The King of Fighters '99 (Neo Geo)

King of Fighters 99 is the sixth installment in The King of Fighters series and the first chapter of the NESTS Saga. What a lot they changed, like the quick evade along with the addition of calling forth 'Strikers'. Frankly, Athena's haircut and '99 Evolution didn't particularly help it.

But it gave us K'...

Sub-Pages#

Prototype Info Prerelease Info

Unused Graphics#

Benimaru Nikaido#

Some leftover sprites from Benimaru's KOF '97 design.

Terry Bogard#

Terry's Forward A from the previous game, Back Knuckle. Was replaced with a new Forward A for this game, thus was made redundant.

Ex Terry's special move Fire Kick from the previous game. There are no EX variants of characters in this game, hence this goes unused.

Kyo Kusanagi#

Kyo's '99 design was seemingly made from drawing over his '98 sprite data. As a result of this, several of his '98 animations still exist within his data. Note that these exist separately from Kyo-1 and Kyo-2's sprite data, as they utilize a separate copy of Kyo's '98 sprite data. Among the animations present are;

Kyo's running grab special move, 202 Shiki: Kototsuki You. Kyo-2 still has this move in this game, but Kyo's was replaced with a new move, 427 Shiki: Hikigane.

Kyo's Extra Mode Side Step + Attack from '97 and '98 respectively.

Kyo's spinning kick special move, 101 Shiki: Oboro Guruma. Kyo-1 has this move in this game, whereas Kyo and Kyo-2 has his more typical R.E.D Kick in its place. The move can be loaded in Kyo's section in the sprite viewer, where it can be easily seen that some of the move's used frames were drawn over for some of '99 Kyo's moves, so the animation constantly switches between the '98 and '99 designs.

One of Kyo's alternate win animations from '98. The Kyo clones use this as their intro animation and also as one of their win animations in this game. Curiously, one of the frames from it is missing in Kyo's sprite sheet, as it was drawn over for use in the '99 version's design. The Kyo clones still have this frame in their data.

Kyo's special intro vs. Iori from '98. A new animation is used instead for this instance.

Kyo's special intro vs. Shingo from '98. While there is a special intro vs. Shingo in '99, only Shingo uses a different animation, but Kyo himself does not use a unique animation for this intro.

Kyo's unused alternate idle animation from '98.

Kyo's Extra Mode charge animation from '96-'98.

Iori Yagami#

Iori's background/assist sprites from '96-'98. '99 does away with the previous background assist system, hence these go unused. Only some frames are present here as others were drawn over for Iori's new animations.

Iori's SDM version of Kin 1211 Shiki Ya Otome from '96-'98. Was replaced with a different animation for this game.

One of Iori's win animations from '96-'98. Was replaced with a similar looking animation for this game.

Animations for Orochi Iori, including his idle, intro/taunt and crouch. Orochi Iori is not in this game, hence these goes unused.

Iori's special intro vs. Kyo from '98. Was replaced with a different animation for this game.

Iori's unused alternate idle animation from '98.

Iori's alternate win animation from '98.

Unused Music#

Run the game in WinKawaks or Universe BIOS, then set the Track to 0721 for what appears to be a scrapped early title theme. The base of this tune is rather rough, but the length of this track fits the length of the final's title screen well.

And the (presumably) MVS title counterpart of the above track. Set the Track to 0743 in order to hear it. This track is looped - it fits the feature of the standard MVS title theme.

Regional Differences#

Japan	US

The US release adds Millennium Battle to the game's title. The copyright info was updated from "SNK CORPORATION 1999" to "SNK CORP.OF AMERICA 1999".

The US arcade release also adds this screen, which appears on startup.

On the win screen, in the Japanese version, all characters have 3 generic win quotes and a few special win quotes (with the sole exceptions being Kyo-1, Kyo-2 and 1st phase Krizalid, who all use only one generic win quote and no special win quotes). The US release changes this and makes it so that now all characters have only one generic win quote and no special win quotes.

Japan	US

Interestingly, the Japanese version also features its own unique English font, which can be seen in all of Terry's win quotes.

Unused Win Quote#

In the Japanese version, Whip has a special win quote meant for when she beats Krizalid's 2nd phase. This line ends up going unused since Krizalid isn't even normally playable, and, in 1P Mode where you DO fight him, the game goes straight to the ending after beating him. The win screen never actually shows up in his fight unless the fight ends with the player losing to Krizalid.