The King of Fighters '97

aka: KOF '97
Moby ID: 5027
Neo Geo CD Specs
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Description official descriptions

Another year, another KOF. Additions this year come in the form of slightly improved graphics and sounds, new moves and a new game mode. Gameplay is much more plot-driven, as you have middle-bosses that can change depending on what team you select. In addition, there are several special endings which are only shown when certain "Edit Team" combinations are selected.

As of The King of Fighters '97, you can play in either the Extra or Advanced game modes. Extra Mode is the typical AOF/KOF scheme, in which your power gauge fills up as you defend yourself or charge yourself up. The new Advanced Mode, on the other hand, only allows you to charge your gauge as you perform special moves and attacks, similar to the Street Fighter series. Extra allows one to sidestep attacks while Advanced allows the character to roll past and dodge attacks; Advanced also allow a character to perform a potent "Super Desperation Move" (or SDM) at any time provided the character has at least two full bars of charged energy stored. In contrast, SDMs can only be performed in Extra when a character has less than a quarter of their health left.

New characters include the New Face Team, the Fatal Fury Outlaw Team (featuring the KOF debut of "Blue" Mary Ryan and Ryuji Yamazaki, and the return of Billy Kane), and Kyo's pupil Shingo Yabuki. In total, The King of Fighters '97 sports 29 separate characters (without counting the six Orochi-related boss characters, which are all accessible via a secret code).

Spellings

  • ザ・キング・オブ・ファイターズ '97 - Japanese spelling
  • 拳皇97 - Chinese spelling (simplified)

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Credits (Neo Geo version)

90 People (83 developers, 7 thanks) · View all

Producer
Chief Director
Sub Director
System Editor
Front Designer
Back Designer
[ full credits ]

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 77% (based on 9 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.9 out of 5 (based on 73 ratings with 1 reviews)

It's amazing how a single feature can make so much of a difference

The Good
Well finally the guys at snk got it: not everybody likes the ultra-technical, cheap gameplay offered by the KoF series, so why not add a different playing mode to satisfy those other players? Enter the Advanced mode, truly one of the few good ideas snk has ever had. What does the Advanced mode do? It changes the way you power-up your character, instead of holding down the good 'ol three buttons for a while in order to reach max at will, now you have to EARN your power by attacking and performing special moves! Much like in Capcom's games, only in this one when you reach the max you earn a "stock" which you can use to perform super moves or enter Max mode anytime by pressing down A, B & C. What this means of course, is that it takes you a while to earn enough power to dish supers (which thus become more rare), so the Advanced mode removes the "desperation mode" and allows you to perform REAL super moves when on max (of course you spend two stocks when doing this, but you can do it whenever you want provided you have the stocks).

Wusses or cheap snk lovers can still play with the good old power bar under the Extra mode, so you get the best of both worlds!

Finally, on a technical note I would like to point that the loading times have been seriously speed up. Wait, don't jump around! They are still long as hell but they are way more bearable than on previous editions.

The Bad
The bad points in the game are mostly the music, which is non-existant. I seriously can't understand who in the hell was responsible for this, but it makes practically every fight in the game significantly duller. There is BGM for some specific characters, but it's over as soon as they get beaten.... who the hell though this was a good idea???...tsk

Other gripes come in the way the storyline is handled. This is 97 folks... and snk is still using the simple-colored crappy "MSpaint"-like artwork with the same tired dip-switch control font to depict the endings... The winning pictures also look way dated, a surprise since they were very good last year.

There's also the "modern/technology" interface which is a love or hate affair and Shingo Kabuki. Why Shingo? he's a good character yeah, but if there's something the KoF's DON'T need is another "Fighting Schoolboy/girl" (btw: what the hell is wrong with fighting game developers?? This fetish has to stop NOW!!).

Other than that there are the graphics, which are practically the same as last year for most characters, and this is not 96 no more....

The Bottom Line
Finally good, interesting gameplay comes to one of the coolest 2D fighters around. And without any sacrifices! add to that a faithful conversion, plus slower load times, and you have yourself the first KoF that's actually worth to have for the psx.

PlayStation · by Zovni (10504) · 2001

Trivia

Contest

Before the game was released SNK held a contest in Japan to select one lucky girl who would voice Kyo's girlfriend: Yuki. The contest lasted a whole day and included talent events and stuff like that. Now, where in the hell can you find Yuki in the game talking? In the special ending you get if you play with the "Weapons of God" team (Kyo, Iori and Kagura) She appears in a b&w picture at the end and says a line....

Korean Version

The Korean version of the game has one noticeable difference: All Japanese voice samples are muted. So any phrase, special move, or victory quote that's in Japanese is just silent.

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Zovni.

PSP, PlayStation 3, PS Vita added by Fred VT. Neo Geo CD added by Corn Popper. Xbox One, Arcade added by mars_rulez. Nintendo Switch added by Rik Hideto. Wii added by yenruoj_tsegnol_eht (!!ihsoy). iPhone, iPad added by Sciere. Windows Apps, PlayStation 4 added by Foxhack. SEGA Saturn added by Kohler 86. Android added by Kabushi. Neo Geo added by Terok Nor.

Additional contributors: Longwalker, Unicorn Lynx, Foxhack, DreinIX, Patrick Bregger, yenruoj_tsegnol_eht (!!ihsoy).

Game added September 24, 2001. Last modified February 13, 2024.