The rooster is amazing, gameplay is absolutely perfect, and one of my favorite looking game in the series. King of Fighters 98' is one of the best fighting games to be made. No matter how many times I get beaten by some Brazilian with no wire but somehow a smooth connection I keep coming back.

Within the King of Fighter timeline this is a non canon game story wise, called a dream match within the series. Usually every saga ends with one, and this game is no different. This games comes at the end of the Orochi saga and encompasses pretty much everything in it.

The gameplay is mostly all of the mechanics introduced in each game in the saga mashed together with some tweaks. Contains from my memory every character introduced in the saga as well, to make a whole 38 character rooster was the biggest the series had ever saw. The main addition to the gameplay is the advantage system. When you loses a match you gain a point towards whatever advantage mode you chose. There are two you can chose, ADV or EX. In ADV you would gain a power stock and in EX your super gauge decreases.

This adds an good amount of variety too the gameplay, giving a single character more ways to approach it. The rest of the gameplay is absolutely tight and responsive. The movement feels fluid thanks too the amount of options they give and the animation. There's a good reason why the a active competitive scene still exist around the game.

The presentation is as good as the gameplay. Backgrounds are also good in SNK, with an crazy amount of detail put into them. This game baring XIII and XI has the best in kof. My favorites are the middle east street, Korean, and USA stages. The character animation has so much impact in each move. When you hit someone it feels like it hurt. The supers and moves are flashy and look awesome. Maybe a little tooo flashy because I swear the effects are loud enough to be able to give someone a seizure. Another thing is the ui isn't the most amazing looking, just kinda meh.

I love how upbeat the soundtrack, really feels like a celebration. Pretty sure most of the tracks are remixes of tracks from other games, my favorite is always Stormy Saxophone. I really love the bass in Blue Mary's Blues or the nasty guitar in C62. Out of all the Kof games on the MVS this has the best ost. Even the sound effects used are great.

While the story is non canon because it is a dream match, the character iteration make up for that. The amount of team combinations packed into the game is insane. Each of them containing custom character art. With every version of this game they added new ones combos too.

The whole game feels the a celebration of King of Fighters to that point. Everything about this game makes me smile as a fan of the series. So much love and fan service was put into it. Cheers to the team America inclusion too!!