At least some in '96 do. For sure.
But '97? I'll disagree.
This is the background that always comes to my mind when I think about '97:
Terrible. Parallax bad. Color design horrible. It's a punch in the eye. Perspective wrong as fuck. Only 2001 has backgrounds as bad as this one. Even a lot of '02 blows this away.
The second one I always think of is this:
Flat. Boring. Again, the perspective is off, particularly in the boat compared to the angle of the ground. Then you have a couple lazily repeated background elements on the left just add to the overall sense that KOF '97 was rushed out the door. Wow, reversing. That's a great trick. Horrible. Better than 2000? Hell fucking no.
Bali is boringly-drawn but has excellent color design and great music. Monaco is well-drawn with disappointing parallax. I think Korea stage is strongest overall. Korea is good. But in general, '97 is a shitty looking game, imo, compared to anything that came before it all the way back to '94, and anything that came after, other than 2001 in its entirety and parts of '03.
IMO, of the original MVS King of Fighters entries, the quality of backgrounds ranks as:
'96>2000='99='94>'95>>'98>>>>>'02>'97='03>>>2001
Aesthetically, '97 is a gigantic leap backwards from the year before it. Gameplay-wise, I like it more than '96, but once '98 came on the scene, KOF '97's gameplay value pretty much vanished, imo.