Here, in 99, the King of Fighters series has already been going on for five years, and this one is marking the end of the century. SNK, which already had an unparalleled edge with fighting games to begin with, took a bunch of characters from their popular franchises (Fatal Fury, Art of Fighting) and mixed in a bunch of other characters (Ikari Warriors, Psycho Soldier) and then even made a fistful of new characters that grew steadily over the years. King of Fighters 99 is hailed as one of the best in the series and, more specifically, the best fighting game on the Dreamcast, which is high praise for one of the greatest systems of all times. Who had literally been doing it for years prior to the first Smash Bros. “Pikachu can fight Samus, it’s so awesome!” Yea, no one had ever thought of mashing up different characters from other games to hit each other.
But everyone who even casually has seen or played it always salivates like crazy about how it’s original in Nintendo bringing together all their characters into one game to fight each other. The way it handles the arena type battle, the nuanced fighting style, and the hilariously dedicated player and fan base is something to behold. I’m not gonna pretend it’s not a great game, it really is.
Everyone always frigging lauds over Super Smash Bros.