The King of Fighters '98 / YMMV

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KOF '98

Awesome Music: Has its own page.
Even Better Sequel: KOF '98 has the biggest character roster in the series by far and irons out most (if not all) of the balance-breaking bugs in '97 that forced the players to impose house rules. In addition, it introduces some important changes, like the Advantage mechanic that gives a losing player better opportunity to utilize the Power Gauge, which'd become the series' main traits since this game. In many ways, KOF '98 is a fruition of experiments SNK carried out throughout the Orochi Saga, which is probably why this game is commonly regarded as the best game in the saga and still enjoys much popularity to this day.
Gameplay Derailment: While Extra Mode is at a huge disadvantage to Advanced Mode (no Tech Grab, Quick Step being hard to control, etc.), it can create a fairly easy infinite because of how Quick Step works in this game. During quick stepping, some characters like Kyo, Athena, and Brian can perform their command normal; they come out extremely fast, are hard to punish, and a very good tool of a high/low mixup game. It takes practice to do it consistently, but this doesn't require Power Gauge and can be chained into itself due to its short recovery, creating an infinite combo that does monster damage and stuns the opponent. Tournaments usually ban the Extra Mode because of this, and Ultimate Match fixed this by disabling command normals during a quick step.
Good Bad Bugs: SNK fighters of the time often had strange bugs, but two in particular stand out for their impact on the game.
- Goro Daimon is a feared top tier character for many reasons, including a deadly unblockable ground pound glitch. Essentially, the move is completely unblockable if timed to hit immediately as the opponent recovers.
- Additionally, the game features an unblockable projectile glitch that works in much the same way. Characters with command grabs and projectiles, such as Iori and Takuma, can time their projectile after a knockdown in a way that the opponent is forced to block it, then trigger the glitched unblockable by performing a command grab.
Memetic Mutation: "Absolute karate. That's Kyokugen. And don't forget it, dweebenheimer!" ^note
Once Original, Now Common:
- It can be hard for newer fans to understand just how significant the game's "dream match" label was at the time. Combining almost every character from the Orochi saga was a huge feat in the late 90s, but later KOF games have had even more ambitious rosters, even the canonical entries.
- Similarly, the concept of dead characters coming back because '98, 2002, and XII are noncanonical is less interesting when canonical games starting with XIII would find ways to include dead characters on the roster: XIII and XIV feature Vice and Mature as ghosts, while XV features Ash, Rugal, the Orochi Team and Goenitz as the result of Verse being defeated in the previous game.
Scrappy Mechanic: KOF '97's Mood system is still in full force in this game. Granted, they're changed so that it isn't as nearly intrusive as in '97 (this time, the worst punishment you'll get between rounds is getting your current Power Gauge meter reset, keeping your stocks intact), but it's still a nuisance that most players felt shouldn't be in the game. Also, unlike '97 that hard coded the character relationship so that every character had a predetermined set of allies and enemies, KOF '98 randomizes it depending on the date in the Neo Geo BIOS. You can only see your team's relationship after you pick your fighters.
Tough Act to Follow: To this day, KOF '98 is still considered to be one of the strongest entries in the franchise, bordering on Sacred Cow territory depending on who you ask. While there have certainly been very well received games since, it's impossible to overstate how revered this game is to the fandom at large. While not every KOF fan cites '98 as their favorite, it's very difficult to find one that doesn't consider it one of the series' highlights.

Ultimate Match

Remade and Improved: Ultimate Match addresses the issues people had with '98: it adds in the rest of the characters from the Orochi Saga left out in the original game (including the bosses) and fixed numerous bugs that marred its meta (no more unblockable attacks). Additionally, Ultimate Match rescues the Extra Mode by not only buffing them but introducing the Ultimate Mode that lets you customize traits from both Extra Mode and Advanced Mode. While the initial release was criticized for new balance issues, this was rectified again in the Final Edition update. In other words, this is the definite version of '98.
They Changed It, Now It Sucks!:
- Ultimate Match updated the opening of '98 (perhaps the most famous one in the series) to reflect the new characters added in the remake and has a new remix of the opening song "Cipher". The new opening is great, but some '98 players were so used to the original that they don't like the remake's. Some other music were also replaced with new remixes ("Intrusion", one of '98's character select music and a remix of '96, was replaced in Ultimate Match by "Raging Waves Selection 2", a remix of '95) , and some prefer the old ones.
- The XBLA version removes some features from the PS2 version, likely to downsize the game for the platform. The cut features include the 3D graphic stages, arranged music, and Gallery Mode. What bothers fans is that Final Edition is based on this version, so the version available for Windows and PlayStation 4 is also missing them. It's remedied by that Final Edition goes much cheaper than the PS2 version and some things like the 3D graphics aren't considered a huge loss (most KOF players prefer the 2D stage graphics, anyway), but it still earned complaint for leaving out features from the original remake.

YMMV / The King of Fighters '98

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