successful sequel Street Fighter II refined and popularized many genre conventions, including combos. Fighting games subsequently became the preeminent genre for video gaming in the early to mid-1990s, particularly in arcades. This period spawned dozens of other popular fighting games, including franchises like Street Fighter , Mortal Kombat , Super Smash Bros. , and Tekken . Fighting games are
18564-965: The Exploding Fist borrowed heavily from Karate Champ , but nevertheless achieved critical success and afforded the burgeoning genre further popularity on home computers in PAL regions, becoming the UK's best-selling computer game of 1985 . In North America, Data East ported Karate Champ to home computers in October 1985, becoming one of the best-selling computer games of the late 1980s. Other game developers also imitated Karate Champ , notably System 3 's computer game International Karate , released in Europe in November 1985; after Epyx released it in North America in April 1986, Data East took unsuccessful legal action against Epyx over
18785-549: The Ikari Team. They are assigned to investigate a group known as "Those From the Past". In KOF XIV , she once again participates in the tournament following the Ikari's orders to investigate NESTS' agents. During these games, the K' Team becomes allied with the Ikari Team to help them on missions though they tend to avoid them. Prior to The King of Fighters XV , Kula and K' end up having
19006-549: The Japan Team: Moe Habana (葉花 萌, Habana Moe), an Asian American high school girl from the United States who is one of the ten treasures of Japan with her treasure being the "Yatsuka Sword" (八握 剣, Yatsuka no Tsurugi), and Reiji Oogami (大神 零児, Ohgami Reiji), a Japanese man from Japan who is a member of the Yata clan, and one of the keepers of the ten treasures, the "Hetsu Mirror" (辺津 鏡, Hetsu Kagami). Shingo stars as
19227-466: The Korea Team. Xanadu was created for XIV to fulfilled this concept. Also, during the development for 2001 , May Lee's character design stems from sponsor Eolith 's desire for a "Korean Athena Asamiya" that was an " idol -like visual fighter." Kula Diamond ( クーラ・ダイアモンド , Kūra Daiamondo ) is a teenage girl who was experimented on by NESTS in order to exterminate the cartel's traitor, K' . Despite
19448-511: The Kusanagi clan wielding pyrokinetic abilities while also specializing in kenpo , Benimaru Nikaido (二階堂 紅丸 Nikaidō Benimaru?), a professional shoot boxing fighter and model who can create electricity , and Goro Daimon (大門 五郎 Daimon Gorō), a former gold medalist in Judo and mentor to his own dojo . During the Orochi saga, the Japan Team emerged victorious in the first four tournaments. In
19669-526: The Orochi arc was further expanded EX Neo Blood spin-offs while Maximum Impact deals with new defenders from South Town led by the Miera brothers. The plot and the characters came from the Yamata no Orochi legend. There are also several characters in the games that are parodies or homages. Merchandise based on the characters has also been released, including action figures and keychains. The characters have garnered praise from several video game publications for
19890-550: The Western-developed FX Fighter on PC and Criticom on console, and Sega's arcade Fighting Vipers - on top of Tekken 2 , an updated Battle Arena Toshinden 2 , and console ports of Tekken and Virtua Fighter 2 . A multitude of new polygonal releases arrived in 1996 from both prime and smaller developers, major games being Virtua Fighter 3 , Soul Edge , Dead or Alive , Last Bronx (in Japan), and
20111-525: The Wolves from 1999 (part of the Fatal Fury series) was considered one of SNK's last great games; the company announced that it would close its doors in late 2001. Electronic Gaming Monthly reported that in 1996, U.S. gamers spent nearly $ 150 million on current generation fighting games, and in Japan, fighting games accounted for over 80% of video game sales. The fighting game genre continued to evolve, with several strong 3D fighting games emerging in
20332-586: The Yasakani no Magatama from Iori's body and his flames. In the conclusion of The King of Fighters XIII , after Evil Ash erases himself and his ancestor Saiki from existence, both Iori and Chizuru regain their sacred treasures. After Verse is defeated in The King of Fighters XIV , Chizuru senses Orochi's presence in Hungary . After contacting Kyo and Iori, the trio find an awakened yet weakened Orochi in Aggtelek Karst and seal it away once again. Due to both
20553-428: The Yata Mirror from her body before evading Kyo and Iori. While she doesn't appear in The King of Fighters XI , Chizuru asks Shingo Yabuki to enter the tournament with Kyo and Iori to investigate Ash and the weakened Orochi seal as she cannot due to still recovering from her injuries. Unfortunately, the investigation ends with Iori, while in the Riot of the Blood state, nearly killing Kyo and Shingo, and Ash stealing
20774-605: The Year and as the Most Improved Sequel. It also received nominations for the Spike Video Game Awards , Golden Joystick Awards and AIAS ' Interactive Achievement Awards for the best fighting game of the year, but every time lost to Mortal Kombat . The gameplay was given major praise with critics from GameSpot and 1UP.com comparing it with critically acclaimed fighting games like Street Fighter IV and finding
20995-501: The Zero Cannon, Ron confronted the Benimaru Team but escaped after Benimaru saves Lin from being killed. In The King of Fighters 2001 , Kyo reunites with his friends, and as the Japan Team (with Shingo being the fourth member) enter the tournament to battle against NESTS, but also relive their time together as a team. After the tournament was over following NEST's destruction, the Japan Team went their usual separate ways instead of having
21216-519: The activities of NESTS' renegades, K′ and his teammates, in hopes of finding his traitorous leader. He joins up with K', Maxima, and Whip in the 2001 tournament. He continues to search for Ron even after NESTS' destruction. For an unexplained reason, he appears next to Ron in the Psycho Soldier Team's ending in The King of Fighters XI . He is a master of the Poison Hand technique, which enables
21437-476: The addition of two new characters to the game: Vice for Iori Yagami's team and Takuma Sakazaki for the Art of Fighting team. The official website was soon updated with the changes as well as adding a storyline for Iori's team, and on the April 23, 2010 location test at Hong Kong, Hwa Jai from Fatal Fury: King of Fighters was confirmed to be in the game as the final member of Kim Kaphwan 's team. The first member of
21658-574: The aftermath, both Kyo and Iori protests into working together and leave Chizuru. In The King of Fighters '97 , Chizuru hosts the tournament again but this time, requests to join the Women Team with Mai Shiranui and King , which they agree. During the finals of the tournament, Chizuru departs from her teammates and joins up with Kyo and Iori where they confront the remaining Orochi servants: Yashiro Nanakase , Shermie , and Chris . After defeating them, Orochi possesses Chris' body and attempts to destroy
21879-606: The announcement of the new tournament, the trio enter as the Villains Team with the goal of causing chaos and destruction. Meanwhile, Kim has not heard from Chang or Choi and is unaware of their imprisonment. Deciding to go look for them, Kim was about leave the dojo when Gang-Il , Kim's master and chairman of the World Taekwondo Federation , and Luong , a seductive woman who is secretly a freelance secret agent and fell in love with Gang-II during his world tour, appear at
22100-513: The arcade version by the SNK Playmore staff. Other modes shown are Arcade, Practice and Challenge. The online gameplay is based on the one included in later versions of The King of Fighters XII , which fixed the issues the initial one had. The game takes place five years after the 2005 events of The King of Fighters XI and is the last game of the third story arc that started in The King of Fighters 2003 . The fighter Ash Crimson has absorbed
22321-414: The arcade version. The staff had trouble adapting the game to iOS due to lack of balances of moves and enemies' intelligences. The initial roster was reduced although six more characters became available by September 2011 alongside an updated version. Billy Kane was included as a result of his popularity within fans, although some were confused by the absence of Iori Yagami. Depending on the game's popularity,
22542-437: The arcades in 1996, porting it for the PlayStation in 1998. It spawned a long-running franchise , known for its fast-paced control system, innovative counterattacks , and environmental hazards . The series again included games important to the success of their respective consoles, such as Dead or Alive 3 for the Xbox and Dead or Alive 4 for the Xbox 360 . In 1998, Bushido Blade , published by Square , introduced
22763-498: The basis for his fighting game Street Fighter . Nintendo's boxing sequel Super Punch-Out was released for arcades in late 1984 and ported by Elite to home computers as Frank Bruno's Boxing in 1985, features martial arts elements, high and low guarding, ducking, lateral dodging, and a KO meter. This meter is built up with successful attacks and, when full, enables a special, more powerful punch to be thrown. Broderbund 's Karateka , designed by Jordan Mechner and released at
22984-571: The battle. Before Saiki can act, he is ambushed by Ash Crimson, who steals his power. It is revealed then that, while Ash was enlisted by Saiki to obtain the Three Sacred Treasures to power the time gate, Ash had no intention of helping Saiki. Ash is suddenly overtaken by Saiki's persona, who then attempts to cross the time gate in Ash's body. The winning team pursues him into the time gate and the final battle of The King of Fighters XIII begins inside
23205-578: The best fighting game ever to be released for a handheld console. Capcom released Capcom vs. SNK: Millennium Fight 2000 for arcades and the Dreamcast in 2000, followed by sequels in subsequent years. Though none matched the critical success of the handheld version, Capcom vs. SNK 2 EO was noted as the first game of the genre to successfully utilize internet competition. Other crossovers from 2008 included Tatsunoko vs. Capcom and Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe . The most successful crossover, however,
23426-403: The best-selling fighting arcade video game franchises that have sold at least 10,000 arcade units . The prices of fighting game arcade units ranged from $ 1,300 (equivalent to $ 2,800 in 2023) for Street Fighter II Dash ( Champion Edition ) in 1992, up to $ 21,000 (equivalent to $ 44,000 in 2023) for Virtua Fighter (1993). In addition to unit sales, arcade games typically earned
23647-500: The cast, which he had previously deemed to be too serious. Later in the series, their approach to creating their characters altered slightly, to also serve as a type of fan service , which he refers to as a collaborative effort between fans and the staff. Several characters that appear in the series are parodies or homages to either anime, manga, actors, films or television shows that held the creators' interest. Noticeable examples are K9999 and Zero . Characters are sometimes added at
23868-488: The cast. The first Neo Max technique made by the staff was Kyo's. As a result, following Neo Max attacks were made to be consistent with Kyo's Neo Max in their style and damage. While Kyo often wears different outfits for story arc, he was given a more masculine appearance for The King of Fighters XIII . Artist Ogura expressed pressure in drawing this incarnation of Kyo as it had to live up to a long reputation he has had ever since his introduction. Yamamoto jokingly called Ash as
24089-408: The character each player is currently using. As a result of this, a concept called "footsies" has emerged, frequently defined as players jockeying for position and using low-commitment moves at distances where neither character has a particular advantage. Depending on the game, character, and move used, a player may be rewarded for a decisive blow with a strong positional advantage, strong enough that
24310-480: The clans together. First appearing in The King of Fighters '96 , Chizuru hosts the tournament with the goal of bringing together the three clans by entreating Kyo Kusanagi and Iori Yagami to help her replace the broken seal. During the finals of the tournament however, Goenitz appears to finally end all three heirs at once but is defeated by Kyo, with the assistance of Iori and Chizuru. Humiliated, Goenitz takes his own life by cutting his body by his own wind. In
24531-487: The climax of The King of Fighters '97 , Kyo, along with his rival Iori Yagami , and Chizuru Kagura , seal away Orochi , saving mankind from destruction. After the fight however, Kyo was kidnapped by a mysterious cartel while Benimaru resumed his modeling career and went on a world tour, and Goro retires from being a fighter and returns to the Judo circuit representing Japan. Also in ’97 , Shingo Yabuki (矢吹 真吾 Yabuki Shingo?),
24752-478: The corner of a stage or as they get up from a knockdown; both situations severely limit the options of the opponent and often allow the attacking player to force high-risk guessing scenarios. Spacing is the act of positioning a character at a range where their attacks and movement tools carry the lowest risk and the highest reward. The concept is somewhat akin to that of footwork in martial arts. The desired position for play varies based on what tools are available to
24973-440: The critically acclaimed Virtua Fighter 5 was released to very little acclaim in 2007, its update Virtua Fighter 5: Final Showdown received much more attention due to renewed interest in the genre. Numerous indie fighting games have also been crowdfunded on websites such as Kickstarter and Indiegogo , the most notable success being the tag team fighting game Skullgirls in 2012. Later, in 2019, Ubisoft reported that
25194-458: The current situation during the events of KOF XV . Once the source behind the awry of Amplified Specters, Otoma=Raga has been defeated, Shun'ei's power is fully under control, allowing Shun'ei to take off his headphones safely. Chizuru Kagura ( 神楽 ちづる , Kagura Chizuru ) is a member of the Yata clan who holds one of the three sacred artifacts , the Yata Mirror, that originally sealed the serpent monster Orochi eighteen hundred years ago. As
25415-412: The dojo's entrance. Though Gang-II and Luong are excited to meet Kim, Kim's bitter memories of his master distracts him from their conversation until Gang-II shows Kim a leaflet , revealing that Chang and Choi are entering the new tournament with a criminal. As Kim decides to enter the tournament to retrieve Chang and Choi from the criminal's control, Gang-II and Luong also decides to enter alongside Kim in
25636-545: The end of 1984, is a one-on-one fighting game for home computers that successfully added plot to its fighting action, like the beat 'em up Kung-Fu Master . By early 1985, martial arts games had become popular in arcades. On home computers, the Japanese MSX version of Yie Ar Kung-Fu was released in January 1985, and Beam Software 's The Way of the Exploding Fist was released for PAL regions in May 1985; The Way of
25857-439: The execution satisfying despite possible difficulties to newcomers to the franchise. The visual presentation was complimented to the point GamePro stated that the game "has an incredibly distinct – and incredibly beautiful – visual style to it." SNK Playmore was noted to have listened to all the fans' concerns regarding the game as the character roster was increased, with the notable return of fan favorite characters. On
26078-562: The fact that Kula hates Ángel, so the game's villain, Kukri, gave her that appearance to humiliate her. Lin ( Chinese : 麟 ; Pinyin : Lín ; Japanese: 麟 Rin ) is one of the new characters introduced in The King of Fighters 2000 as a member of the Benimaru Team . He, along with the Flying Brigands subplot, was created without the entire staff's knowledge, leading to some developers being surprised by his team's ending. Though he
26299-454: The fact their subject was a mindless puppet with no sign of emotions, the NESTS cartel created an android called Candy Diamond to monitor Kula's behavior and to ensure that she would accomplish her missions. During KOF 2000 , Kula can be fought as a mid- boss during her debut. Shortly afterwards, Kula destroys the main Zero Cannon from its titular creator who is betraying NESTS. Candy shields Kula's descent from space by sacrificing her body in
26520-610: The fast motions of a joystick, and so players had difficulty executing special moves with any accuracy. The release of Street Fighter II in 1991 is considered a revolutionary moment in the fighting game genre. Yoshiki Okamoto 's team developed the most accurate joystick and button scanning routine in the genre thus far. This allowed players to reliably execute multi-button special moves, which had previously required an element of luck. The graphics took advantage of Capcom's CPS arcade chipset , with highly detailed characters and stages . Whereas previous games allowed players to combat
26741-419: The fighters Kyo Kusanagi and Iori Yagami , but in the end he is stopped by K' and Maxima who rescue their former enemy. In the comic of The King of Fighters XII , Kula engages the mysterious Magaki alongside K' and former NESTS' agent Nameless. SNK created Kula Diamond to bring more complexity to the NESTS' story arc in the series. Her character added another dimension to the villainous NESTS organization in
26962-646: The final boss. On June 28, 2011, Famitsu reported the addition of Billy Kane from Fatal Fury: King of Fighters as a console version exclusive character. On July 29, 2011, the human form of Saiki was also announced to be playable, while the original flame-powered Iori Yagami to be featured as a downloadable content (DLC) EX form for regular flameless Iori. Following classic Iori's appearance, Atlus announced "NESTS Style Kyo", based mostly on Kyo Kusanagi's appearance and movesets in NESTS Chronicles games ( The King of Fighters '99 - The King of Fighters 2002 ) as
27183-562: The final team, K′ , was revealed on April 30 with his addition to the roster page. Maxima was also revealed as the second member of K's Team via addition to the roster page on May 7 and one week later, the final character for K's Team, Kula Diamond , was introduced in the same way. Saiki , the manipulator behind the events of The King of Fighters XIII , appears as sub-boss in his awakened form, and an optional console exclusive mid-boss in his regular form, while an alternate form of Ash Crimson possessed by Saiki's soul known as Evil Ash appears as
27404-466: The first fighting game to use digitized sprites and motion capture animation. Meanwhile, home game consoles largely ignored the genre. Budokan: The Martial Spirit was one of the few releases for the Sega Genesis , but was not as popular as games in other genres. Technical challenges limited the popularity of early fighting games. Programmers had difficulty producing a game that could recognize
27625-451: The first fighting game, is considered to have standardized the genre, and similar games released prior to Street Fighter II have since been more explicitly classified as fighting games. Fighting games typically involve hand-to-hand combat, though many games also feature characters with melee weapons. Fighting characters are usually based on humans, but there are also games that are entirely based around mecha robot characters, for example
27846-541: The free-to-play platform fighting game Brawlhalla reached 20 million players, with it climbing to 80 million by 2022. In 2018, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate for the Nintendo Switch was released. It became the best-selling fighting game of all time, topping its Wii predecessor Super Smash Bros. Brawl and introduced nearly 90 characters through its default mode and through downloadable content or DLC, having sold 34.22 million copies worldwide. Later in
28067-416: The game Kimi wa Hero . For The King of Fighters XIII , the staff decided to make Kula similar to her original incarnation in The King of Fighters 2000 . The team had no problems in designing her gameplay and added taunts where the character becomes boring. Similar to K' ' s moves, the developers wanted Kula's trademarks, most notably her ice moves, to be appealing to see. A move that exemplifies this
28288-410: The game controls, which created a sense of mystique and invited players to practice the game. Following Street Fighter's lead, the use of command-based hidden moves began to pervade other games in the rising fighting game genre. Street Fighter also introduced other staples of the genre, including the blocking technique, as well as the ability for a challenger to jump in and initiate a match against
28509-424: The game outside Japan because it felt that "unrestrained" 3D fighting games were unenjoyable. Sega also attempted to introduce holographic 3D technology to the genre with Holosseum in 1992, though it was unsuccessful. Several fighting games achieved commercial success, including SNK's Art of Fighting and Samurai Shodown as well as Sega's Eternal Champions . Nevertheless, Street Fighter II remained
28730-468: The game's (and the series') Evolution Championship Series debut in 2012, it became the second-most-watched game of the series at over 90,000 consecutive viewers, thanks to a highly competitive tournament. In 2012, Complex ranked it as the third best SNK fighting game ever made, calling it "one of this generation’s finest fighters." The magazine also ranked it as the eighth best 2D fighting game of all time in 2013, stating: "A hit at EVO both this year, and
28951-412: The game's release. Due to the large additions of teenager characters in the series, SNK decided to add several middle-age ones to balance them. The table below summarizes every single fighter in the series. A green cell indicates that the character is playable, while a red cell indicates that the character is not playable or does not appear. The American Sports Team , also known as the U.S.A. Team ,
29172-512: The game, titled The King of Fighters XIII: Climax , was announced in February 2012. It added the characters introduced on the console version and featured additional rebalancing. Location tests began that same month. Climax was officially released in Japanese arcades on April 26, 2012. A Windows port, featuring all three DLC characters, was released on Steam in September 2013. This port is based on
29393-411: The game. The staff in charge wanted to pay attention to the number of details given to the game's graphics. Regarding the story, they paid attention to its flow, mentioning the final version was not significantly different from the first one. Because the prior game, The King of Fighters XII , suffered from various technical issues, developers also worked in fixing them to improve the gameplay. However,
29614-528: The game. Yie Ar Kung-Fu went on to become the UK's best-selling computer game of 1986 , the second year in a row for fighting games. The same year, Martech 's Uchi Mata for home computers featured novel controller motions for grappling maneuvers, but they were deemed too difficult. In the late 1980s, side-scrolling beat 'em ups became considerably more popular than one-on-one fighting games, with many arcade game developers focused more on producing beat 'em ups and shoot 'em ups. Takashi Nishiyama used
29835-573: The genre into "true 3D" due to its introduction of the sidestep maneuver, which IGN described as "one little move" that "changed the fighter forever". The "sidestep" in the game, however, consisted of shoulder rolls instead of actual sidesteps. That year, Namco released Tekken 2 , which introduced actual sidestepping or "mist steps" as first released in arcade games and in the international fighting game community. These moves are only exclusive to its two protagonists, Heihachi Mishima and his son, Kazuya Mishima , and his counterpart transformation which
30056-400: The genre with the 1993 arcade game Burning Rival , but they gained renown with the release of Virtua Fighter for the same platform the same year. It is the first fighting game with 3D polygon graphics and a viewpoint that zoomed and rotated with the action. Despite the graphics, players were confined to back and forth motion as seen in other fighting games. With only three buttons, it
30277-462: The goal of rehabilitating them of their criminal ways. These two criminals are Chang Koehan (Korean: 장거한 Chang Keo-Han , Japanese: チャン・コーハン Chan Kōhan ), a giant and violent man who uses an iron ball and chain and Choi Bounge (Korean: 최번개 Choi Beon-Gae , Japanese: チョイ・ボンゲ Choi Bonge ), a sadistic little man who uses Freddy Krueger -esque claws. During the Orochi saga, Chang and Choi would become friends and would always attempt at
30498-467: The grounded realism of Karate Champ , Yie Ar Kung-Fu moved the genre towards more fantastical, fast-paced action with a variety of special moves and high jumps, establishing the template for subsequent fighting games. It expanded on Karate Champ by pitting the player against a variety of opponents, each with a unique appearance and fighting style. The player could also perform up to sixteen different moves, including projectile attacks, and it replaced
30719-480: The history of competitive video gaming, compared to sports moments such as Babe Ruth's called shot and the Ice Hockey Miracle on Ice . It inspired many to start playing 3rd Strike, which brought new life into the fighting game community (FGC) during a time when the community was in a state of stagnation. Dead or Alive 4 became the first fighting game to have a televised competitive esport scene as it
30940-435: The home port of Tekken 2 , cementing 3D as the future of the genre. In 1994, SNK released The King of Fighters '94 in arcades, where players choose from teams of three characters to eliminate each other one by one. Eventually, Capcom released further updates to Street Fighter II , including Super Street Fighter II and Super Street Fighter II Turbo . These games feature more characters and new moves, some of which are
31161-411: The idea of the Orochi plot, the designers gave several other characters, such as Kyo's rival Iori Yagami , similar characteristics to Kyo. In The King of Fighters '99 , to contrast the previous protagonist of the series, K' was made to be the "dark hero". K's introduction to the series was meant to remove popular characters Kyo Kusanagi and Iori Yagami from the roster, though this idea was scrapped in
31382-523: The idea was quickly abandoned. Since the developers were attached to the idea of the two series cross-over, they eventually agreed to make their idea into a fighting game. Characters from the Ikari Warriors and Psycho Soldier games were also added in the spirit of other gaming genres considered for their final product. The concept of a three-man team was one of the ideas kept from the side-scrolling version. Flagship director Toyohisa Tanabe asserts that
31603-417: The initial arcade version from the game suffered from four notable bugs which led to special rules forbidding players to use them in at Japan's Tougeki – Super Battle Opera fighting game tournament. An updated version 1.1 was later released for arcades, fixing all the bugs and issues from the original game. Yamaomoto claimed they wanted to appeal to newcomers by offering several moves. The netcode received
31824-419: The initial main character of the series, Kyo Kusanagi , a young Japanese fighter who is the heir to a powerful group of martial artists having pyrokinetic abilities. Kyo fights against the Kusanagi clan's enemies, his rival Iori Yagami , and the snake demon Orochi and its human followers, among others. The first four games in the series revolve about these fights, while The King of Fighters '99 introduces
32045-458: The kidnapped female fighters. She also makes a cameo appearance alongside Maxima in the ending of K' from NeoGeo Battle Coliseum . She is playable in the mobile phone game Kimi wa Hero (as an adult) and Brave Frontier , while also making a cameo in the dating sim Days of Memories should the player interact with K'. She has since made guest appearances in more games, including the role-playing game Valkyrie Connect . She also appears as
32266-704: The last new feature confirmed for the game is the Drive Cancel, which opens up new combo possibilities. The game also marks the return of the multi-bar power gauge that was introduced in The King of Fighters '97 . In addition to standard and EX Desperation Moves, a new class of Desperation Move called Neo Max is included in the game and require that three stocks of gauge be exchanged to perform one, making it similar to Hidden Super Desperation Moves from The King of Fighters 2002 and Leader Super Special Moves from The King of Fighters 2003 . These can also be cancelled from standard Desperation Moves, making them similar to
32487-846: The last, we predict that XIII will be sticking around for years to come." GamesRadar listed it as the 8th best fighting from its generation. ONE37pm listed Climax it as the 17th best SNK game due to the major improvements it has over the original KOFXIII as well as how appealing the 2D game was in an era filled with 3D graphics. PCMag regarded it as one of the best fighting games from 2024. Fighting game The fighting game genre of video games involves combat between multiple characters, often (but not limited to) one-on-one battles. Fighting game combat often features mechanics such as blocking , grappling , counter-attacking, and chaining attacks together into " combos ". Characters generally engage hand-to-hand combat , often with martial arts , but some may include weaponry. Battles are usually set in
32708-417: The late 1990s, traditional 2D fighting games began to decline in popularity, with specific franchises falling into difficulty due to 3D fighters. Although the release of Street Fighter EX introduced 3D graphics to the series, both it and Street Fighter: The Movie flopped in arcades. A home video game also titled Street Fighter: The Movie was released for the PlayStation and Sega Saturn , but it
32929-469: The late 1990s. Namco 's Tekken (released in arcades in 1994 and on the PlayStation in 1995) proved critical to the PlayStation's early success, with its sequels also becoming some of the console's most important games. The Soul series of weapon-based fighting games also achieved considerable critical success, beginning with 1995's Soul Edge (known as Soul Blade outside Japan) to Soulcalibur VI in 2018. Tecmo released Dead or Alive in
33150-425: The latest game Tekken 8 , which was released in January 2024 sold over 2 million copies in its first month alone. Thus, the 2020s have had a marked resurgence in fighting games that has been deemed a new golden age in fighting games. The following are the highest-grossing fighting game franchises, in terms of total gross revenue generated by arcade games , console games , and computer games . The following are
33371-496: The main protagonist of a gaiden manga series titled The King of Fighters Side Story: The Origin of Flame - Shingo Travels Through Time! Let's Go! , taking place between The King of Fighters XIV and The King of Fighters XV , in which Shingo is unexpectedly brought to the past where the Sacred Treasure Team members’ original ancestors are and finally learns both the origin of their powers and Orochi before returning to
33592-403: The majority of their gross revenue from coin drop earnings. Chizuru Kagura The King of Fighters fighting game series, produced by SNK , includes a wide cast of characters, some of which are taken from other SNK games. The story takes place in a fictional universe in which an annual series of 3-on-3 or 4-on-4 fighting tournaments are held. The first game in the series introduces
33813-419: The market for fighting games became smaller and more specialized. Even as far back as 1997, many in the industry said that the fighting game market's growing inaccessibility to newcomers was bringing an end to the genre's dominance. Furthermore, arcades gradually became less profitable throughout the late 1990s to early 2000s due to the increased technical power and popularity of home consoles. The early 2000s
34034-434: The mid-2020s, the genre achieved another renaissance with the arrival of Street Fighter 6 and its immediate success, together with Mortal Kombat 1 and Tekken 8 . Street Fighter 6 sold over 1 million copies within five days after its launch, and sold over 3 million copies by January 2024. Mortal Kombat 1 sold over 2 million copies in its first two months, and garnered over 3 million copies by January 2024, while
34255-400: The most popular, spawning a Champion Edition that improved game balance and allowed players to use boss characters that were unselectable in the previous version. Chicago's Midway Games achieved unprecedented notoriety when they released Mortal Kombat in 1992. The game featured digital characters drawn from real actors, numerous secrets, and " Fatality " finishing maneuvers in which
34476-464: The new Hero Team. Though she does not participate in The King of Fighters XIV , she enlists Kukri's help in finding Ash following Verse's defeat, with the two of them succeeding in their mission as Ash's body is soon located in Ukraine's Carpathian Mountains with his soul burning inside it, thus confirming Ash's return to the living world much to Elisabeth's rejoice. In order to help investigate and solve
34697-434: The one-on-one boss battles of his earlier beat 'em up Kung-Fu Master as the template for Capcom 's fighting game Street Fighter , combined with elements of Karate Champ and Yie Ar Kung Fu . Street Fighter found its own niche in the gaming world, which was dominated by beat 'em ups and shoot 'em ups at the time. Part of the game's appeal was the use of special moves that could only be discovered by experimenting with
34918-567: The ongoing crisis that's taking place in the world and the unexpected return of the New Faces/Orochi Team, Chizuru, Kyo, and Iori decide to join forces in reuniting the Sacred Treasures Team as a regular team for KOF XV . In the 2010 live-action film adaptation of The King of Fighters , Chizuru is portrayed by Chinese-Canadian actress Françoise Yip . Duo Lon ( Chinese : 堕瓏 ; Pinyin : Duòlóng ; Japanese: デュオロン Dyuoron ) makes his first appearance in The King of Fighters 2003 as
35139-439: The opponent to recover if they timed them correctly. Its success led to fighting games becoming the dominant genre in the arcade game industry of the early 1990s, which led to a resurgence of the arcade game industry. The popularity of Street Fighter II led it to be released for home game consoles and becoming the defining template for fighting games. SNK released Fatal Fury shortly after Street Fighter II in 1991. It
35360-541: The opponent. Other fighting games, like Dead or Alive , have a unique button for throws and takedowns. Projectiles are primarily in 2D fighting games, like the Hadouken in Street Fighter . Projectiles can simply inflict damage, or can maneuver opponents into disadvantageous positions. Especially in 2D, zoning is defensive play that focuses on using relatively risk-free attacks to keep the opposing player away. The object
35581-414: The organization behind the two prior tournaments that has been trying to break Orochi's seal. When the winning team reaches the game's end, Saiki, the leader of "Those From The Past" puts his work into motion. Saiki intends to use the energy expended by the winning team to enable him to cross time. However, as the fight rages, Botan notes that the gate that links them to the past is starting to close despite
35802-504: The original version as well as new characters. Atlus had confirmed that they would publish the game on October 25, 2011, in North America, but later delayed it until November 22. Pre-orders for the game included a four-CD soundtrack from the series; the preorders notably increased following the announcement. Rising Star Games confirmed the release date at October 28, 2011 in Europe. While the Xbox 360 cover focuses on Ash Crimson due to his role in
36023-435: The other hand, the game has received criticism as a result of its story mode which is nearly inaccessible to those unfamiliar with the series as well as its use of illustrations alongside large paragraphs telling the plot. Similar comments were given to the online modes as it lacked options to allow players to watch other online fights. As the previous installment was criticized for the lack of inclusion of Mai Shiranui, KOF XIII
36244-478: The past and forces his own existence to cease. As Ash vanishes from the living world, the flow of time resumes. In the epilogue of the Story Mode, in the dimensional rift, a spear appeared in front of Shroom and Rimelo, two members of Those From The Past who faced Kyo in the opening of the game. The roster of The King of Fighters XIII features all the characters who appeared in The King of Fighters XII , including
36465-412: The past for unknown reasons. A new group of antagonists, known as Those From the Past , also appears in the series; they want to obtain Orochi's power for the purpose of giving it to their unknown master. The latest story arc involves the young Shun'ei who possesses unknown supernatural powers connected with Ash's timetravelling paradox and is capable gathering new deities from other dimensions. The cast of
36686-760: The player's character kills their opponent. The game earned a reputation for its gratuitous violence, and was adapted for home game consoles. The home version of Mortal Kombat was released on September 13, 1993, a day promoted as "Mortal Monday". The advertising resulted in line-ups to purchase the game and a subsequent backlash from politicians concerned about the game's violence. The Mortal Kombat franchise would achieve iconic status similar to that of Street Fighter with several sequels as well as movies, television series, and extensive merchandising. Numerous other game developers tried to imitate Street Fighter II and Mortal Kombat 's financial success with similar games, including Rare Software with Killer Instinct ,
36907-439: The players their decision when choosing which version of the character would they prefer. Iori's flamewielding persona was developed to generate a contrast between him and the regular Iori. Another DLC is the original Iori Yagami who can wield flames for his fighting style. Despite being the same person, the playstyle of Iori's flames is highly different from the regular Iori whose attacks involve hand-to-hand combat. Nevertheless, he
37128-528: The point-scoring system of Karate Champ with a health meter system, becoming the standard for the genre. Irem 's Kung-Fu Master , designed by Takashi Nishiyama and released in November 1984, is a side-scrolling beat 'em up that, at the end of each level , featured one-on-one boss battles that resemble fighting games. It is based on Hong Kong martial arts films, specifically Jackie Chan 's Wheels on Meals (1984) and Bruce Lee's Game of Death . Nishiyama later used its one-on-one boss battles as
37349-440: The powers from two of the descendants of the clans who sealed the Orochi away 1,800 years ago, Chizuru Kagura and Iori Yagami , while Kyo Kusanagi is to be his last victim. As his former comrade, Elisabeth Blanctorche , prepares to stop him, fighters receive an invitation to another King of Fighters tournament hosted by a person labelled as "R". The tournament is sponsored by Rose who is being controlled by "Those From The Past",
37570-647: The present. The Kim Team , also known as the Korea Justice Team , and originally the Korea Team , is composed of characters mostly originating from South Korea and are mostly Taekwondo practitioners. First appearing in The King of Fighters '94 , the original team consisted of Kim Kaphwan (who had debuted in Fatal Fury 2 ), a national hero in his homeland of Korea who convince authorities to take in two criminals as part of his new "Rehabilitation Project" with
37791-506: The prior game. This title significantly modifies the gameplay from its predecessor, removing some modes, and adding ones formerly used in the series. It also expands the character roster, re-grouping the playable characters into three-member teams as in the prior installments. The ports are notable for including more content than the original version such as new characters, stages and game modes. Critical reception has been positive. Versions for iOS and Android had also been released, as well as
38012-399: The process, as it is badly burned by Earth's atmosphere. While recovering from the trauma of Candy's destruction, in the following game, The King of Fighters 2001 , Kula enters into the fighting tournament with fellow NESTS' agents Foxy , K9999 and Ángel to capture K'. During the story, Kula and Foxy are betrayed by K9999 and Ángel. However, in K' ' s Team ending among others, she
38233-564: The public. In order to help restore his reputation, Antonov decides to form his own wrestling team named Galaxy Anton Wrestling and is prepared to take part in KOF XV as the leader of Team G.A.W. alongside Mexican wrestlers Ramón and King of Dinosaurs. The China Team , which is unrelated to the China Team that appeared in The King of Fighters '94 , is composed of characters originating from China . First appearing in The King of Fighters XIV ,
38454-539: The quality of their designs and movesets. Comments focused on the lack of improvements in some of the characters, but added that the roster is greatly diverse. The developers of the series claim that their prototype version for King of Fighters was going to be a Double Dragon -style side-scrolling beat 'em up titled Survivor . It would have used only core characters from the Art of Fighting and Fatal Fury series, specifically allowing players to play Robert Garcia and Terry Bogard for location testing. However,
38675-411: The rewarded player can minimize the number of viable moves available to the other player. Doing so, and then taking advantage of the opponent's limited options, is called pressure. Common forms of pressure include making a player guess whether they should block high or low, or keeping the opposing player trapped in the corner and punishing any attempts to escape. Fighting game matches generally consist of
38896-513: The rights to the King of Fighters brand despite objections from the board members of his company, and announces a new King of Fighters tournament . Proclaiming himself as the “first champion”, he sends out invitations across the world, challenging old and new teams to take his "KOF" championship belt away from him. After the incident caused by Verse at the climax of KOF XIV , the resulting lawsuits had cost Antonov nearly all of his money and damaged his reputation, causing him to briefly disappear from
39117-411: The rise of major international fighting game tournaments such as Tougeki – Super Battle Opera and Evolution Championship Series , and famous players such as Daigo Umehara . An important fighting game at the time was Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike , originally released in 1999. The game gained significant attention with " Evo Moment 37 ", also known as the "Daigo Parry", which refers to a portion of
39338-479: The series as the platform fighter subgenre due to its deviation from traditional fighting game rules and design. Several games such as Marvel vs. Capcom and Dead or Alive have featured teams where players form "tag teams" to fight duels, but a character may be swapped by a teammate. Some fighting games offer the endurance challenge of a series of opponents. Online games can suffer lag from slow data transmission , which can disrupt split-second timing. This
39559-633: The series was published by Arcadia in Japan on August 6, 2010, as The King of Fighters XIII Master Guide . An official soundtrack was released on August 4, 2010. It is composed of two CDs, with the first one having 15 tracks and the second 37, most if which are endings and jingles. A four-CD official soundtrack The King of Soundtracks was included with the English pre-orders of the game. Following its release, The King of Fighters XIII received positive reviews, taking an average of 77 and 79 out of 100 on Metacritic . GameSpot awarded it as Best Fighting Game of
39780-480: The sport. Despite not winning the ' 94 tournament, in their non-canonical ending, Brian returns to football for his fans while Lucky and Heavy D! will continue street fighting and promise Brian to contact him for further competitions. Unfortunately, the American Sports Team later becomes subject of a running gag in the series, which has them invited to participate in the later tournaments, only to get beaten up and have their invitations stolen by other teams prior to
40001-655: The sports game genre. Fighting games involve combat between pairs of fighters using highly exaggerated martial arts moves. They typically revolve primarily around brawling or combat sport , though some variations feature weaponry. Games usually display on-screen fighters from a side view, and even 3D fighting games play largely within a 2D plane of motion. Games usually confine characters to moving left and right and jumping, although some games such as Fatal Fury: King of Fighters allow players to move between parallel planes of movement. Recent games tend to be rendered in three dimensions, making it easier for developers to add
40222-407: The staff a good impression in how she her sprites changed, especially liking the universal lower body due to her combination of white gi and blue pants. Ogura stated that designing Ash's final form was conceived shortly after he saw early designs of Saiki. Following this, Ogura tried drawing Ash's possessed form from The King of Fighters XIII where he was careful in showing that while the enemy's body
40443-462: The staff may port it to other consoles. The King of Fighters-i 2012 , an updated version featuring 12 new characters and other modes, was released for the iOS platform on May 3, 2012 and on Android as The King of Fighters-A 2012 on August 31, 2012. Though all EX DLC form characters are also downloadable in these mobile versions, Mr. Karate and a human form of Saiki, who are still console-exclusive characters, are not included. A new arcade version of
40664-460: The stage when a character reaches a high percentage of damage; however, the gameplay objective differs from that of traditional fighting games in that the aim is to increase damage counters and knock opponents off the stage instead of depleting life bars. Beginning with Midway's Mortal Kombat released in 1992, the Mortal Kombat series introduced "Fatalities", where the match victor inflicts
40885-416: The start of each tournament. The team would make their return in The King of Fighters '98 , though it is not canonical in the series, but rather for the purpose of a “dream match” as it features every character up to that point in the canon story-line. Since then, the American Sports Team have made non-playable appearances in later games of the series as background characters and in other games. However, in
41106-450: The story, Ogura did a different artwork for the PS3 release, featuring the more familiar characters. Various new arenas were added for the home version, with some of them being originally from the Art of Fighting and Fatal Fury series. The others are based on places briefly seen in cutscenes from The King of Fighters . All of the characters had their movesets adjusted for better balance as
41327-545: The strength of other attacks. Some characters have unusual taunts, like Dan Hibiki from Street Fighter Alpha . Combos that chain several attacks are fundamental to the genre since Street Fighter II (1991). Most fighting games display a "combo meter" of progress through a combo. The effectiveness of such moves often relates to the difficulty of execution and the degree of risk. These moves are often challenging, requiring excellent memory and timing. Predicting opponents' moves and counter-attacking, known as "countering",
41548-442: The struggles they went through, he intensifies Chang and Choi's strict training much to duo's displeasure. In The King of Fighters XIV , Chang and Choi are sent to prison after destroying a bar while intoxicated . Upon arrival, the criminals encounter Xanadu , a mysterious, enigmatic, infamous and dangerous criminal who through his eccentric yet mesmerizing charisma, reverts Chang and Choi back to their old criminal ways. Upon
41769-459: The team consists of Shun'ei, a fighter who wields hydrokinesis in a form of a claw on his right side of his body and pyrokinesis in a form of a fist on his left side of his body, Tung Fu Rue , the legendary master of Hakkyokuseiken who had debuted in Fatal Fury , and Meitenkun, a young fighter who is always holding a pillow and is very sleepy. Despite having little knowledge of the King of Fighters, Tung convinces Shun'ei and Meitenkun to enter
41990-518: The three clans at once. The Sacred Treasures Team successfully defeats him in an intense fight and in a last-ditch effort, Orochi causes Iori to enter the Riot of Blood, expecting him to turn on Kyo and Chizuru. Instead, Iori snares Orochi by the neck, and Kyo obliges his rival by crippling the great demon with one last deathblow, allowing Chizuru to reseal Orochi again. In The King of Fighters 2003 , Chizuru hosts another tournament with her intentions similar to her previous attempt in 1996, but during
42211-514: The three is the new EX Mode, which convert each character's super moves into more powerful versions that allows one bar from the player's power gauge for EX Special Moves and two bars from the player's power gauge for EX Super Special Moves. Another new feature is the Hyper Drive mode, which gives the player unlimited use of Drive Cancels for a while once the Hyper Drive Gauge has been maxed, and
42432-425: The time gate. Saiki is defeated in the gate but persists on crossing over to the past, believing it means nothing since he can return to the past and then cross the gate again to attempt his plan anew. However, Ash halts his attempt and allows the gate to close, leaving Saiki trapped in the present. Furthermore, Ash reveals that he is a descendant of Saiki. By locking Saiki out of the gate, he denies Saiki's existence in
42653-577: The tournament as a means for them to face off against renowned martial artists from around the world. In addition, Tung saw the tournament as an opportunity to reunite with the Bogard brothers and meet Kyo Kusanagi , the latter after his father Saisyu requested the Japan Team to help Tung's students with their training. During the tournament finals, Shun'ei learns that he possesses a fragment of Verse 's power, which causes Verse to go after Shun'ei. After Verse
42874-420: The tournament nor defeating NESTS themselves). In The King of Fighters 2003 , Choi is requested by Jhun to sit out of that year's tournament to watch over Kim's children, allowing Jhun to take his place with the scheme of showing the world the difference in ability between him and Kim due to the tournament's new “free tag-off Multi-Shift rule.” In The King of Fighters XI , Chang and Choi convince Kim to join
43095-410: The tournament with him as a way help boost their reputations as fighters, as well as secretly to prove they are better on fooling Kim than Chang and Choi. Once the tournament ended, Hwa and Raiden pretend to have been "reformed" by Kim, and the gullible Kim falls for it. After parting ways with his new teammates, Kim thinks he might have been "too soft" on Chang and Choi, and to honor his new teammates and
43316-505: The tournament, despite Kim's objections. Due to Kim and Gang-Il’s absence from the KOF XV tournament via focusing on their Taekwondo training, Luong went to join her fellow secret agents Blue Mary and Vanessa in order to form the Secret Agent Team . Originally, SNK wanted KOF '94 to have a Prisoner Team, formed by Chang Koehan, Choi Bounge, and a third prisoner, but due to various circumstances, they added in Kim instead and made it
43537-422: The tournament, she becomes mind-control by Botan, a member of Those From the Past . She creates an illusion of her late sister Maki and creates a clone from Kyo named Kusanagi to test the strength of the tournament's contestants. Eventually, she breaks free from her mind-control, catches up with Kyo and Iori, and tries to restore the seal of Orochi. However, Ash Crimson seriously attacks her from behind and steals
43758-405: The two console-exclusive characters, Elisabeth Branctorche and Mature. Three new characters come in the form of The King of Fighters '94 Women's Team ( Yuri Sakazaki , King and Mai Shiranui ). Unlike The King of Fighters XII , all of the characters are organized into proper teams this time with the exception of Ash, who is now a single entry character. On April 22, 2010, Famitsu reported
43979-604: The two terms may still be conflated. Sports-based combat games are games that feature boxing , mixed martial arts (MMA), or wrestling . Serious boxing games belong more to the sports game genre than the action game genre, as they aim for a more realistic model of boxing techniques, whereas moves in fighting games tend to be either highly exaggerated or outright fantastical models of Asian martial arts techniques. As such, boxing games, mixed martial arts games, and wrestling games are often described as distinct genres, without comparison to fighting games, and belong more in
44200-451: The unknown crisis which seems to revolve around KOF newcomers Shun'ei and Isla, Elisabeth and Kukri join forces with a fully recovered Ash for KOF XV . The Japan Team , also known as the Kyo Team , is composed of characters originating from Japan . First appearing in The King of Fighters '94 , the original team consisted of Kyo Kusanagi (草薙 京), a high school student who is the heir to
44421-404: The updated Super Street Fighter IV , sold more than 6 million copies over the next few years. The success of these two games, among others, sparked a renaissance for the genre, introducing new players to the genre and with the increased audience allowing other fighting game franchises to achieve successful revivals of their own, as well as increasing tournament participation. Tekken 6
44642-476: The user to turn their own blood into venom. Malin ( まりん , Marin ) is a character who debuts in The King of Fighters 2003 as a member of the High School Girls Team (alongside Athena Asamiya and Hinako Shijou ). Her addition to the series was due to Choi's absence in the game where she debuted. The game producers state that her name should be spelled "Malin" and not "Marin", adding that "this
44863-438: The variety used by the cast but in the end felt using blades could prove to be more challenging. An extra outfit for Kula was released for The King of Fighters XIV as downloadable content. In SNK Heroines: Tag Team Frenzy , Kula appears wearing Ángel's skimpy clothing. Director Kaito Soranaka said during an interview that Kula was his favorite character in the game. Ogura said that having Kula wear Ángel's outfit brought up
45084-427: The voice actors' convenience, or to fill in gaps that occur for each installment's story; this happens with Duck King in The King of Fighters XI and Ryuji Yamazaki in The King of Fighters '97 . Several characters were added to the roster by Eolith 's desire when this company sponsored SNK, to attract fans from Eolith's region. When designing characters for the first King of Fighters game, developers wanted
45305-402: The younger heiress of the Yata clan, the other being her older twin sister Maki Kagura , Chizuru was raised as a priestess who maintains the duty of keeping the diligent seal on Orochi intact. One night, Goenitz visited their home and destroyed the seal after killing Maki since the Yata Mirror cannot fight Orochi nor Goenitz's strength alone without the aid of the other two clans. Though in
45526-722: Was Super Smash Bros. Brawl for the Wii . Featuring 40 characters from Nintendo and third-party franchises, the game was a runaway commercial success in addition to being lavished with critical praise. In the new millennium, fighting games became less popular and plentiful than in the mid-1990s, with multiplayer competition shifting towards other genres. However, SNK reappeared in 2003 as SNK Playmore and continued to release games. Arc System Works received critical acclaim for releasing Guilty Gear X in 2001, as well as its sequel Guilty Gear XX , as both were 2D fighting games featuring striking anime -inspired graphics. Fighting games became
45747-537: Was a preview of the game that was held on March 25, 2010, in Akihabara . The game design director, Kei Yamamoto, stated that he wanted the game to be played by the fans of the series who would be able to use their experience from prior titles. Additionally, however, he did not want the game to be too similar to its predecessors, though he and his staff's aim for the game is to capture the charm from prior titles such as readdition of gameplay rules from older titles. The gameplay
45968-433: Was added as one of two characters exclusive to the home release of the game. Like the rest of the cast, she does not have a team for The King of Fighters XII (though the two other members of her team from King of Fighters XI are present in the game). For The King of Fighters XIII , she now appears on a team with Ash's former team members from the 2003 tournament (Shen Woo and Duo Lon), effectively forming what seems to be
46189-458: Was also modified to have faster battles to be enjoyed by gamers. Yamamoto labelled the theme of the game as "KOF-ism" ( KOFイズム ) . SNK Playmore president Ryo Mizufune commented that they wanted to release a game that would surpass fans' expectations and could become as popular as The King of Fighters '98 . They listened to fans' suggestions during development of the game to incorporate them. The producer debuted with The King of Fighters XII which
46410-474: Was balanced by SNK in order to avoid making the character be overpowered when exploring his special moves. In June 2011, SNK Playmore confirmed that the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 console versions were in the works and would be released on October 27, 2011, in Japan. In September 2011, however, SNK Playmore delayed the game's release date to an unspecified one from the same year, later leaving it to December 1, 2011. The ports add several game modes not seen in
46631-419: Was building off the popularity of its previous iteration and was still positively received, selling more than 3 million copies worldwide by August 2010, one year after its release. Other successful games that followed include Mortal Kombat , Marvel vs. Capcom 3 , The King of Fighters XIII , Dead or Alive 5 , Tekken Tag Tournament 2 , Soulcalibur V , and Guilty Gear Xrd . Though
46852-474: Was designed by Takashi Nishiyama, the creator of the original Street Fighter , which it was envisioned as a spiritual successor to. Fatal Fury placed more emphasis on storytelling and the timing of special moves, and added a two-plane system where characters could step into the foreground or background. Meanwhile, Sega experimented with Dark Edge , an early attempt at a 3D fighting game where characters could move in all directions. However, Sega never released
47073-473: Was easier to learn than Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat , which has six and five buttons respectively. By the time the game was released for the Sega Saturn in Japan, the game and system were selling at almost a one-to-one ratio. In 1994, Namco released Tekken , the rival arcade game using cutting-edge 3D polygon technology. The 1995 PlayStation game Battle Arena Toshinden is credited for taking
47294-566: Was influenced by his portrayal in Chinese comics where he often breaks his right hand glove which is often broken when he fails to control his flames. Ryo Sakazaki's style was noted to be similar to Robert Garcia and Takuma Sakazaki so the designer aimed to make him more unique so his moves were finalized without difficulty. King and Mai Shiranui were made based on their Art of Fighting and Fatal Fury incarnations, respectively, rather than their The King of Fighters ones. Meanwhile, Yuri's redesign gave
47515-530: Was poorly received due to its lack of storyline and minor characters. As a result, SNK worked in order to make XIII end the story of Ash Crimson. Though the game was received favorably, SNK put the franchise on hiatus for several years. Nevertheless, the producer was satisfied with his work. Most of the characters were designed to look like their original personae like Athena Asamiya from Psycho Soldier or Ralf Jones and Clark Still from Ikari Warriors . Nevertheless, he lamented Geese Howard not making it into
47736-455: Was praised for her return alongisde other popular characters like K'. Global Match was praised by the media for retaining the DLC characters for free but criticized for the lack of balancing in the cast Kim and Takuma being too overpowered. However, the rollback and other content was well received. The PlayStation 3 version of the game sold 21,525 copies in Japan during its first week of release. At
47957-420: Was responsible for Kyo's disappearance, and escaped the crumbling base after a brief reunion with Kyo and being separated from K' and Maxima. In The King of Fighters 2000 , Benimaru forms his own team, the Benimaru Team with Shingo, and two newcomers: Seth , an old friend of Benimaru and a mercenary , and Lin , a Hizoku clan assassin seeking to find a man named Ron . Following Southtown's destruction from
48178-457: Was the "Crow Bites". Kula's "Diamond Breath" move was recommended for new players, while the "Reispin" was designed to make the gameplay more complex and challenging as Kula becomes stronger when executing it. Kula's strongest technique in the game involves the appearance of Foxy and Diana who attack the enemy alongside her. This technique went through numerous trials before it was added to the game. When developing The King of Fighters XIV with
48399-446: Was the dominant genre in competitive video gaming, with enthusiasts popularly attending arcades in order to find human opponents. The genre was also very popular on home consoles. At the beginning of 1996, GamePro (a magazine devoted chiefly to home console and handheld gaming) reported that for the last several years, their reader surveys had consistently yielded 4 out of 5 respondents name fighting games as their favorite genre. In
48620-425: Was the first game to include such a feature. Fighting games can support a two-player duel, sometimes by letting a second player challenge the first at any moment during a single-player match. Some games allow four-player simultaneous competition. Uniquely, the Super Smash Bros. series has allowed eight-player local and online multiplayer matches, beginning with Super Smash Bros. for Wii U , though many classify
48841-539: Was the only fighting game included in the esport league, the Championship Gaming Series (CGS), in 2007 and 2008. The league was operated and fully broadcast by DirecTV in association with British Sky Broadcasting (BSkyB) and STAR TV . Dead or Alive has been credited for launching the careers of pro-gamer turned Koei Tecmo employee, Emmanuel Rodriguez, and the highest-paid women pro-gamers, Kat Gunn and Vanessa Arteaga . The late 2000s featured
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