The King of Fighters ’98 Ultimate Match Final Edition (PC) Review

The King of Fighters ’98 Ultimate Match Final Edition is the latest iteration of The King of Fighters ’98 fighting game. For a game that is pushing 25 years old, to see it still being released and played in the millions is a testament to how good The King of Fighters ’98 is as a video game. However, with the changes to the netcode and a few other changes, has SNK messed with a winning formula, or have they successfully brought a classic into the modern era of fighting game eSports?

Name: The King of Fighters ’98 Ultimate Match Final Edition
Platform(s): Arcade, PC
Developer: Code Mystics
Publisher: SNK Playmore
Game Type: Fighter
Mode(s): Single Player, Multiplayer, Online
Release Date: Out Now

You’re Invited to The King of Fighters Tournament…

The King of Fighters ’98 Ultimate Match Final Edition is the culmination of the Orochi Saga, a long storyline through The King of Fighters ’94 through The King of Fighters ’97 that involved multiple characters fighting to either make use of, or stop the use of a special sealed evil power of the Orochi, a demon that was said to be the strongest fighter, and destroyer, of the world. This storyline would take place alongside the storylines of the Fatal Fury games, making use of characters like Terry Bogard, Andy Bogard, Mai Shiranui, and boss character Geese Howard. Also included in this storyline were characters from other SNK games, like The Art of Fighting, Ikari Warriors, and Psycho Soldier. Completing the roster and story for The King of Fighters, were new characters like Kyo Kusanagi, Iori Yagami, and Rugal Bernstein, all of whom were central to the Orochi Saga story.

Instead of recapping over 4 games worth of story, The King of Fighters ’98 Ultimate Match Final Edition is considered a “Dream Match” game, where all the characters from the previous games are included in one game so that players can just do what they want without needing to worry about dealing with a story mode or anything of that ilk. So The King of Fighters ’98 Ultimate Match Final Edition is just a “pick up and play video game” that has no sway over the overall The King of Fighters storyline events.

Improvements where needed

The King of Fighters ’98 Ultimate Match Final Edition is a 3 vs 3 team fighter, much like Marvel vs CAPCOM would steal the idea in later years, where you make a team of 3 fighters (Either by selecting 3 single fighters or a premade team) and face off against all the other 14/15 teams in order to find out who is the toughest group of fighters in the world, eventually facing off against the two boss teams to see if you don’t throw your controller through the monitor or TV screen out of frustration.

Developers Code Mystics made a special note in the advertising that they have gone out of the way to make sure to do more balancing with the gameplay than any other version of The King of Fighters ’98 that came before it. However, you have to remember that this is an SNK fighting game, where the word “balance” doesn’t mean shit. Even on the easier modes, The King of Fighters ’98 Ultimate Match Final Edition is a punishing game that will make sure to deplete your life bar should you make a single mistake. The AI in The King of Fighters ’98 Ultimate Match Final Edition is one of the best on the planet, even at almost 25 years old. I spent many games going to the limit against the CPU just because my The King of Fighters skills are pretty rusty after years of playing Tekken and Street Fighter, but once the rust was gone, I was still very careful not to miss a move or the CPU would punish my ass till it was red and sore… And that’s before I even got to characters like Geese, Rugal, Krauser, etc… Remember, it’s called “SNK Boss Syndrome” for a reason. If you know, you know.

Of course, this is only that standard Arcade mode of The King of Fighters ’98 Ultimate Match Final Edition. But Code Mystics has added a couple of additional fighting game modes that have become standard over the years: Practice, Endless, and Challenge mode.

Practice mode is exactly what you think it is: A mode where you take your chosen fighter and get to practice against an inactive CPU fighter in order to work out how to play your character, do special moves, combos, and get all the frame and damage data that you’d need to propel yourself into future fighting game tournaments. This mode is a godsend for those of us who haven’t touched games like The King of Fighters ’98 for a long time and need to knock the rust off our skills. Other than that, it’s only eSports level players who will spend a lot of time in this mode.

Endless Mode is just what it says in the title. You’ll be fighting in matches constantly against CPU fighters till you lose. Enough said.

Challenge Mode is a series of challenges designed to test your skills as a The King of Fighters ’98 Ultimate Match Final Edition player. I didn’t spend much time in this mode, but I do see it being good as a test of skills for the more hardcore players of The King of Fighters ’98 Ultimate Match Final Edition.

For those of you who want to get into a huge nostalgia dive, The King of Fighters ’98 Ultimate Match Final Edition gives you the original NEOGEO Version of The King of Fighters ’98 to play so you can experience the proper 1998 Arcade edition of The King of Fighters ’98 in all it’s horribly unbalanced and unfair glory. This is the version that people remember the most when they think of The King of Fighters ’98. So that’s something if you want to time-travel back to the Arcade boom of the 1990s.

Where The King of Fighters ’98 Ultimate Match Final Edition has had the most improvements in the online modes. First of all, Code Mystics has implemented Rollback Netcode, a popular type of Netcode that a lot of fighting game players have grown to prefer online for games like this when frame input and button press delays can cost you matches online. I’m no networking expert anymore, so I can’t explain Rollback Netcode properly, but I will say that this type of networking better working than say, peer-to-peer, where things like international pipeline cause more problems than anything else in the game itself.

When choosing what to do with your online play sessions in your up-to 9 player lobbies, you can do things like Player matches, which are more casual matches; Ranked matches, which will add or subtract your ranking from the online leaderboard and is the more competitive of the modes, and finally, if you don’t want to do anything and just chill, you can watch matches via the Spectator Mode, which allows you to watch the matches live as they happen much like you would in Fighting Game Competitions. As someone who is an international, I would like to say that Code Mystics has done some of the best improvements in The King of Fighters ’98 Ultimate Match Final Edition to make the game as pleasant as possible to play with my overseas friends.

Lastly, I would like to talk about the methods by which you can play The King of Fighters ’98 Ultimate Match Final Edition. Firstly, you can play via the keyboard… But why would you? If you’re playing with a keyboard in a fighting game, then close the game down and go do something else, you unclean peasant. The King of Fighters ’98 Ultimate Match Final Edition is designed with full controller support in mind, giving you access to all the different controllers from console controllers like the PS4 and Xbox One/Series X (Tested with both), PC controllers like the 8BitDo SN30 Pro 2 controller (Tested), and even the older MadCatz Arcade sticks (Tested). Out of all of the controller types that I played The King of Fighters ’98 Ultimate Match Final Edition with, I highly recommend an Arcade stick of some kind just to replicate that original Arcade feeling. However, if you must use a controller, I would be recommending either a PlayStation 4 or 8BitDo SN30 Pro 2 controller as they have the better directional buttons that work smoother to pull off the moves. I found the Xbox One/Series X controller to be too stiff in the control pad in order to do the moves correctly, resulting in such hit and miss special moves that I haven’t seen since the original Street Fighter (or Fighting Street)

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

If there is one thing that The King of Fighters games are known for its maximizing the graphical detail that was available back in 1998. Unlike today where games are able to output crisp 1080p or even 4K graphics with 2D sprites made up of millions of pixels, The King of Fighters ’98 was created on the NEO GEO MVS system, a hybrid 8 and 16-bit graphics system that was able to output 24-bit graphics on an Arcade board. Mind you, this was still in the era of 480p graphics output, the same graphics output that systems like the Super Nintendo and SEGA Genesis were doing at the same time. So given the extra graphical power that the NEO GEO MVS could produce, it still stands out as one of the best graphics output for fighting games of the era, even today… Until you try to run the game at a resolution higher than 720p (which is double the original 480p screen output), then things start to get blurry and pixelated to the point where you will want to avoid running the game on anything bigger than a 27-inch monitor of 32-inch TV Screen. The larger the screen, the worse The King of Fighters ’98 Ultimate Match Final Edition is going to look. But what do you expect for a game that is almost 25 years old and hasn’t been remastered from its original format?

Is it ’98 all over again?

The King of Fighters ’98 Ultimate Match Final Edition is one of those games that you need to be hardcore into the Fighting Game Competition scene to pick up and play these days. The gameplay is still in the SNK level, making it extremely tough for new and returning players to play, but at the same time, The King of Fighters ’98 Ultimate Match Final Edition is one of those games that you need to recommend for any fighting game player to play at least once to appreciate the history of The King of Fighters series of games, especially with The King of Fighters XVI coming out in later 2022.

Personally, I think that there were a few more small tweaks to The King of Fighters ’98 Ultimate Match Final Edition that Code Mystics could have done in order to celebrate The King of Fighters ’98 Ultimate Match Final Edition properly, like going back and redoing the sprites and upgrading The King of Fighters ’98 Ultimate Match Final Edition graphics much like Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo HD Remix on the PlayStation 3 or even Ultra Street Fighter 2: The Final Challengers on the Switch did. This would really bring The King of Fighters ’98 Ultimate Match Final Edition into a more modern resolution, allowing its use in Fighting Game Tournaments more attractive. Also, really getting into the baseline balance of the overall game, as they advertised, would have been good so that you don’t get punished into the seventh circle of hell for missing a low kick.

Accepting the Invitation

The King of Fighters ’98  is still an excellent game almost 25 years after release, and The King of Fighters ’98 Ultimate Match Final Edition shows that there is still more to add and bring out of the old rom file. However, it’s still an SNK game, which involves a high barrier of entry and a punishing player base. It’s hard to recommend The King of Fighters ’98 Ultimate Match Final Edition over any other edition that is out there, including any ones you can easily pick up on the digital high seas. But if you want a solid online experience, then The King of Fighters ’98 Ultimate Match Final Edition is the perfect edition for you to pick up and play.

Review Disclosure Statement: The King of Fighters ’98 Ultimate Match Final Edition was provided to us by SNK for review purposes. For more information on how we conduct and handle reviews here, please visit our Review Guideline/Scoring Policy for more info. Thank you

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