Rugal/Orochi Saga
The King of Fighters '94 | The King of Fighters '95 | The King of Fighters '96 | The King of Fighters '97 | The King of Fighters '98
NESTS Chronicles
The King of Fighters '99 | The King of Fighters 2000 | The King of Fighters 2001 | The King of Fighters 2002
Tales of Ash Saga
The King of Fighters 2003 | The King of Fighters XI | The King of Fighters XII | The King of Fighters XIII
Shun'ei Saga
The King of Fighters XIV | The King of Fighters XV
- Awesome Music: Has its own page.
- Contested Sequel: KOF '97 holds a special place in KOF fans for introducing series defining systems, chief among them the Advanced Mode, a multi-bar Power Gauge that became an essence for every single KOF after this game. It also received much praise for wrapping up the Orochi Saga with a bang, establishing the KOF lore that is still relevant after decades. However, the truth about KOF '97 is that, while not as severe as '96, it is quite buggy, rife with countless infinites; they are as easy as spamming the same Special Move like this video
. As a result, some players look down on KOF '97 for being rushed out and not having aged well. - Ensemble Dark Horse:
- Fan-favorites CYS (Chris, Yashiro, and Shermie) made their debut in this game. And despite this being their sole canon game before being Killed Off for Real, they returned in every Dream Match (barring XII) title and Shermie even made an appearance in SNK Heroines: Tag Team Frenzy. Eventually culminating in their proper return in KOF XV.
- Shingo Yabuki likewise debuted in this game and, unlike CYS above, would prove to be so popular that he'd return for every mainline game since '97, even being on the Hero Team in KOF '99. He'd be Put on a Bus from XI all the way to XIV, with him finally due to return in XV's second year of DLC.
- Germans Love David Hasselhoff: While the whole series is popular in China, '97 is its most popular, dwarfing even other fan-favorites like '98 and 2002. Chinese '97 tournaments tend to attract thousands of entrants and even more spectators.
- Overshadowed by Controversy: If you're a '97 player and hang around the Chinese playerbase regularly, it's more than likely that you've heard of a 2015 Beijing arcade incident where people fought over breaking a house rule (Warning: any search about this will likely show results that are very much NSFW). The altercation was nonfatal and mostly happened over a misunderstanding, but disturbing photos depicting the blood-soaked arcade floor are easily found.
- Scrappy Mechanic:
- The Mood system can subtract Power Gauge stocks between rounds if you're using the Advanced Mode, depending on your team's canonical relationship. While it's good to have Sliding Scale of Gameplay and Story Integration in a fighting game, in the metagame, this is seen as an unnecessary handicap that limits picking members.
- The music — more specifically, how it constantly switches between Leitmotif and Ambient between rounds. By default, it plays an ambient background music designed for the stages, and only switches to the traditional character themes when their fighters are in the current round. But due to rounds often lasting as short as 30 seconds, sometimes less, it's rare for the music to play for its full duration. This would be immediately dropped in KOF '98, where it just plays the theme for fighters in the first round and keeps it that way for the rest of a match.
- Scrub: Many KOF games have this demographic, but KOF '97 is perhaps the one that is pointed out the most, because this game is both very popular and very buggy. Any competitive scene around KOF '97 is bound to enforce some house rules to counter its problems, and they aren't always intuitive. One commonly accepted but still controversial rule is "Thou must use a Super Move only at the end of a combo", banning players from starting a Super Move without any attack beforehand. The logic behind this house rule is that some Super Moves have either long invincibility frames or convenient hitboxes (Benimaru's Raikoken is often considered one of the worst offenders) that there's little way to counter them, resulting in a tedious poking game. This rule is taken as granted in East Asia (especially in China; the infamous assault case in 2015 stemmed from this) but it flies over everyone else's head, so it's highly recommended that you check with your opponent before a match, just to prevent confusion.
