Thirty years ago today (August 25th, 1994), The King of Fighters '94 was released

[Ralfakick]

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I only went a few times so it had a mystique no other place had.

Showbiz in Wilmington had a great arcade in the 80s though.

 

[Ralfakick]

@Stefan

KOF 94 Rebout next Jung Tuff Fighters Event?

 

[snes_collector]

I think I've spoken before about having an old hand-me-down issue of EGM 2 as a kid, which was my gateway to all these games and systems I'd never seen before. One of the ad's that captured me the most was the advertisement for King of Fighters 94. My imagination went wild looking at all the character portraits. I knew SNK from having the Super Nintendo Fatal Fury, but had never played on a Neo Geo at that time. This ad along with a review of Magician Lord was my introduction to Neo Geo. It was years later until I played it (I think KOF Collection on PS2) but this ad has stuck with me forever

 

[Arcademan]

Location had a KoF 94 when it first came out. At one point our 6 slot Neo had all the KoF's from 94 to 99. After a few month, records showed 95 and 99 had the most plays so all the others got traded away.

 

[SouthtownKid]

I wasn't crazy about how the Gamest mook and the poster for KoF '94 had Terry, Andy, and Joe squaring off against Kyo, Benimaru, and Goro, but with Terry, Andy, and Joe being upside-down. I thought that was disrespectful and who the fuck were these new douchebags. That kind of put me off of the series right at the start. Then I played it and thought that in spite of having more characters, it didn't play anywhere near as well as FFS. Then FF3 came out and I didn't think that played as well as FFS either, but whatever.

That was my first impression of the series, and I kind of resented KoF replacing Fatal Fury as the face of SNK fighters. If it had been Samurai Shodown as the new face of SNK, I could have taken that. But KoF bugged me. And still to this day, I don't think any of the KoFs play as well as the best Fatal Fury games. Particularly RB2.

So happy birthday, KoF! Go fuck yourself.

 

[Superfamifreak]

My first KoF experience was 94 when a local arcade in a game shop had it in for a while. Then another games shop got 95, which I played a TON. A year later both me and a mate got 96 on AES(£300 from Raven Games in London!) and I played 97 & 98 afterwards.

Then I kinda took a hiatus from the series until I got XII cheap on 360 which I always thought felt more like an Art of Fighting game. XII was fantastic and I spent a lot of time on it, XIV I missed out on and I got XV on release but still find myself playing more of the older ones on my cabs.

 

[deez_nutz]

As a huge fan of SNK games, this was a big day for me. I prepared for it by making a giant diorama filled with all of the characters. I personally crafted every single one by hand and wrote bios for them - and not bios from manuals or Gamepro or EGM...these were bios I wrote myself based on what I knew of the characters.

It was a love letter made of cardboard and paper mache made by a super fan whose dream was coming true.

I didn't have the proper shade of orange for Ryo, so I went to the art supply store. I returned home only to learn my mother threw away the diorama along with all my old gameboy games and Ninja Turtle figures to make room for some hobo she decided to let live in our basement.

That day, August 25th 1994...the birth of The King of Fighters, was also the death of my childhood.

 

[Azathoth]

but this ad has stuck with me forever

Thanks for posting this ad and confirming I hadn't lost my mind.

I remember seeing this thing and the blurb about World Heroes on it, then just pouring over those headshots forever trying to figure out who the hell the WH guys were.

 

[Capitalistix]

Some of the best backgrounds and music SNK made in that era. Considering this was 1994 it's astounding really.

That Akira-ass stage is one of my favorites of any fighting game. Shit like this reminds me why I love SNK.

 

[theMot]

30 years ago today I did a bangin shit in the toilet.

 

[GohanX]

I remember seeing a KOF94 spread in a magazine (probably EGM) but I never actually got to play it since our local arcades mostly stopped putting new carts into the MVS cabs by then. My hope was that maybe it would get a port to the fancy new 32x, as the 16 bit systems could barely handle Fatal Fury 2, right?

I didn't actually get to play a KOF game until 95 on Playstation, then later I got the Saturn and Dreamcast ports of 95-98. I finally got to actually play 94 a few years later when I finally got a Neo and picked up the MVS cart.

 

[Sengoku Fan]

Where has all that time gone? Wowzers.

 

[Capitalistix]

Is it just me or does '94 feel particularly hard to execute specials/supers? I feel like the input timing is incredibly particular/clunky and Im a very decent FG player. For example '95 doesn't feel like nearly like this to me. Anyone feel this as well or is this just me issue?

 

[DevilRedeemed]

Was by no means rich as a kid, but around 93 I was lucky in that I was able to trade my sfc and md for a home system with two sticks and FF1+AoF
To this day I can't believe how lucky I was.
So come 1994 and my 18th bday in October, my step dad had to travel to the US for work and he agreed to buy kof94 for me over there with money I had saved up.
It was nuts, I had played that game at the arcades near Goodge St station (brilliant place), and a little later had the game at home.
Safe to say I played that one practically everyday with my brother (and mostly his friends), and whilst I never became a good player (reasonable at most, with Heidern) I loved the hell of that game.Bliss.

 

[LoneSage]

Was by no means rich as a kid, but around 93 I was lucky in that I was able to trade my sfc and md for a home system with two sticks and FF1+AoF
To this day I can't believe how lucky I was.
So come 1994 and my 18th bday in October, my step dad had to travel to the US for work and he agreed to buy kof94 for me over there with money I had saved up.
It was nuts, I had played that game at the arcades near Goodge St station (brilliant place), and a little later had the game at home.
Safe to say I played that one practically everyday with my brother (and mostly his friends), and whilst I never became a good player (reasonable at most, with Heidern) I loved the hell of that game.Bliss.

This is what dreams are made of. Not kidding. Good story.

edit: Today I saw the same kind of architectural style for the wall as seen in the China stage. Always white and black and I reckon it's meant to resemble the curves of a dragon. Nice to see it every now and then.

 

[Neo Alec]

Is it just me or does '94 feel particularly hard to execute specials/supers? I feel like the input timing is incredibly particular/clunky and Im a very decent FG player. For example '95 doesn't feel like nearly like this to me. Anyone feel this as well or is this just me issue?

Yep, '94 is pretty strict with inputs compared with later entries. It's not too bad though. I think '97 is the loosest.