Title - "The King of Fighters 1998: The Dream Match Never Ends"
Alternative title(s) - "The King of Fighters 1998: The Slugfest"
Genre(s) - Fighting - 2D
Platform(s) - Arcade, Neo-Geo home systems, Sega Dream Cast and Sony Play Station
I'm not going to spend so much time on this review because this is a dream match and I don't think that I need to say a lot on a dream match. "The King of Fighters 1998" is a dream match that consists of the "'97" crew minus Orochi and the alternate versions of Iori and Leona and for the most part, is like "'97". There are 38 characters and some have alternate versions. So, I will list the returning teams of games before with some having a new twist now and then go on to the scores.
Orochi Assassins - Iori, Mature and Vice
Otsan (Fathers) - Saish, Takuma and Heidern
Sports - Heavy D!, Lucky and Brian
Final Boss - Omega Rugal
Fun - 9
Some characters had to be toned down a bit for balance reasons and I can understand that, though I wish that it wasn't done severely in some cases. Anyway, you still have the same feel. Go through six battles or seven if you face Shingo in the middle of the journey with certain requirements to face Rugal in the end. For some reason, the last one you face is one of the returning teams. If you need to use a continue, you can pick the benefit you land on or you can decline it. Though there are no endings, there are some spiffy pics at the end. Oh and the Japanese heroine pic: best pic ever.
Life - 10
The big roster forgives the flaws for the most part.
Control - 9
Why a "9" and not a perfect score? It feels like "'97" until you realize that the characters have individual feelings. Now people have to be real picky about their characters to get an upper hand.
Audio - 9
Most of the music is from various SNK games you have heard in the past. While this seems spiffy in this section, if you have the DC port, you'll know that it pulls off a "Street Fighter II". It was fine back then, but now, it's not that much amusing anymore to some people. Maybe they've been spoiled by recent games?
Most of the characters have the same samples. This is the last time Athena would get a voice actress change by the way and I must say that it helped me get a few victories. Fu fu fu. Oh and before anyone says that Heavy D! does not say a word of English, do his Blast Upper (which is QCF+K).
Art - 10
First off, if you got the Dream Cast port, which is "The King of Fighters Dream Match 1999", you will see a spiffy introduction, anime style. If only SNK made an anime like that. Oh well.
A lot of people have new sprites. King dons her outfit in the first two "Ryko no Ken" games. Beni's stance is different. Athena pulls off the changes of King and Beni. The backgrounds are not as crowd-packed as before, but all is still good.
Oh and here's another realism fact. The Japanese street stage is based on a place in Osaka. There's your interesting point of the review.
Story - N/A
There's no story. This is a dream match, remember? Let's end this now.
Overall - 10
Yeah, I was lenient this time around. Despite the flaws, "The King of Fighters 1998" may be an unusual game, but it certainly is one of the most memorable in my opinion. It has a lot of changes and they're for the better pretty much. So, if you can still find this game, give it a whirl.
+
It's a dream match that people want for the most part.
-
The individual feelings don't work well with me.
Date of creation - 12/29/03
Last update - 11/22/04