The King of Fighters '94

1001 Video Games

King of Fighters '94 appears in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die by General Editor Tony Mott.

References

During the story sequences before fighting against Rugal Bernstein, you can see a few statues of fighters that he had defeated in the past. If you look closely, you'll notice that one of the characters looks a lot like Guile, from Street Fighter II.

Capcom vs. SNK has a special easter egg related to this reference: If a fight between Guile and Rugal Bernstein occurs, they have a special intro where Guile destroys a statue of himself in front of Rugal before they start the fight.

Rugal Bernstein

Rugal Bernstein, the final boss, was originally intended to be a super boss who had the skills of all the characters in the game; however, space limitations prevented that, so the designers decided to give him two moves from the deadliest characters in the SNK universe at the time: Geese Howard's Reppuken, and Wolfgang Krauser's Kaiser Wave.

Title

Technically, this is not the first King of Fighters game. When Capcom introduced Street Fighter II in 1991, it was given the subtitle The World Warrior. SNK did not want to be outdone, and subtitled Fatal Fury King of Fighters.

Awards

• EGM
  • 1995 Buyer's Guide - Neo Geo Game of the Year
  • 1995 Buyer's Guide - Best Fighting Game
  • 1995 Buyer's Guide - Hottest Game Babe (Mai Shiranui)
• VideoGames Magazine
  • March 1995 - Best Neo Geo Game in 1994

Information also contributed by Big John WV, Foxhack and Sciere