The King of Fighters '98

The King of Fighters '98 (commonly abbreviated as KOF '98) is a 1998 fighting game released by SNK released for the Neo Geo arcade and home console. It is the fifth game in The King of Fighters series. This installment was advertised by SNK as a "special edition" of the series, as it featured most of the characters who appeared in the previous games (from KOF '94 to '97), regardless of whether the character was killed off in the series' ongoing storyline (which would resumed in the following game in the series with a new story arc).

Ports of KOF' 98 were released for the Neo-Geo CD and the PlayStation. A Dreamcast version also released titled The King of Fighters: Dream Match 1999, which featured much of the stages remade in 3D. The game was also remade for the PlayStation 2 under the name of The King of Fighters '98: Ultimate Match which expanded the number of playable characters.

As KOF '98 did not feature a storyline, the SNK staff took this opportunity to add Rugal (who died in KOF '95) as well as various alternate versions from various characters to the game. KOF '98 has been commonly praised by several video game publications as the best KOF from the series due to its graphics and gameplay. Ultimate Match, however, was criticized for how similar it is to KOF '98.

The gameplay does not differ much from the previous game, KOF '97. Like in KOF '97, the player has a choice between two playing styles: Advance and Extra, with a few slight modifications to Advance mode (unlike in KOF '97, the character will resume to normal if the player performs a Super Special Move in MAX state). This time when one character loses a round, the losing team is giving a handicap in its favor. In Advance mode, this means that the player's stock capacity for Power Gauges is increased by one. In Extra mode, the time it takes to charge one's power gauge to maximum level is shortened.

Source: Wikipedia, The King of Fighters %2798 , available under the CC-BY-SA License.