This article has a talk page!This page details pre-release information and/or media for The King of Fighters '99 (Neo Geo).
The King of Fighters '99 began development with a goal of changing the tone and aesthetic heavily from the previous games. Aside from a desire to set this game and its associated saga apart from its predecessors, this was also likely influenced by developers that joined the project who were previously involved in Psikyo's The Fallen Angels, which has been noted to share a lot visually and tonally with this game.
Developer Notes#
Details about the game's development history have been revealed from the game's developers over the years, including;
- Kyo and Iori were originally going to be absent from the game entirely, as the dev team wanted to direct the focus towards the game's new protagonist. They changed their mind on this when location test builds lacking Kyo and Iori were met with backlash as a result of it. As a consolation, Kyo and Iori were made unavailable by default but can be unlocked, whilst two clones of Kyo, Kyo-1 and Kyo-2, were added to the roster which each used Kyo's two primary movesets from the prior games.
- There were plans to add a Robo Army Team to the game based on the SNK arcade game of the same name. Though this was cut from the game, the character Maxima was created that is based on the Robo Army characters and named after one of the protagonists. As a further tribute to the game, Maxima had Robo Army's Rocky as a Striker in KOF 2000.
- The concept for Whip was conceived during KOF '96's development, who was originally going to be the new member of the Ikari Warriors Team in that game. The devs instead chose to implement Leona into '96 and saved Whip for this game.
- Krizalid had many more sprites created for him than were initially used, including unique animations for all his standing, crouching and aerial normals. These would be scrapped from the Neo Geo version of the game due to cartridge space limitations. They would later be fully implemented in the game's Dreamcast port, KOF '99 Evolution.
- Vanessa and Seth were both conceived during '99's development, but were scrapped due to time constraints. They would later appear as Extra Strikers in the game's Dreamcast port, then appear as fully playable characters in KOF 2000.
Concept Art#
The Neo Geo CD release of The King of Fighters '99 contains a bonus art gallery compiling various concept artwork and sprites created during the game's development. These show various scrapped concepts for new characters and redesigns of existing characters.
K'#
Concept designs for K' in sprite form. They are all very different compared to the final design, and notably bear a stronger resemblance to Kyo, whom K' is a clone of.
Maxima#
Various concept designs for Maxima. The designs in the last image closely resemble Rocky from SNK's Robo Army, the protagonist of whom KOF's Maxima is named after. These designs likely correlate with the cut Robo Army Team.
Mai Shiranui#
Various concept designs for Mai. It seems a redesign for Mai was considered for '99. The final game maintains her design from the previous KOF games instead.
Ryo Sakazaki#
Concept art for Ryo.
Robert Garcia#
Concept designs for Robert. Three unique designs are present alongside the one used in the final game, which is taken from Art of Fighting 1 and 2 as well as KOF '94 and '95.
Yuri Sakazaki#
Various concept designs for Yuri. It seems a redesign for Yuri was considered for '99. The final game maintains her design from the previous KOF games instead.
Ralf Jones & Clark Still#
Various concepts for Ralf and Clark's '99 designs.
Concepts for Ralf and Clark's '99 designs in sprite form. It seems they considered a Ralf design that more closely resembles his Ikari Warriors appearance, with the classic headband instead of a bandana.
Whip#
Concept designs for Whip in sprite form. Closely resemble the final design for the most part, except for the 3rd one which has a notably different outfit and a needle in place of the signature whip.
Athena Asamiya#
Various concepts for Athena's '99 design. A design for Sie Kensou is also included in the 4th image.
More concepts for Athena's '99 design in sprite form.
Chin Gentsai#
Concepts for Chin's '99 design.
Bao#
Concept designs for Bao in sprite form.
Kasumi Todo#
Concept art for Kasumi.
Li Xiangfei#
Concept art for Xiangfei.
Jhun Hoon#
Various concept designs for Jhun.
Concept designs for Jhun in sprite form. Notably, an additional design not seen among these exists who was repurposed into Kang Bae Dal, Jhun's Another Striker in KOF 2000.
Kyo Kusanagi#
Various concepts for Kyo's '99 design.
Concepts for Kyo's '99 design in sprite form. The designs in the 1st image seem to be the earliest development-wise as they lack the redrawn head and shoes of both the final sprite and the other concept sprites.
Krizalid#
Concept designs for Krizalid.
Concept designs for Krizalid in sprite form.
Misc.#
Two images featuring a young-looking man and woman alongside a black jaguar. The man in the 1st image looks practically identical to Adelheid Bernstein from The King of Fighters 2003 who also possesses a black jaguar. With this considered, it's very likely this design was repurposed to create Adelheid. Similarly, the woman was also likely repurposed to create his sister, Rose Bernstein. She is accompanied by another woman in the 1st who seems to be another early concept for Whip, whereas in the 2nd image she wears the other woman's outfit instead. The man in the 2nd image also has a different outfit and is carrying an unidentified object. This design somewhat resembles Kain R. Heinlein from Garou: Mark of the Wolves, which may not be coincidental as the dev teams of both KOF '99 and Garou are known to have had overlap in communication.