We’ve covered A all the way to M, but what about the rest of the letters? Patience, grasshopper. We’re now at….

N is for N.E.S.T.S

A scientific group led by a bunch of shady people in neat uniforms hell bent on ruling the world by, wait for it, creating an army of flamethrowing humans, blowing up part of the world using a super cannon powered up by people’s fighting spirits, and creating a Tetsuo rip-off. Project overseers include the K’ super-hyper clone named Krizalid, a cloak-full-of-sharp-blades and shadow farting attack Zero, and another white haired cloak-full-of-sharp-blades old geezer called Original Zero. He’s so geriatric (or cheap, take your pick), he requires the aid of a black lion, a ninja, and another Krizalid clone to help him out.

Fed up with such half-baked plans that probably spawned off too much substance abuse and subsequently caused the failure of the aforementioned overseers, one of the top officers of N.E.S.T.S named Igniz says “f*** it”, kills off the group’s equivalent of the board of directors, and takes whatever fighting data they acquired all to himself. Thus the explanation of  how the final boss of KOF 2001 ends up with far too many overpowered moves and can proceed to juggle your ass with just a QCF+ Hard Punch until you are deader than a coffin nail.

On that note, notice the orderly names of the N.E.S.T.S bosses? Krizalid, Zero, and Igniz. Clever word play and birth symbolism, SNK.

O is for Osaka

Alternate picture: Ayumu Kasuga

The base of KOF’s developers and creators, the 1978-founded SNK (now called SNK Playmore) is located in Osaka. Not only was the company arcade pioneers that stood alongside and competed with Sega, Capcom, and Konami, but also were the producers of the “bigger is better” Neo Geo systems, which to this day still rake in big money due to collectors shelling out a lot of money for these now-cartridge-antiques.

What the hell does SNK stand for again? “Shin Nihon Kikaku, or “New Japan Project”. SNK sounds better than NJP, anyway. I don’t know why.

P is for Pocket, Neo Geo

The ill-fated portable gaming system has a lot of ties with King of Fighters, mostly due to the fact that SNK did right with just two buttons to use in their line of “miniaturized” fighting games like KOF R-1 & SNK Gals Fighters. Even with a top-notch library, it tanked due to low sales and a restricted retail release (in Japan and Hong Kong). Kinda like the Virtual Boy’s life cycle, only with much better games and no actual headaches.

Q is for Quiz Games

As Japan is notorious for their franchises to have bonus games sold separately to devoted fans with a lot of money to burn, King of Fighters is no different. Quiz King of Fighter has you rolling dices and moving space by space. Each space has either trivia question events testing your l33t KOF knowledge, with each correct answer resulting in an on-screen attack from your avatar of choice.

Not only was it pretty pointless in terms of gameplay, there wasn’t even popular KOF stars Kyo and Iori in sight to serve as motivation to slog through the countless Japanese katakana and kanji. It’s definitely an avid collector’s must-have, nothing more.

R is for Rivalry Of Epic Proportions

Admit it. This made you wet when you saw this for the first time.

To say that Capcom is SNK’s competitive other half is an understatement. From making jabs at one another with their respective fighters (Ryo, Robert, Dan, and Yuri, among others) to even teaming up five times (Capcom Vs. SNK 1 & 2, SNK Vs. Capcom SVC Chaos, SNK Vs. Capcom: Match of the Millenium, and SNK Vs. Capcom: Cardfighter’s Clash), these clashes made all fans of the fighting game genre the happiest of clams. Finally, dream matches like Ryu vs. Iori or Chun-Li vs. Mai Shiranui were made possible thanks to said joint collaboration.

S is for Super Ultra Hidden Moves

With great power comes great special effects and complicated movesets. KOF introduced the “Quarter Circle Back, then Half Circle Forward + Punch or Kick” input and the reverse version of it to fighting fans. Once players got used to it, executing them is just a matter of “getting the motion”. To this day, even the infamous Geese’s Raging Storm input (Down Back, Half Circle Back, Down Forward) still remains consistent ever since Fatal Fury Special made the blonde ambitious evil businessman playable.

Not only were these moves plentiful, Super versions of these Super moves are only accessible through strict criterias (lifebar must be at Critical, you must be at MAX! Mode, etc.). Thus the risk/payoff style of doing hard-hitting moves play a part in devising a strategy for combo-assaulting opponents.

On that note, each character’s Hidden Secret Moves can get exaggerated and flashy, but I’ll let the video below do the talking.

T is for Twenty-Seven Entries

Yes, you heard right. There are now twenty seven games total in the King of Fighters franchise (excluding ports and compilations). To recap, there’s ’94 to XII, six portable titles for the Neo Geo Pocket and Nokia N-Gage, three 3D fighting games which arguably set the path for Capcom’s 2D-with-3D Street Fighter IV, three miscellaneous non-fighting entries, two “reinventions” of KOF 2002, and a reinvention of fan-favorite ’98. Phew!

We’re almost at the end of the alphabets, ladies and gents. Stay tuned for the finale’: it may surprise or educate you. As a bonus for reading this, here’s some random artwork I found online, brought to you by the letter “R”. Cheesecake ahoy!