The King Of Fighters '95

"A solid port of a classic fighting game"

KOF 95 is the game that got me really into fighting games.Back in college in the break room the school had a KOF 95 cabinet.During lunch students would huddle around the machine and act as if the matches were actual sporting events.Yes this game at the time was that good.

Visuals::For a PSX port SNK didn't do too bad.The animation is pretty much intact except in the case of Iori's first win pose in which he laughs.The only thing really lacking are the backgrounds which had more animation in the Saturn port.Which I also own by the way^_^.Another thing thats missing is after you choose your 3 characters in the arcade they would each do their taunt.The character sprites are pretty pixilated but this game is about 7yrs old.Other than these little gripes the visuals and animation are pretty good if not better than KOF 99 on PSX which was a very lack luster port of a good game.7/10

Sound::The sound is pretty crisp.Not to mention KOF 95 has some good stage music.The highlight of the game was the brutal sound effects when you pulled off a hard hitting combo or unleashed a special on your opponent.You will not be disappointed with the sound quality of this game.8/10

Gameplay::The combo system of this game was pretty revolutionary at the time.Back then there were no combo counters to show how many hits you comboed or air counters.But KOF 95 did give you the ability to dodge and allowed you to cancel attacks into others.The gameplay still shines even to this day.Even though special attacks and and super specials take off alot of damage the game is still pretty balanced.It also had the most playable characters at the time with 24 and 2 hidden boss characters.You would pick 3 characters for your team of fighters and pit them against another team of 3.If your first fighter win he fights the next fighter on the opponents team.The first player to beat its opponents 3 characters win.KOF95 is probably the first game that made taunting your opponent actually useful.The taunt would lower your opponents super special gauge.KOF 95 game play was a step above Street Fighter Alpha's which was out at the same time.The only thing that keeps me from giving the gameplay a perfect score is that the collision detection can get very quirky at times.9/10

Overall::If you can't get the actual Arcade cabinet and the Saturn port.Then the PSX port of KOF 95 is still solid enough to own.This is SNK at its best and a must own title.If you can find it^_^.I had to get mine off of ebay.8/10

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 06/22/02, Updated 06/22/02