The King of Fighters 98 is one if not the best entry in the whole series and beloved by fighting game enthusiasts, because while it isn’t part of the canon, it was a celebration of what made the series so good. This game had one of the most complete rosters in KOF history, fan favorites like the Orochi team are back and even one of the most beloved(or hated) bosses Rugal Bernstein returns as a playable character. My personal preference Shingo Yabuki is playable, so this roster was always a big win for me.
The game’s popularity is undeniable, especially since it had several revisions, but once you play this version game you won’t go back to the previous versions. The game has been tweaked and all the changes and balancing of the characters are welcome changes, such as the inclusion of a new power gauge, the ultimate, that opens a plethora of possibilities and customization that wasn’t possible before. This allows players to make strategies while choosing their favorite characters and makes it possible for a player to show their skills and individual expression, and there are few fighting games that allow this.
The game offers several game modes like the Arcade mode in a team setting or Single-mode. There’s the Endless mode in which you can play against the CPU until you’re defeated and the Challenge mode, in which you can learn some of the more intricate mechanics like Guard-Cancel and Blowback attacks through a series of challenges, and even some bread and butter combos. The best of all is that for those who like nostalgia, the original Neo Geo release is included and it is interesting to play both and see how much the game has evolved from the original release.
As you can see on the pics above the roster is huge, containing 45 characters from previous games including bosses like Orochi, Rugal, and Goenitz, and that’s not all. There are some characters with EX variants that change their movesets completely making them new characters essentially and I like the fact that the game had a big roster by the standards of the era. Nowadays developers have a mindset that less is more, but I disagree when you have options the replay value increases exponentially and the possibilities and team building are endless.
This release is important because the game got some significant updates that improve the experience a lot. The game now has online lobbies in which you can watch a match between other players, and you have the option to see the match from the beginning or you can fast-forward the fight until you get to the point in which the players are fighting live. This experience was smooth and without any hiccups for me, with it feeling like I was there watching them fight in an arcade.
But the most exciting feature is the fact that the game has rollback netcode. As someone who is used to playing games with delayed-based netcode I was skeptical and I didn’t see the potential for improvement until I got the chance to try it in this game and got hooked. The online modes the game offers are Ranked mode and Player Match, but unfortunately, I am unable to provide an opinion on the ranked match option since there aren’t any players interested in that mode.
The Player Match mode is more populated and you are able to get into a match fairly quickly. You can select Quick Match and the game will match you with random players, and from there if it says Lobby before the player’s username you can select that person and be matched with them. After that, you just select how many frames you want the game to rollback and then you are sent to the character select screen and you’re golden.
My experience in the matches was superb and cannot see myself playing new fighting games without rollback netcode. To give you an idea, I live in Honduras Central America, and played several matches against players from Japan, and it was smooth as butter. It felt like the other player was standing next to me with no lag at all. I am definitely impressed by the work Code Mystics have put into the game and the experience is like no other.
It was time that fighting games had good online and I appreciate the fact that old games are given new life with improving online play. The fighting game genre is a turbulent one, your game could be awesome and have great mechanics and decent online, but once a new one comes out the population of players dwindles. It’s sad to have great games forgotten by players due to that, but as long as there are developers committed to updating old games with rollback netcode there is still hope.
Bottom Line The King of Fighter 98 Ultimate Match Final Edition is the magnum opus of the series. Code Mystics took what made the original game so memorable and improved upon that with a comprehensive release that puts previous games to shame. While it’s true that as of the time of writing this review KOF XV is close to release, it doesn’t mean that both games cannot coexist and in my humble opinion this is an essential game to be in a fighting game enthusiast library.
A Review Key was kindly provided for this review.