okay, I’ll explain myself then. '96 is a horrible game. It was their first attempt at a new engine for the series, but they rushed it hardcore. Note that there are absolutely no command attacks, no overheads, no extra slide kicks (Joe and King)… things that were present in '95 and then they just removed them for no reason. So to “make up” for those loss of command attacks, they decided to make CD attacks really really really good. Many characters have obnoxiously fast/high-priority standing or jumping CD attacks for some reason. Just look at Mature… good grief.
Which brings me to character balance, '96 was one of the worst-balanced games ever. Look at Iori, who gets 5 or 6 block ticks off his dp+A for free, an easy infinite off his command throw, and one of the select few to retain a projectile. Leona’s “Cheezeball” did like 10 ticks of block damage and let her follow it up with other attacks. Mature could do Standing CD into running slash all day. Ryo could use autoguard from his qcb+P to counter nearly everything all day.
And if you were playing in the arcade, the move detection was HORRIBLE. For some reason half-circle special moves were nearly impossible to do on the MVS version. They “fixed” the move detection a bit on the home version / ports, but if you were playing in the arcade you were shit out of luck if you were playing a character with half-circle moves.
'96 may have a lot of “style”, but it doesn’t hide the fact that it plays like shit.
bullshit! 2k2 had THE worse controls. 98’s controls were perfect.
not to Leona fan-boys Sides that game had great music, stages, graphics, prolly the koolest boss, introduction of a few new KOF systems such as rolling, counter hits etc and the game just had a great presentation to it. Broken?..ok yeah sure. And don’t forget, 96 had the boss team! No hatin allowed on the boss team I mean c’mon, Geese, Big, Krausser
I wont go one with the lists but 96 Leona is definetly her best. No question about it. Her Moon Slasher had a huge hit-box, uber priority. Baltic Launcher did so much damage that 2 of them equals death. You could twon-in-one her grand sabre and use in juggles off of Baltic Launcher and she wasn’t able to do that again until 2k3. V-Slasher came in at such a steep angle. She had the real low run animation. Though I think I prefer her 97 X-Calibur the most.
Yet I kinda enjoy 94/95 Terry. Crack Shoot in the corner = CE bison lol. But that’s all, his Power Geyser had like no range.
you kinda defeat you’re argument saying how good iori is if half circles were so hard or as “near immpossible” as you say his command grab would have been useless so he’d have no infinent, oh yeah and clark would be shit and krauser is crap right?
leona is shit againest smaller characters even normal sized characters.
I’m not saying 96 is balanced but they’re alot more characters able to “compete” than you give the game credit for
Maybe if ur playin any console version of 2k2. They all have horrible controls. Play the arcade or at least a ROM before u say stupid things. And to thread starter 98 was a great game because the roster is very balanced. u can use just about any character and get good results. And y are ppl complaining about Yash? I play O.YAsh in 98 and i can wreck ppl. I love him.:lovin:
'96 Choi was no pushover, either. You could crossup combo into the tornado slash thingy (Charge D,U + P) and connect for all full hits (11 hits or something) from anywhere on the screen. Damn annoying little bugger… :annoy:
2002 had plenty of buffering shortcuts, which is needed especially since the game doesnt have negative edge.
in 02, you could also charge or motion moves before the round begins just like capcom.
in 98, if you did your motions too fast they become inconsistent. 2002 you go as fast as you can get the motion out.
Man I’ve been playing KOf 2k2 on DC pad for years and have no problem whatsoever executing anything. Well things that aren’t meant to be abnormally difficult.
Actually, I wouldn’t 98 was the most powerful version of many characters, but I would call it the most interesting versions of many characters. This was also before jump CD got retarded again in 98 when they overprioritized/sped up a number of jump CDs (Terry’s, Yuri’s among others changed and got too good)
As for tiering, 98 did have a blatant top tier of Iori and Goro, but they did have counter characters. Iori has a hard time with Athena and I think Heavy D gives Iori trouble for some reason., and Goro loses to Lucky and Mai.
There was also a 2nd tier, but it wasn’t that much better then everyone else, and had more counter matchups. People don’t agree on who #3 is- I’ve heard O.Yash, O.Terry, Chris, Choi and Tak all listed as #3 by good players- and I’ve heard others considered in it.
Really, 98 would not need many tweaks to be near perfect. Big one would be fixing glitches.
As for SF/KOF comparisons
98 was the ST of KOF
2k2 is the SFA3 of KOF
XI is the MvC2 of KOF
96 Iori was the most broken char in KOF history, 2k1 Foxy is a close 2nd.
The onlly thing I like about 98 over 2k2 is the deeper movelist…other than this, I don’t see how 98 > 2002. Besides, almost everyone I see who says 98 > 2k2, can’t do a decent combo in 2k2. Perhaps this is why…they struggle to keep up in 2k2, damage-wise.
Edit: kof98 is FULL of stupid bugs that just aren’t present in 2k2. Sure, 2k2 has more bugs than 98 but pretty much none of those bugs are practical with some exceptions.
Why are people talking about 96? 96 was crap… taunts took away your opponents super meter and could be cancelled over and over again to make meter usage useless.
just 'cause in xi they simplyfied a lot the input detection just do down downforward to a qcf to come out
then there are some chains shortcut (ash shen and duolon ldm)
in prev kofs the input detection was normal plus buffers
at last, 2k2 have the deepest engine and gameplay of all kofs maybe how bad it looks in terms af graphics and music make it underrated, but imho gameplay wise is the best kof from the all 11 chapters
2k2 engine + xi grapchics and sound >> god
98 is still considered the best 'cause all in it is great, roster, graphics, engine (similar to 2k2 btw) musics
96 have the best feeling overall but the bad input detection (well known ‘bug’ for the arcade version) made it unplayable. then it was 96 when it was released what do you expect in 2006 from a game of 10 years ago?
Are you sure you played 98 to dare say its engine is the same as 02??? Hell, the max mode is totally different, the timings and windows are drastically different (aside from the overall speedup), chains aren’t the same (obviously)! And you tell me it’s the same? Plus, if you think 2002 has the best engine, if it’s the same as 98 then why do you only refer to 2002?
Sides that game had great music, stages, graphics, prolly the koolest boss, introduction of a few new KOF systems such as rolling, counter hits etc and the game just had a great presentation to it. Broken?..ok yeah sure. And don’t forget, 96 had the boss team! No hatin allowed on the boss team I mean c’mon, Geese, Big, Krausser