This Week in Defunct Games - May 11, 2010

What Is It? By now you know the story; The King of Fighters is the merging of two of SNK's biggest fighting game franchises. It's a dash of Art of Fighting and a little of Fatal Fury, all mixed together with a few new characters and players from other non-fighting game genres. This combination has worked for more than fifteen years, which is why I should be excited about The King of Fighters '95 hitting the Virtual Console. The problem is, this Neo Geo game came out mere months after the first game, not giving SNK enough time to drastically change the franchise. It's been two years since Nintendo uploaded The King of Fighters '94, and in that time we've seen a brand new sequel and newer installments hit other consoles (such as The King of Fighters '98 Ultimate Match for the Xbox Live Arcade). In comparison this game feels quaint. With so few games hitting the Virtual Console it's a shame that Nintendo wasted a week with a good port of a so-so fighting game.

Does It Still Hold Up? It's hard to go back to The King of Fighters '95. This was a time before SNK had really perfected this franchise. The characters feel fine and there's a fair amount of fighters to choose from, but fans of the series will have a hard time going without some of the newer gameplay additions. What makes this worse is that we know that Nintendo will eventually release The King of Fighters '96, which is a much better installment. There's nothing technically wrong with The King of Fighters '95, but it isn't the highlight from the game's 16 year history.

Is It Worth The Money? Fighting game fans will no doubt embrace a new arcade-perfect port to play around with (especially if they paid the big bucks for the Tatsunoko vs. Capcom arcade stick), but I say you should hold off. Fans of the series are better suited to search out the Xbox Live Arcade game, as it features online gameplay and a fresher list of characters. There are also a few King of Fighters compilations that are worth tracking down. The price is too high for a game this limited. Hopefully this means that we'll start seeing newer King of Fighters games on the Virtual Console ... assuming Nintendo decides to start supporting the system again.