History YMMV / TheKingOfFightersAllStar

* CharacterTiers: The game has developed a pretty extensive meta with well-defined tiers. Interestingly, a character can be top tier for live PvP and low tier for PvE content and vice-versa.
** On his release, Nameless was widely considered to be the best unit available in the game due to having a kit with answers to anything the game would throw at you, be it PvE or PvP. He remained in the top unit until the arrival of Boss Syndrome and Special Signature units. In an amusing development, exactly one year after Nameless' release, Boss Syndrome Nameless was added to the game, and just like his predecessor, he has so many tools at his disposal that he also became the best unit of the game until the arrival of EX Units. And even then, he still manages to stand his ground among them.

** Grapplers are very strong in PvP because grabs skills ignore defense making it easy for them to corner the opponent and deal big amounts of damage in a short time.
** Characters with Super Armor, Damage Immunity, and/or Hyper Armor are a must if you want to reach high ranks in live PvP.

** Boss Syndrome and Special Signature units break the game's difficulty in half and are a must to tackle new PvE with increasingly ludicrous stat requirements.
** EX Units take everything that made BS and SS units good and buff them to a point they trivialize most of the PvE content. The downside is that they're a must to tackle any new content.
** The ''An Unidentified Observer'' set card boasts the effect of having a 30% of chance to reset all the cooldowns of active skills when one of them successfully hits the opponent completely breaking the balance in Live PvP since it encourages players to merely spam skills with little possibility of retaliation from the opponent. And to top it off, it has a PvP-exclusive skill that reflects 10% of damage received for 5 seconds. At first, it doesn't sound that bad until you realize that reflected damage bypasses all and any defenses, including Damage Immunity.

** Rolling being completely unrestricted considerably drags down live PvP since most matches are reduced to both players running at each other just to roll at the last moment in hopes of baiting one of the other's skills so they are left open to a painful counterattack.
** Guard canceling for PvP. By repeating the initial attacks of the regular combo string of specific characters is possible to keep the opponent in the air, completely unable to do anything but watch their HP slowly drop to 0.

** Unlocking Phantom Ruler Igniz requires an absurd amount of grinding on Epic Quest Chapter 2. To unlock his fight is necessary to have a combined level of 270 buffs and the amount of EXP gathered in each stage is extremely low even with the required units that increase the rate. Unless you keep the game grinding non-stop for days, getting the needed buffs will take ''months''

* TierInducedScrappy: Of the High Tier type:
** Goenitz is one of the most used characters for live PvP due to his easily chainable skills that not only disable the opponent's roll but also grant him complete invulnerability to damage and quickly build meter, enabling him to kill most top-tier units in a single combo. And if fails to do it so, his dodge is one of the fastest in the game, so Goenitz players tend to simply run all across the stage, waiting for their skills' cooldowns to end so they can repeat the process.
** Lady Original Zero excels at zoning, and she can easily end most fights with a single combo thanks to her high damage output, quick build of power gauge, and petrify on her Skill 3.
** Saiki can juggle the opponent to death with just one of his skills connecting due to his long animations in both the skills and his regular combo string keeping the opponent airborne, making it impossible for them to break free.
** John Cena is absurdly resilient, able to withstand at least two full combos from most top-tier units, and has a panic button in the form of his second skill: a clothesline that can be used while being attacked and grants him Hyper Armor, making a perfect counterattack to most skills and a getaway option if necessary. Furthermore, once his health hits 50% or less, any attacking enemy will get stunned for 3 seconds allowing him to break free from otherwise inescapable combos and even interrupt super moves unless the opponent has stun immunity or reflection. Much like Goenitz, all of his skills are easily chainable, but he has the added perk that leaves the opponent unable to retaliate, so a single skill is a guaranteed full combo. Oh, and the effect that triggers when his health drops to 50%? It also raises his ATK 50%. Let's just say that Netmarble has done an amazingly good job at translating [[MemeticMutation CENAWINSLOL]] to the world of ''KOF''.
** Mr. Karate is like Goenitz on steroids, with similarly effective skills but a much higher damage output, the main thing putting him ahead of Goenitz is his full-screen Super Move that can be used as soon as he builds 3 bars of power gauge.
** The 7 Knights characters brought a completely new level of power creep to the game, and out of the gate, they became the Top 5 for Live PvP thanks to an assortment of high damage output, an abundance of inflicting status effects with their skills, and meta countering effects.
** If you thought the 7 Knights were bad, the Boss Syndrome and Special Signature units are on a completely new level of their own. They all share the same basic effect of being able to raise the power gauge just by guarding and activating Super Armor automatically after being hit five times, and they deliver absurd amounts of damage with their attacks. This would be enough to make them top tier but is the individual abilities that push them over the line, enabling TOD combos with ridiculous ease.
** Nearly one year after the introduction of Boss Syndrome and Special Signature units, a new class was introduced: EX Units. These units broke the meta ''again'' by having absurdly hard-hitting skills, a plethora of immunities to DOT and status effects, and multiple defensive skills that made them extremely resilient. A single maxed-out EX unit can easily carry you through most of the end-game content.

** Angel was known to be a big ShoutOut to [[Wrestling/DwayneJohnson The Rock]] around the time she debuted, including having moves based on his SignatureMove (Rock Bottom and The People's Elbow). And then the ''WWE'' collab happened and Angel gets to fight against the guy she based her moves on. Curiously, she was completely absent from the collaboration's plot, and the honor of interacting with The Rock was given to Terry and [[NamesTheSame Rock]]

** FES Units, identified by having a purple border count with some of the strongest skills in the game, fantastic combo strings, and stats. Just one of them is able to carry the player for a long, long time.

** While likely just a bug in the randomization feature, using random character select in Dream Match mode has the chance of letting players use the otherwise unplayable Kusanagi, with his own moveset and voice included.

** Angel was known to be a big ShoutOut to [[Wrestling/DwayneJohnson The Rock]] around the time she debuted, including having moves based on his SignatureMove (Rock Bottom and The People's Elbow). And then the ''WWE'' collab happened and Angel gets to fight against the guy she based her moves on.

** And then Phantom Invader Maxima from Episode 2 shows up to one-up Yashiro. All of the bosses in Episode 2 Chapter 1 have innate super armor, and Maxima goes above and beyond by ''[[TheJuggernaut never faltering, period]]''. While Yashiro could at least be briefly halted by certain effects such as petrify or freeze, Maxima can't be stopped short of his gimmick: At certain points, generators will appear (each time adding one more for a maximum of 4), with Maxima being stunned when all of them are destroyed. However, said generators enforce CharacterSelectForcing by being weak in one of the 3 classes. They can't be ignored because they buff Maxima's defense to the point that, unless you're overleveled, there's no way you can beat him before [[TimedMission the time limit]]. Also, he has a meter that [[TurnsRed lets him use stronger attacks]] when it gets filled, and while the generators accelerate it, it will fill up on its own. And for the cherry on top: While normal gameplay will proceed if you win with any character (meaning you can use GameBreaker FES units and the like), if you want Maxima's unique special card, you must have '99 Maxima on your team; meaning, you need to sacrifice an attack-type character, for a grappler in a stage where none of the targets are grabbable. All-in-all, Phantom Invader Maxima is one heck of a WakeUpCallBoss.

** The second level of the first part of the '99 story at Expert difficulty. Going through the level itself is fine. However, the level has the sub-quest "Clear with 10 hits or less" and is littered with Kyo clones who like to play keep-away with you. Two types of bots, one type with a Vulcan, and one type with a lightning cannon, all of them being able to stun-lock you with multiple hits, which can immediately make you fail your mission. Worse still, the lightning cannon bot tends to spawn off-screen. Its lightning cannon has a TREMENDOUS range that it can fire off without getting on-screen and long duration for the stun-locking; getting hit with it without emergency evade means instant failure to the mission. And did we mention that they do not come one by one and are more likely to surround you (minimum two units at once)? At least Goenitz and Orochi are single entities and you can at least bait them safely while dodging...

** Nearly one year after the introduction of Boss Syndrome and Special Signature units, a new class was introduced: EX Units. These units broke the meta ''again'' by having absurdly hard-hitting skills, a plethora of immunities to DOT and status effects, and multiple defensive skills that made them extremely resilient. A single maxed-out EX unit can carry you through most of the end-game content with ease.

* SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic: Another element that is widely praised by the players are the excellent remixes and arrangements that Netmarble's sound team does to classic KOF themes, like [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUI-aRB1jnM Esaka?]] for Kyo and Iori Special Signature versions or Boss Syndrome Nameless' [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYMLWNZpt3A Ж' (Zhe Prime)]]

** On his release, Nameless was widely considered to be the best unit available in the game due to having a kit with answers to anything the game would throw at you, be PvE or PvP. He remained the top unit until the arrival of Boss Syndrome and Special Signature units. In an amusing development, exactly one year after Nameless' release, Boss Syndrome Nameless was added to the game, and just like his predecessor, he has so many tools at his disposal that he immediately became the best unit of the game.

** Challenge Team Relay was introduced in August 2020 and pits the player against giant bosses with such absurd stats and debuffs that the tactics used against the previous bosses are useless and require a very specific combination of characters and equipment to be completed. Or having full teams with maxed out Boss Syndrome and Special Signature units to brute force your way to victory.
* EnsembleDarkhorse: A curious meta example, most of the characters receiving seasonal and special variants, are pretty well-known Ensemble Darkhorses among the series' fandom. To put it in perspective, characters like Mai, Kula, Yuri, and Angel have multiple seasonal variants on top of their original ''KOF'' incarnations, while main protagonists like Kyo, Terry, and Ryo have ''none''.

*** Likewise, Billie and Kimmie for Lady Billy and Lady Kim, while Lady Mr Big is sometimes called Big Ass or Big Scam.

** Collaboration units tend to be very strong, having a wide array of beneficial effects, ease to awaken thanks to the Dimensional Invite mechanic, and starting with the Seven Knights' having their own set of farmable imprint stones that massively boost their stats.

** The ''An Unidentified Observer'' set card boasts the effect of having a 30% of chance to reset all the cooldowns of active skills when one of them successfully hits the opponent completely broke the balance in Live PvP since it encourages players to merely spam skills with little possibility of retaliation from the opponent. And to top it off, it has a PvP exclusive skill that reflects 10% of damage received for 5 seconds. At first, it doesn't sound that bad until you realize that reflected damage bypasses all and any defenses, including Damage Immunity.

** The Vulcan bots present on the '99 story mode and Reviving Hell Dungeon. They can snipe the player from the other side of the screen with their bullets and lasers, stun-locking the player in place, making them an easy target for other enemies on screen, making them fail the "Get hit 10 times or less" achievements or wasting precious seconds in time-limited missions.

* SoBadItWasBetter: Both SNK and [=NetMarble=] has made efforts to fix SNK's old, full of {{Narm}} janky English translation. [[https://imgur.com/a/dKcUk9o This]] is how ''All-Stars'' takes on [[Narm/TheKingOfFighters Omega Rugal's dying words of "I'll be back... YOU JERKS!".]] For those who considered it hilarious, they might miss that 'bad Engrish' part of old SNK.

** False Conspiracy Yashiro from Epic Quest Episode 1 is a nightmare, especially if you're doing the [[ThatOneSidequest "125 seconds"]] challenge to unlock him. For starters, Yashiro is ImmuneToFlinching during his combos, and, much like in 97, he loves to block or dodge out of the way of moves. Second, he [[BarrierWarrior throws up a barrier]] that, if it matches the color of the character you're currently using, reflects damage at you. If you use an Ultimate Move at the wrong time, you're toast. While these are manageable on their own, it's what comes when his health reaches 6 bars that push him square into this territory: Yashiro TurnsRed and becomes a practical SNKBoss; He moves [[LightningBruiser insanely fast]] and unlike Mecha Goenitz or False Trial Saisyu who could at least be stunned, [[ImplacableMan pretty much nothing short of countering his countdown-based moves or having a unit that can inflict a stun-based status like 'petrify' or 'frozen' can stop him]], be it striker, skill or even ultimate move, he'll simply plow ahead. At that point, the only way to beat him is to bait him into a combo, which requires you to get dangerously close and risk getting combo'ed to death. All of this is on top of the fact that the color symbol for his stages is blank, meaning that while he's not strong against any color, he's not weak to any either. And again, to get him as a playable unit, you need to beat him in roughly 2 minutes and 5 seconds. Also, take into account that this is an Epic Quest, meaning that the power threshold is ''much'' higher than Orochi above and you're going to need characters at an extremely high level with high-level Battle Cards too.
** And then Phantom Invader Maxima from Episode 2 shows up to one-up Yashiro. All of the bosses in Episode 2 Chapter 1 have innate super armor, and Maxima goes above and beyond by ''[[TheJuggernaut never faltering, period]]''. While Yashiro could at least be briefly halted by certain effects such as petrify or freeze, Maxima can't be stopped short of his gimmick: At certain points, generators will appear (each time adding one more for a maximum of 4), with Maxima being stunned when all of them are destroyed. However, said generators enforce CharacterSelectForcing by being weak to one of the 3 classes. They can't be ignored because they buff Maxima's defense to the point that, unless you're overleveled, there's no way you can beat him before [[TimedMission the time limit]]. Also, he has a meter that [[TurnsRed lets him use stronger attacks]] when it gets filled, and while the generators accelerate it, it will fill up on its own. And for the cherry on top: While normal gameplay will proceed if you win with any character (meaning you can use GameBreaker FES units and the like), if you want Maxima's unique special card, you must have '99 Maxima on your team; meaning, you need to sacrifice an attack-type character, for a grappler in a stage where none of the targets are grabbable. All-in-all, Phantom Invader Maxima is one heck of a WakeUpCallBoss.
** Immortal Rahk, besides the high stats and debuffs shared with all Immortals, he's extremely mobile and has a relatively small hitbox, making it hard to reliably hit him with skills. After a couple of minutes, his damage output shoots through the roof, becoming able to kill maxed-out characters in just a couple of hits. His weakness are Red Element and Fire, severely limiting the number of viable units to use. All of this makes him the hardest Immortal to beat.

** The second level of the first part of the '99 story at Expert difficulty. Going through the level itself is fine. However, the level has the sub quest "Clear with 10 hits or less" and is littered with Kyo clones who like to play keep-away with you. Two types of bots, one type with a Vulcan, and one type with a lightning cannon, all of them being able to stun-lock you with multiple hits, which can immediately make you fail your mission. Worse still, the lightning cannon bot tends to spawn off-screen. Its lightning cannon has a TREMENDOUS range that they can fire off without getting on-screen and long duration for the stun-locking; getting hit with it without emergency evade means instant failure to the mission. And did we mention that they do not come one by one and are more likely to surround you (minimum two units at once)? At least Goenitz and Orochi are single entities and you can at least bait them safely while dodging...
** Reviving Hell Dungeon is designed to be as frustrating and irritating as possible. It requires awakened characters (something that is a considerable investment of resources to get in the first place, the first ten tiers only ask for characters of one specific color per stage, similar to the restrictions found on Epic Quest Chapter 1, but from the 11th tier onward you need to have full teams of the type and color asked to you. Why full teams? Because each character can only be used for a minute, when it runs out the character is considered KO'd and the next member in the team takes their place; this effectively gives the player three minutes to finish each stage. And to make things worse, the stages are filled to the brim with GoddamnedBats, whose only purpose is to waste the players' time since they are generally too weak to kill a maxed-out character.
** Expert level Car-trashing bonus stage. Unlike normal ones, you are basically competing with a CPU in trashing the car, and for the final bonus, you have to make sure you deal 80% damage without any way to disrupt the CPU, which is quick enough to reach 20%. Unless you know how to set things up, getting that final bonus may become impossible, barring you from getting the 100% Completion of the Chapter.
** Fancy Victory Party (the first level of the final chapter of the 2001 story). Original Zero sics on you 10 waves of enemies most likely found in the Reviving Hell Dungeon, except they're now also highly damaging that continuous tics will destroy characters not strong enough, and they WILL gang up on you with murderous intent. Additionally, there is a time limit of the stage so you can't play keep-away for long. Going through the stage is one thing, but there is also a mission that requires you to clear the stage with all allies alive... ''when keeping even yourself alive solo is already hard enough''.
** Unlocking characters that can only be unlocked via crafting. The good news is, you don't need to spend any money at all. The bad news is that you NEED to be prepared to grind on Infinite Battle (for Wolfgang Krauser) or Championship (for Eiji Kisaragi) Battle Modes, as of the latter one, if you're in a place with a bad internet connection, you have to slog through super laggy matches and most of the time see yourself getting curb-stomped left and right. While Eiji's medal can be bought in a good amount for a price (you need 1000 medals while you can get 200 medals daily if you have 1000 coins), Krauser's medal exchange option is ''ridiculously low'' (You can only get 20 medals daily if you have 120 coins... but you ''still'' need 1000 medals to craft Krauser). And even worse if you still want to craft their Memories.

** Goenitz is one of the most used characters for live PvP due to his easily chainable skills that not only disable the opponent's roll but also grant him complete invulnerability to damage and quickly builds meter, enabling him to kill most top-tier units in a single combo. And if fails to do it so, his dodge is one of the fastest in the game, so Goenitz players tend to simply run all across the stage, waiting for their skills' cooldowns to end so they can repeat the process.

** John Cena is absurdly resilient, able to withstand at least two full combos from most top-tier units, and has a panic button in the form of his second skill: a clothesline that can be used while being attacked and grants him Hyper Armor, making a perfect counterattack to most skills and a getaway option if necessary. Furthermore, once his health hits 50% or less, any attacking enemy will get stunned for 3 seconds allowing him to break free from otherwise inescapable combos and even interrupt super moves unless the opponent has stun immunity or reflection. Much like Goenitz, all of his skills are easily chainable, but he has the added perk that leaves the opponent unable to retaliate, so a single skill is a guaranteed full combo. Oh, and the effect that triggers when his health drops to 50%? It also raises his ATK 50%. Let's just say that Netmarble have done an amazingly good job at translating [[MemeticMutation CENAWINSLOL]] to the world of ''KOF''.

** The 7 Knights characters brought a completely new level of power creep to the game, and out of the gate, they became Top 5 for Live PvP thanks to an assortment of high damage output, an abundance of inflicting status effects with their skills, and meta countering effects.
** If you thought the 7 Knights were bad, the Boss Syndrome units are on a completely new level of their own. They all share the same basic effect of being able to raise the power gauge just by guarding and activating Super Armor automatically after being hit five times. They deliver absurd amounts of damage with their attacks. This would be enough to make them top tier but is the individual abilities that push them over the line. Rugal can break Super and Hyper Armor with Skill 3, Skill 2 grants him Hyper Armor, can be used while being attacked and refreshes itself after hitting the opponent successfully, and Skill 1 disables the opponent's dodge for three seconds. Orochi, on the other hand, has a 50% chance to refresh all of his projectile skills any time one of them successfully hits the opponent, builds meter at an absurd rate, and all of his skills launch the opponent into the air, enabling TOD combos with ridiculously ease.

** Awakening is one due to the excessive amount of resources it requires. First, you need level 90 characters and a duplicate to unlock the first Awakening tier. This will increase the character's stats and increase their level per 10. Oh, and you can't use regular EXP potion to raise those levels, you need a specific type that can only be obtained in the Reviving Hell Dungeon. To unlock the second Awakening tier you need once again a duplicate of the character you want to awaken, a variable number of other characters' duplicates of the same rarity and color as your target, and having hit the max level of the first Awakening tier. The next tier increases the level cap per ten but it also requires a different type of EXP potion to raise. You can repeat the process up to five times and while the stat boost offered by the mechanic is significant, the resources needed means [=F2P=] players will need months of grinding and tons of luck to get past the first awakening tier.
** The Card and Memory Carnival events are these due to the large amounts of summoning it requires to be completed. As their name implies, they require obtaining Cards or Character Memories -with FES ones netting the largest amount of points possible-, the problem comes with the extremely short time they're active. So unless the player has been hoarding summoning tickets for weeks, the only way to reach the end goal is by dropping rubies on the unified banner and hope to be lucky to pull enough FES to complete the Carnival. Worse yet, Carnivals are the only way currently available to obtain generic Boss Syndrome and Special Signature memories.

** Orochi in the story mode normally isn't this if you want to just simply beat him. If you want to finish his quests especially in the Expert difficulty... well good luck with the quest that requires you to get hit with less than 10 times. To wit: All of his moves register multiple hits on one use and he can use one of them to hit you from anywhere on the screen. He can simply connect several special moves and then you will have to restart because you got hit for 10 hits and failed the mission, and not even continuing can allow you to clear it! You have to do this on top of leveling one or two characters to a maximum level and raising their CP enough to make sure their attacks aren't stuck. Not an easy task.
** Similar to Orochi, getting all the Expert mode achievements on the final battle against Goenitz in the '96 chapter is frustratingly hard, especially the "get hit less than 10 times" one. This is because ''all'' of Goenitz attacks hit multiple times and thus, getting caught in one of his combo strings or one of his active skills means you won't be getting that achievement. It is even worse after he was buffed since it made his attacks faster and give him Super armor on one of his skills.
** False Conspiracy Yashiro from Epic Quest Episode 1 is a nightmare, especially if you're doing the [[ThatOneSidequest "125 seconds"]] challenge to unlock him. For starters, Yashiro is ImmuneToFlinching during his combos, and, much like in 97, he loves to block or dodge out of the way of moves. Second, he [[BarrierWarrior throws up a barrier]] that, if it matches the color of the character you're currently using, reflects damage back at you. If you use an Ultimate Move at the wrong time, you're toast. While these are manageable on their own, it's what comes when his health reaches 6 bars that push him square into this territory: Yashiro TurnsRed and becomes a practical SNKBoss; He moves [[LightningBruiser insanely fast]] and unlike Mecha Goenitz or False Trial Saisyu who could at least be stunned, [[ImplacableMan pretty much nothing short of countering his countdown-based moves or having a unit that can inflict a stun-based status like 'petrify' or 'frozen' can stop him]], be it striker, skill or even ultimate move, he'll simply plow ahead. At that point, the only way to beat him is to bait him into a combo, which requires you to get dangerously close and risk getting combo'ed to death. All of this is on top of the fact that the color symbol for his stages is blank, meaning that while he's not strong against any color, he's not weak to any either. And again, to get him as a playable unit, you need to beat him in roughly 2 minutes and 5 seconds. Also take into account that this is an Epic Quest, meaning that the power threshold is ''much'' higher than Orochi above and you're going to need characters at an extremely high level with high-level Battle Cards too.
** And then Phantom Invader Maxima from Episode 2 shows up to one up Yashiro. All of the bosses in Episode 2 Chapter 1 have innate super armor and Maxmia goes above and beyond by ''[[TheJuggernaut never faltering, period]]''. While Yashiro could at least be briefly halted by certain effects such as petrify or freeze, Maxima can't be stopped short of his gimmick: At certain points, generators will appear (each time adding one more for a maximum of 4) with Maxima being stunned when all of them are destroyed. However, said generators enforce CharacterSelectForcing by being weak to one of the 3 classes and they can't be ignored because they buff Maxima's defense to the point that, unless you're overleveled, there's no way you can beat him before [[TimedMission the time limit]]. Also, he has a meter that [[TurnsRed lets him use stronger attacks]] when it gets filled and while the generators accelerate it, it will fill up on its own anyway. And for the cherry on top: While normal gameplay will proceed if you win with any character (meaning you can use GameBreaker FES units and the like), if you want Maxima's unique special card, you must have '99 Maxima on your team; meaning, you need to sacrifice an attack-type character, for a grappler in a stage where none of the targets are grabbable. All-in-all, Phantom Invader Maxima is one heck of a WakeUpCallBoss.

** The second level of the first part of the '99 story at Expert difficulty. Going through the level itself is fine. However, the level has the subquest "Clear with 10 hits or less" and is littered with Kyo clones who like to play keep-away with you, and two types of bots, one type with a Vulcan, and one type with a lightning cannon, all of them being able to stun-lock you with multiple hits which can immediately make you fail your mission. Worse still, the lightning cannon bot has a tendency to spawn off-screen and its lightning cannon has a TREMENDOUS range that they can fire off without getting on-screen and long duration for the stun-locking, getting hit with it without emergency evade means instant failure to the mission. And did we mention that they do not come one by one and are more likely to surround you (minimum 2 units at once)? At least Goenitz and Orochi are single entities and you can at least bait them safely while dodging...
** Reviving Hell Dungeon is very obviously designed to be as frustrating and irritating as possible. It requires awakened characters (something that is a considerable investment of resources to get in the first place, the first ten tiers only ask for characters of one specific color per stage, similar to the restrictions found on Epic Quest Chapter 1, but from the 11th tier onward you need to have full teams of the type and color asked to you. Why full teams? Because each character can only be used for a minute, when it runs out the character is considered KO'd and the next member in the team takes their place; this effectively gives the player three minutes to finish each stage. And to make things worse, the stages are filled to the brim with GoddamnedBats, whose only purpose is to waste the players' time since they are generally too weak to kill a maxed-out character.
** Expert level Car-trashing bonus stage. Unlike normal ones, you are basically competing with a CPU in trashing the car and for the final bonus, you have to make sure you deal 80% damage without any way to disrupt the CPU, which is quick enough to reach 20%. Unless you know how to set things up, getting that final bonus may become outright impossible, barring you from getting the 100% Completion of the Chapter.

** Goenitz is one of the most used characters for live PvP due to his easily chainable skills that not only disable the opponent's roll but also grant him complete invulnerability to damage and quickly builds meter enabling him to kill most top tier units in a single combo. And if fails to do it so, his dodge is one of the fastest in the game, so Goenitz players tend to simply run all across the stage waiting for their skills' cooldowns to end so they can repeat the process.
** Lady Original Zero excels at zoning and she can easily end most fights with a single combo thanks to her high damage output, quick build of power gauge, and petrify on her Skill 3.

** John Cena is absurdly resilient, able to withstand at least two full combos from most top tier units, has a panic button in the form of his second skill: a clothesline that can be used while being attacked and grants him Hyper Armor, making a perfect counterattack to most skills and a getaway option if necessary. Furthermore, once his health hits 50% or less, any attacking enemy will get stunned for 3 seconds allowing him to break free from otherwise inescapable combos and even interrupt super moves unless the opponent has stun immunity or reflection. Much like Goenitz, all of his skills are easily chainable but his have the added perk that leaves the opponent unable to retaliate so a single skill is a guaranteed full combo. Oh, and the effect that triggers when his health drops to 50%? It also raises his ATK 50%. Let's just say that Netmarble have done an amazingly good job at translating [[MemeticMutation CENAWINSLOL]] to the world of ''KOF''.

** The 7 Knights characters brought a completely new level of power creep to the game and out of the gate they became Top 5 for Live PvP thanks to an assortment of high damage output, an abundance of inflicting status effects with their skills, and meta countering effects.
** If you thought the 7 Knights were bad, the Boss Syndrome units are on a completely new level of their own. They all share the same basic effect of being able to raise the power gauge just by guarding and activating Super Armor automatically after being hit five times and they deliver absurd amounts of damage with their attacks. This would be enough to make them top tier but is the individual abilities that push them over the line. Rugal can break Super and Hyper Armor with Skill 3, Skill 2 grants him Hyper Armor, can be used while being attacked and refreshes itself after hitting the opponent successfully and Skill 1 disables the opponent's dodge for three seconds. Orochi on the other hand has a 50% chance to refresh all of his projectile skills any time one of them successfully hits the opponent, builds meter at an absurd rate and all of his skills launch the opponent into the air, enabling TOD combos with ridiculously ease.

** While Guest collabs can be this normally, a lot of them are from mainly Japanese media. And so it came to a super unexpected surprise when it was announced that Netmarble would collaborate with the ''Wrestling/{{WWE}}''. No, not the Japanese puroresu scene (or figures that are much more known there like Wrestling/KennyOmega or other Japanese wrestlers); the western/international ''WWE RAW'' brand with figures like [[Wrestling/DwayneJohnson The Rock]] or Wrestling/JohnCena.
** The first ''Manga/{{Gintama}}'' was skipped out for the Global version, and with how it was heavily based on Japanese culture and only had minimum coverage in the West, fans at first were resigned that the Global version [[NoExportForYou will never have the Gintama characters]]. When the Japanese server received the second Gintama event, the Global server was hit with a surprise: Netmarble brought BOTH the Gintama collaborations to the Global server!