King of Fighters, better known as KOF to most, is a one-on-one style fighting series of games published by SNK Playmore. The series originally started on SNK’s own platform, the SNK Neo Geo MVS arcade machine, and was continued exclusively on this platform until 2004, at which point SNK stopped using the MVS and substituted it with the Atomiswave arcade board. This was accompanied with the release of King of Fighters XII, and moved the KOF series to the Taito Type X2.
The Latest installment in the series, King of Fighters: The Orochi Saga has made its way to Sony’s Playstation Portable as well. It is a collection of a few of the older KOF games, ported as a collection to the PSP.
The Plot in the KOF series revolves mainly around the character Kyo Kusanagi, a pyrokenitic and heir to the ancient Kusanagi Clan. Kyo and his best friends, Benimaru and Goro represent Japan. Many of these classic characters can also be played in a compilation of SNK’s fighting titles, called SNK arcade Classics Vol. 1. In King of Fighters, however, the fighters Kyo and his friends move them through the series, fighting villains such as Rugal Bernstein and the power of Orochi. Kyo also faces some stiff hatred from Iori Yagami, who is hell bent on destroying Kyo and his clan as revenge for his own clan.
Later, Kyo and Iori are forced to join forces with Chizuru, the host of the 1996 tournament and heir of the Yata clan, to seal away Orochi as their clans had done before. In the process of sealing away Orochi, Kyo and Iori disappear.
The next arc involved a syndicate known as the NESTS cartel, which organizes the tournament in order to obtain the fighter’s energy and collect data for their ultimate weapon. It is also revealed that they kidnap Kyo after his Orochi battle, so his DNA can be used to create clones for their use. After a betrayal from within the organization, the second part of the NESTS arc revolves around K fighting the organization with other characters such as Maxima and Whip.
The latest arc involves a strange fighter called Ash Crimson, supposedly the hero of this arc. The series has created a revolution among the fans of 1-on-1 fighters, and is still going strong.
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