Play King of Fighters 1996 Online

Game Overview

Okay, so King of Fighters '96 is that perfect middle ground where SNK's fighting series started getting really good, but before the mechanics got too complicated. You've got your usual team battles—pick three fighters and try not to get wrecked—but this is where the series started tightening up the controls and adding those little dashes and rolls that make fights feel way more fluid than before.

The roster's wild, mixing classic Fatal Fury and Art of Fighting characters with some new faces. I always end up picking Terry Bogard because, come on, he's Terry, but then I get wrecked by someone using Iori's insane flame combos. The Neo Geo pixel art still holds up too—those super moves look brutal even now.

It's not as polished as later KOF games, but there's something raw about this one. You can tell SNK was figuring things out, and that makes it weirdly fun to go back to. Just don't expect to button-mash your way through; the AI will wreck you if you don't learn the timing.