Narm / The King of Fighters

Not planning on that, Ryo.

Thanks to SNK's trademark "Dodgy English", The King of Fighters has had a veritable effton of Narmy moments.

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• The King of Fighters '94:
  • The tension when Rugal regards the Fatal Fury team in '94 is screwed by him referring to their enemies as "Geese and Klauser." Spell My Name With An S applies here, but yeah.
  • Most win quotes are hilarious stuff, but Joe Higashi's "ALL OF YOU ARE JUST BIG!" (said to the US Sports Team) is probably the cheesiest.
  • Win a bout with Kyo (against the Ikari Warriors) in '94, and he will calmly inform you that "MY FISTS ARE BURNING."
  • Lucky Glauber of the American Sports Team has quite possibly one of the most hilarious death cry echoes that you'll ever hear in a fighting game and that it pretty much negates the impact of his own defeat from within a fight.
• The King of Fighters '95:
  • Whenever you beat Rugal in '95 with an edited team, he goes out with an indignant tirade. This tirade is made more comical with his scream of "I'll be back... YOU JERKS!", making him sound more like a whiny schoolkid who's just had his lollipop stolen by bullies rather than someone who's purely vindictive and sadistic and craving for a good fight. It's no wonder the dialogue was re-done in the The King of Fighters All Star retelling. This is compounded with the subsequent spelling error: "Rugal Befeated"
    • Not even dialogue really but the arranged version of Rugal's '95 theme has some suitably badass church bell chimes... and then the badassery is wiped out by some guy shouting "UNDERSTAND THE CONCEPT OF LOVE!"... Who knew Rugal was a fan of Jet Set Radio?^note Though Rugal's theme predates it by seven years.
  • It's even worse when you play as Team Japan (Kyo, Benimaru and Daimon). Having Kyo refer to his Brainwashed and Crazy father as "Papa-san" in the English translation smacks of Baby Talk (which would've been a little more believable if Kyo was a Kid Hero, but he's at least in his late teens and has very rough speech patterns) and horribly ruins what should've been a very emotional "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight. A simple "Dad" or "Father" (or even "Old Man", considering the kind of character Kyo is) would've been more than enough, Kyo; what likely sounds decent in the original Japanese (albeit girly; Kyo could most likely settle for "tou-san", "ossan" or "oyaji") is pure Narm in English.
  • The Sega Saturn port has one in its decision to label Rugal exclusively as Omega Rugal whether he’s in that form or not. This is Narmy enough, but the worst of it comes when they do this while recapping the events of the previous game... a game where he wasn’t Omega Rugal at all.
• The King of Fighters '96:
  • Then there's '96. Beat Goenitz with anyone else and he dies proclaiming "I am being called away to heaven..." Beat him with the Fatal Fury gang, and when Terry accuses him of running away, Goenitz actually shouts "No, I'm not, I'm dying you idiot!" Thus he goes from calm religious zealot to a beleaguered film director up and yelling at an extra for going off script.
  • Against the Psycho Soldiers team, Goenitz delivers a calm yet powerful Humans Are Bastards speech, ending with the words "You can savings and loan on it", which Athena corrects. Chin gets a Call-Back after the fight, but it was still the wrong speech and wrong character for such a lame joke. At least Bao has the excuse of being a kid for spouting malapropers...
• The King of Fighters '97:
  • 4 years of the tournament being ruined by Rugal (even though he did host the first two) and Goenitz and Yashiro still expects you to be surprised that the tournament is Hijacked by Orochi. Then again, this could be interpreted as sarcasm.
  • If you play with Iori, before the fight against Riot of the Blood Leona, he will pull off this completely un-Yagami-like pearl:
    Orochi's blood has awakened. Gnarly! Let's do it, dudes!
  • Beat Orochi in '97, and watch as the dramatic tension crumbles as he announces "Continue this way of living and you'll destroy yourselves?"... in the same form of question as the infamous 'Suffer like G did?'
• The King of Fighters '98:
  • Behold the infamous and absolutely ludicrous win quote that Ryo Sakazaki has in this game (as shown in the page image). It makes him sound like some nineties teenager trying way too hard to sound cool rather than the serious, adult Kyokugenryuu Master that he is.
• The King of Fighters '99:
  • The same takes place in '99, if you defeat Krizalid with the Psycho Soldiers team (you have to win with Kensou to trigger this scene). When the team is escaping, Athena's reply to the NESTS announcer proclaiming the superiority of the group is... "Well, knock me down and call me Pocahontas!" Wha...?
  • Then we have '99. Once Krizalid goes down, NESTS decide to kill him by dropping a rock on him. The dramatic tension would have been a real surprise hit... had they not had an image of Krizalid looking less shocked at his death and more smiling like a junkie who'd just hit up a shot. The face is just HILARIOUS when he pulls it off. Here, check it out and tell us that doesn't look goofy.◊
  • Before your team fights the true form of Krizalid, he tells the team that he'll use their data for clones, and tells them to look at a set of monitors in case they don't believe him. Everyone who looks comments about the multiple Kyo's instantly act as if it was the real deal, even if they're right next to Kyo-1/2, Kyo himself, who points out that he has clones in his win quote, and Kyo-1/2 themselves, even though Krizalid just talked about clones.
  • The Team Ikari's ending has Whip confront Krizalid one last time before he succumbs to his wounds. When Krizalid claims that they're siblings, Whip reveals to him that they aren't, and he merely believes so because his memories were tampered with... but not before saying that "You really are a simp." The scene sounds less like Whip is snapping him to his senses, and more like she's scolding him for a minor screw-up, or calling him out for being pervy.
  • While the distressed reaction of his teammates make up for it, Terry's Disney Death in his ending consist of a scene where Andy, Joe, and Mai are shown fleeing the NESTS underground base as it falls apart... and then cuts to Terry calmly standing still at the end of the hallway. While it's likely intended to convey that he's to injured to go on, or that he's staying behind to look for survivors, most would interpret this as him accepting his fate out of apathy. Contrast this to 2000, where Terry, where he tells Blue Mary to go on without him after being injured by falling debris.
• The King of Fighters 2000:
  • Then we come to 2000. "You can't resist me! I'll beat you all like a drum!" as said by Clone Zero. It doesn't help that any dramatic or scary shot of him is ruined by his utterly humourously silly Pringles moustache, hence the name "Commander Pringles." The responses from Clone Zero's opponents, however...
    Custom Team: I'll crush you like a grape and stop the Zero Cannon!"
    Kim: "I'll beat you like a drum and stop the Zero Cannon!"
  • We cannot forget this one! Clone Zero's Mabu Kousou special move apparently aims to make him appear badass by having him blow the opponent away by the mere undulation of his cloak. Except that he first turns around, and instead looks as if he's...farting. Cue immature lulz from the players.
  • Poor old Commander Pringles just cannot catch a break. Nowadays, Clone Zero's villain monologue is retroactively made hilarious when he calls Heidern a "simp."^* He obviously means "simpleton" but nowadays people will think he's childishly calling Heidern a horny loser.
  • In the ‘99 ending of the Fatal Fury Team, Terry’s Disney Death was originally planned to be a real death, but SNK nixed that idea. Come 2000, and the Fatal Fury ending for that game has Terry suffer a Disney Death that’s nearly identical to the one in ‘99, and plays it for the exact same pathos as the ‘99 death.
• The King of Fighters 2001:
  • Finally, we cut to 2001. Igniz is a hard mofo (perhaps the Norio Wakamoto voice helps) but if you're looking for some Narm to heal your wounds after constant use of continues on him, then be prepared to giggle as he asks in pain: "Is this the end of lovable Igniz?" Ironic considering the only emotion we had for him was seething hatred... or adoration. So maybe he IS right. He IS lovable.
  • In the Japan Team ending, while Igniz is going on his tirade about being unworthy of godhood, Kyo takes the opportunity to rub the defeat in his face. Igniz responds in a most grandiloquent manner: "Insolence! Put a sock in it!"
  • The Yagami Team's ending has Iori going Totally Radical and telling Ramon that "a nub like you [him]" can't win against him. He then calls Ramon a "noodnik." Wow, Iori. You might walk the walk (and fight like a wild beast), but you most certainly can't talk the talk.
• The King of Fighters 2002:
  • In KOF 2002, the K' vs Kula special pre-fight intro is hilarious because of how K's voice which is usually deep (not baritone, but pretty manly) cracks up.
    Foxy: "Boku-chan de wa ano ko ni katenai wa yo/This little boy can't win against this girl"
    K': Tsubusuzo kora!/I'll crush you!
• Ryo and Takuma Mr. Karate's endings in SNK vs. Capcom: SVC Chaos probably aren't meant to be taken seriously, given the tone of the usual Kyokugen storylines and how Takuma is using the name "Mr. Karate" again. But when you factor in how every line out of Yuri's mouth contains the words "oodley doodley cool" (which is likely meant to be a translation of her "-cchi" Verbal Tic, but still)...
• Nearly everyone in the hilariously screwed up English dub of the Maximum Impact spinoffs, especially Rock Howard, whose pre-fight line in Story Mode has him saying "I CAN'T CONTAIN MY BLOOD RAGE!" in a seemingly pained voice, only to then say "Look out!" in a far more level tone.
  • It should be telling that one of the marketed features of MI2 was the option to switch to the original Japanese voices.
• R-2 is a cartoony adaptation of '98 that features a story mode with several misspellings and a very enthusiastic narrator.
  • "Your sworn enemy, the evil Rugal: Weapons dealer. cloner. Bad dude!"
  • Rugal's Black Noah battleship is always mistranslated as "Blak Noia". They also manage to swap the r and l on his name in one line.
  • One of Kyo's win quotes: "To be blunt: you stinc!"
  • In most episodes, the Custom Hero exclaims "Holy black hole! ...I feel like a wet noodle!" when told of the Interface Screw for the next fights.
  • When fought as an boss in Making Mode, Yuri keeps shouting "Gunga Lunga!", much to the Custom Hero's confusion.
  • After the second chapter, the Custom Hero "holds back tears and screams" that even powerful fighters can be defeated if they lack virtue. This is after fighting a boss who went around yelling about how much karate rules.
• One for the entire series is the...bizarre song names given to its many characters. One can't fail but laugh when they hear the awe-inspiring, dramatic and intimidating theme used for Goenitz only to find its official name is..."Trash Head" (the official version is that the title refers to his hairdo, but still). Additionally, Jivatma gets the very on-the-nose "Giving a Manicure to the Fingernails of Darkness", Verse has the really unfitting and Word Salad-y "Independence from an Aggregate" and before he got "Save the Universe", Igniz got a theme song simply named "I'm the Strongest", a title that couldn't be any more arrogant and brutally to-the-point if it tried (and its only saved by Igniz actually being tough as nails) - unless, of course, you think of Antonov's "I'm THE KING OF FIGHTERS" (yes, capitalized and everything). XV still carries on the tradition with titles such as "How About a Trip to PAOPAO CAFÉ?" (still capitalized like with Antonov's theme) for the AOF Team, "Time for revolution It's our generation" for the Rival Team, and "Slushy Road", for Team Ash.

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