The sixth game in The King of Fighters series, and the first chapter of the NESTS Chronicles. The game released on July 22nd, 1999 for arcades, and would release two months later for Neo Geo.
Two years have passed since the last tournament in 1997, and Benimaru has received an invitation letter for KOF this year, with a new rule demanding him to bring a "Striker" on top of usual three-fighter match. He has a few problems, though: Kyo, former Japan Team leader who fought and sealed off the Orochi, has gone missing, so does Iori, and the other member, Daimon, entered a judo contest and is not available. He's eventually paired with two no-nonsense newcomers; K' (read "K Dash") is a new series protagonist who can mysteriously create fire from his hands like Kyo, and Maxima is a cyborg. Joined by Shingo, looking for Kyo as his fan, the four of them competes in the KOF together, facing off the other KOF regulars that brought their own new member and hoping to learn Kyo's whereabouts. All the while a new KOF host is plotting behind for their gain.
With the start of a new arc (NESTS Chronicles), KOF '99 changes things up from the Orochi Saga games. In addition to usual three fighters, you have to select a fourth fighter as "Striker", who can be called in match for assistance a la Marvel vs. Capcom: Clash of Super Heroes. Other important change is the way your Power Gauge works, which is based off the Advanced Mode from KOF '98 but with the Advantage system removed (so you can only fill up to three Power Gauge stocks). If fully charged, you can activate Limit Break states, Counter Mode and Armor Mode, buffing your character for limited time frame.
- In the Counter Mode, you can use Super Moves for unlimited times. Moreover, you have access to Super Cancel that greatly reduces recovery of your moves. This lets you link Special Move into Super Move, and even Super into another Super, creating an otherwise impossible combo for massive damage.
- In the Armor Mode, your character's defense increases (at expense of the ability to execute Super Moves) and can freely move even when your opponent is attacking you. This lets you block and interrupt most of available moves from your opponent with shocking ease.
Other changes include how Super Moves work. With the MAX Mode removed, you have to spend three Power Gauge stocks to perform MAX Super Move, although the Power Gauge fills up much faster than '98 to make up for it. The Comeback Mechanic from the Extra Mode is applied to this game in a different form; when your player character's health gets low enough and its meter starts to flash, you can perform the MAX Super Move instantly, spending just one Power Gauge stock (although this means you lose access to its normal version during this state). This changes were phased out of the series quickly, with KOF 2000 recategorizing the Super Moves and 2001 removing the three-stock Power Gauge system.
It was first ported to the PlayStation, and an enhanced port, The King of Fighters: Evolution, was released for Sega Dreamcast, which coverts the stages into 3D, adds exclusive Strikers, and has compatibility feature to Neo Geo Pocket Color game The King of Fighters: Battle de Paradise. KOF: Evolution was ported to Windows, and included in The King of Fighters NESTS Collection for PlayStation 2.
- Team Hero: Following Kyo's disappearance, Benimaru Nikaido and Shingo Yabuki enter the tournament alongside mysterious newcomers K' and Maxima to search for answers.
- Team Fatal Fury: The usual lineup of Terry Bogard, his brother Andy and Joe Higashi; but this time joined by Andy's own Abhorrent Admirer, Mai Shiranui.
- Team Art of Fighting: The entire school of the Kyokugenryu unites for the first time - Ryo Sakazaki, Robert Garcia, Yuri Sakazaki and Mr. Karate himself, Takuma Sakazaki.
- Team Ikari: Leona Heidern, Ralf Jones and Clark Still return on a new mission, joined by the mercenary Whip.
- Team Psycho Soldier: Athena Asamiya and her master Chin Gentsai return as before; though Sie Kensou has mysteriously lost his powers, having to adapt his fighting style to compensate. Alongside them is newcomer Bao, a young boy with strong psychic powers that Chin recently took under his wing.
- Team Women Fighters: An almost completely new lineup, given that Mai and Yuri are on different teams; King instead links up with Blue Mary, Kasumi Todoh and a newcomer to KOF, Li Xiangfei (originally from Real Bout Fatal Fury 2).
- Team Korean Justice: Comprised of Kim Kaphwan, Chang Koehan and Choi Bounge; now joined by newcomer Jhun Hoon, a rival of Kim's.
- Single Entry: Kyo-1 and Kyo-2 - Clones of Kyo with specific movesets.
- Secret Character: Kyo Kusanagi and Iori Yagami - If you have either in an edit team and do well enough, you can get a special round after the final boss against the opposing character.
- Boss: Krizalid - The sponsor of this year's tournament, and a high-ranking member of the nebulous organisation known as NESTS.
- As before special edit teams will also yield special illustration cards at the end of the game. 12 total.
This work shows examples of:
- Actionized Sequel: This is the first KOF to introduce Super Cancel, which could be used through Counter Mode in KOF '99 and 2000 but became more and more universal in later KOF, where you can usually perform it by spending two or three Power Gauge stocks at once. Thanks to its ability to create a long combo, a match between those who master Super Cancel can get much more intense than previous KOF games.
- Adaptation Expansion: KOF: Evolution adds two exclusive stages, and some Strikers from KOF 2000. Unlike the original '99 cast, they can only be selected as Striker.
- Anti-Frustration Features: KOF '99 is the first game to map the controller buttons directly to your characters in Team Order screen, instead of moving a pointer with joystick. This was done so that your team order is completely hidden to your human opponent, preventing them to intentiionally stall on the screen to read your team order and counter it. This was removed in 2000 and 2001 because of their unique Striker systems, but later revived in 2002 and kept in the series since.
- Assist Character: Replacing the Team Assist from KOF '94 to '98, you pick one of four characters in your team as Striker, whose role varies between each character (some do extra damage, others fill Power Gauge, etc.).
- Battle in the Rain: The Park is the only stage to start in broad daylight, but in the second round sky darkens, and in the third round it eventually starts to rain.
- Big Bad: Krizalid, NESTS champion for the newest KOF tournament, assigned to gather data on the world's fighters. He and K' have a mysterious connection to each other.
- Classic Cheat Code: The original Kyo and Iori are not available in the arcade version and has to be unlocked with a cheat code, taught by beating them as an Optional Boss after Krizalid.
- Clone Army: NESTS, the new antagonist organization of this arc, reveals this was their plan, collecting KOF participants' data to inject them into Kyo clones and taking over the world.
- Comeback Mechanic: Similar to '98's Extra Mode, if your health goes under a certain point, the health bar starts to flash and you can perform MAX Super Moves instantly by just spending one Power Gauge stock.
- Darker and Edgier:
- Literally; most stages in KOF '99 start at night, and stay that way. Unlike '97, KOF this time is held in secrecy, so there are also no spectators to liven up.
- In addition, a majority of the endings seemingly end on a sadder note than previous games, with the teams separating not of their own volition, but because of events within the NESTS base causing them to be separated, with some characters seemingly perishing while escaping the NESTS base. Waiting until after the credits roll show the characters surviving, changing these into a Surprisingly Happy Ending, but this is the first time their deaths were potentially played straight.
- Elevator Action Sequence: The Sewer stage, always fixed as the fifth match in the arcade mode, starts to descend in the third round, taking you to Krizalid's NESTS base. This doesn't happen in a PvP match.
- Gameplay Grading: In arcade mode, your performance is judged with Battle Ability points. The general rule is that the better moves you land on, the more points you rack up. If you lose a match and continue, it punishes you by halving it. This is one of the two conditions to unlock Optional Boss after Krizalid (the other is to select one of canonical teams, all four of your fighters with no exception). You need to score 280 Battle Ability points or higher to fight Kyo, and 200~279 points to fight Iori.
- The Hero: For the first time in the series, Kyo Kusanagi is not the central protagonist. That honor goes to the newly introduced K', a mysterious young man with similar flame abilities, who's now looking to take down the NESTS cartel.
- I Am Not Left-Handed: Like Rugal before in '94, Krizalid has a first phase where he fights with pitiful moveset. Unlike Rugal, his first form does have exclusive Special Moves, but his AI is too predictable to be a real threat. It's also not a Sequential Boss, so all your teammates start with full health in the next match. When you enter the second fight and Krizalid burns his clothes off, though, all bets are off.
- Moveset Clone: Kyo-1 and Kyo-2 use Kyo's moveset from KOF '95 and '98. Justified, because they really are clones created by NESTS.
- Nerf:
- Starting from this game, Blow Back Guard Cancel no longer does damage at all, a change that would apply to future KOF games with only a few exceptions.
- Also starting from '99, Air Guard is no longer possible, making neutral jump more dangerous.
- With the Extra Mode gone, so is Practical Taunt. It's now just a taunt that irritates the other player.
- Unlike '98, which lets you keep the Power Gauge stocks from previous fighter, '99 resets the meter completely every time you lose a round, forcing to fill it up from start. This change would be instantly reverted in 2000.
- Oddball in the Series:
- Amongst the KOF games that have Unnecessary Combat Roll, this is the only main installment to replace it with "Emergency Escape". It works pretty much the same way, only with the character's motion mostly standing up instead of rolling and added Speed Echoes effect. Gameplay-wise, the only major change is that you cannot perform a complete backward roll; instead, your character does a short backstep and comes back to their original position, which can be canceled into Special Moves. Its redundancy and strangeness is perhaps why KOF 2000 changed it back, although new characters like K' kept the animation.
- Only in this installment, King can use both versions of her Tornado Kick; the Light Kick version uses Art of Fighting version where she launches forward and kicks twice, and the Heavy Kick version uses KOF-original version from KOF '96 to '98 where she jumps upward for air combo. KOF 2000 removed the latter and King would only use Art of Fighting version since.
- Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Between The Reveal about the Kyo clone army (in the cut scene after stage 5) and Krizalid's defeat (the final boss), Heidern's troop somehow succeeds to neutralize the clones around the entire globe, which forces the NESTS to abandon the plan and dispose of Krizalid. Pretty awesome.
- Old Save Bonus: The Dreamcast port KOF: Evolution lets you transfer Battle Ability points from The King of Fighters: Battle de Paradise on Neo Geo Color Pocket, which speeds up the process of unlocking and leveling up Extra Strikers in Evolution.
- Soft Reboot: Starting with this game, the series tried to break away from the previously established Orochi mythologies and introduced an antagonistic organization that has nothing to do with villains in the Orochi Saga. Likewise, while the roster keeps most of the characters from the predecessor, the story in '99 focuses on the new characters and props K' as the new hero of the series, pushing Kyo to the supporting role. Kyo and Iori are not even selectable in the arcade version at first, requiring hidden commands to unlock.
- Temporary Online Content: While the Dreamcast internet was still online, you could connect to SNK's website via console and download data for KOF: Evolution to unlock Syo Kirishima and Gai Tendo as Extra Strikers (which otherwise requires compatibility feature to The King of Fighters: Battle de Paradise). With both Dreamcast and SNK's old website defunct this method is now impossible. The Windows version unlocks them from start, thankfully.
