With a long-runner such as The King of Fighters, you're bound to have some hits in the form of these characters.
- The American Sports Team has a surprisingly large following, even though they only appeared canonically in the first installment.
- Eiji Kisaragi, the no-nonsense Ninja from Art of Fighting 2, is very popular among the fandom. Discounting his appearance in the KOF: KYO manga, SNK brought him back in XI to please the crowd after an eight game absence.
- Duck King. The dude is almost always cheerful, overly eccentric, and can pull off some of the craziest stunts... using breakdancing moves that are humanly impossible (in Real Life, employing breakdancing as a martial art would leave you with several broken bones at best). Oh, and did we mention the family of ducks living inside his hair that copy his every move? This was before Sazh, mind you.
- Team Orochi, despite only canonically appearing in '97, where they were Killed Off for Real and had no real plot relevance since, were brought Back from the Dead for KOF XV.
- Yashiro, The Leader of the three, is well-liked both for his very rugged and chiseled appearance, (one-sided) rivalry with Iori, and for the fact that he's an incredibly fun and maneuverable Lightning Bruiser of a character.
- If we're being frank, there's very little reason to explain why Shermie is popular. Gorgeous design (which got updated for XV), catty and charming personality, and the fact that she's one of the first and most prominent female grapplers in all of fighting games (who, mind you, precedes R.Mika by a year, though there was also Vice in '96). Case in point - her character trailer
was the first one to reach 1M views on YouTube. Yeah, she's that popular. - And finally, we have Chris, who is not only one of the youngest fighters in the series (at a meager 14 years old - the same age as Kula), but also a very fun, maneuverable fighter that ended up being top tier in '98.
- Shingo Yabuki, Kyo's Ascended Fanboy. Despite his very goofy and laidback nature he's actually a lot brighter than one might give him credit for. Especially since, unlike his perceived equivalent Dan, he canonically won a KOF tournamentnote . As if that wasn't enough, he's also stronger than he looks, being able to survive being mauled by Orochi!Iori at the end of XI with only a couple bruises to show for it. And his seiyuu? DIO himself. To say that he's one of the most requested characters for KOF XV would be an understatement. Sure enough, his reveal at EVO 2022 (alongside Kim Kaphwan) was met with near-universal applause.
- Ron, the badass NPC who shows up in KOF 2000, is a notable example, thanks to having one of the most Creepy Awesome character designs in the series, awesome voice work on his Evil Laugh courtesy of Takaya Kuroda, and a very interesting subplot connecting several teams and fighters. Long have fans been anticipating the day he becomes a playable character?
- Ramon very quickly became a series staple not only for being a cool homage to Tiger Mask right down to his visual design but also the fact that he's the first Mexicannote representative in the series on top of being part of the Hero Team in his debut alongside Vanessa.
- Vanessa is also another character who quickly became a series staple simply for how refreshing she is as a character concept: an Action Mom who averts Fiery Redhead, is one of the tallest ladies in the series, and is one of the oldest female characters in the series at 30 years old. And that's not even getting into the fact that she's also one of the few female Boxing Battlers in all of the fighting games, either. In fact, she proved so popular she'd even inspire Crimson Viper, a whole eight years after the fact.
- Adelheid is the prime example of a character who is criminally underutilized. Being a Redeeming Replacement to his father in every way on top of being one of the most noble hosts KOF has had alongside Chizuru and Antonov, Adel is definitely one of many characters in KOF to have a cult following despite only ever appearing as a Boss in 2003 and an unlockable sub-boss in XI. When players realized he was relegated to an NPC in XIII many people were disappointed immesurably and many days were ruined.
- Oswald. Being one of the best characters in the game and having a pretty damn cool character design made him one of the most popular characters on the XI roster. Fans were excited when he was teased, then later announced, for XIV's second round of DLC characters. Pretty impressive for someone who was essentially meant as a one-off character.
- May Lee went from being a Replacement Scrappy for Jhun to becoming one of the more well-received characters from the Eolith era due to her quirky tokusatsu mannerisms and general cuteness.
- Angel, even though she only appears in 2001 canonically, gets a lot of popularity due to being very powerful gameplay-wise and being quite the bombshell. Enough that she even reappears in XIV when people would least suspect her (with Ramon to boot).
- While most of the newcomers from XIV were hit or miss, there were a few hits to be had —
- King of Dinosaurs' introduction was met with very favorable reception, mostly because he's just Tizoc in a Heel persona.
- Luong. gorgeous and very appealing design? Check. Charming and catty personality (which is especially hilarious during her special intro with Kim)? Check. Fun and surprisingly accessible gameplay? Check. Uses those legs of hers to their fullest potential? Check. Throw in the fact that she has a special intro with fellow Dark Horse Shermie in her XV trailer and you have yourself a very welcome addition to the series. Even further still - she's a part of XV's Secret Agent Team alongside Mary and Vanessa.
- Of the completely new characters introduced to XIV that didn't make it into XV (at least not initially), Najd is probably the biggest dark horse of all. A unique power set, Difficult, but Awesome gameplay, badass design, and an admittedly catchy leitmotif all make her one of the more well-liked characters in a game that had no shortage of (hit-or-miss) newcomers.
- While all four of the characters for XIV's DLC Pack 1 have had fans, a lot were excited (especially Maximilian Dood) to see Rock Howard finally make his main series debut. Helps that he's a very accessible and well-rounded fighter, too. His popularity assured him the spot of the first DLC fighter in XV.
- Krohnen's an interesting case. Being a revision of an otherwise controversial character, Krohnen has a very nice and refreshed design that's reminiscent of K9999 and Nameless, retaining the same animations, moveset, and demeanor that made his predecessor so fondly remembered in the first place, Krohnen is pretty much the character that lived up to the game's Tagline.
- For a character who was only ever in two offshoots of KOF, Moe Habana from the KOF EX games has a decent enough following owing to essentially being an alternate timeline equivalent to K'note on top of being a conceptually unique character (e.g., a Distaff Counterpart to the typical Bruce Lee Clone, owing to being one of the few female fighting game characters whose style is listed as Jeet Kune Do) in a similar way to Hinako.note
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