As previously mentioned, K' was the main character in the NESTS Saga
and Ash was the main character for the Ash Saga
and so, Kyo who used to be the one and only king of fighters started to fade from our minds.
According to the official character description of Kyo-1, a clone of Kyo,
Kyo and Iori were not even planned to appear since the NESTS Saga.
In the case of Kyo, he rescues mankind from Orochi in KOF '97,
but gets captured by NESTS and becomes a test subject.
He escapes from NESTS right away and attempts vengeance,
but it was only a futile struggle by himself.
With NESTS finished with him,
they were not interested in Kyo anymore.
Kyo continuously appears in the NESTS Saga and sustains the storyline,
but all he does is conflict with Iori without much relevance and importance to the story.
And probably because of the lack of ideas for the story,
even his lover Yuki appears out of nowhere.
Not only the story, but in KOF 2002 and 2003
he becomes one of the weaker characters and has become a laughingstock among users
with the nickname 'Kyorash', which is Kyo and trash combined.
Iori, a rival of Kyo who possesses one of the Three Sacred artifacts,
was rivalled only by Kyo in terms of fame until the KOF '98,
but even Iori doesn't get much recognition after the Orochi Saga.
At least NESTS were interested in Kyo's Kusanagi powers and researched them,
but they were not interested in the Yasakani powers at all.
He doesn't have one stable team until the end of the NESTS Saga,
and in KOF 2001 he gets backstabbed,
which is ironically a specialty of his own.
These two characters almost become invisible in the Ash Saga,
and in 2003, they reappear as the Three Sacred artifacts team,
but they just simply watch their teammate Chizuru being attacked.
Iori also gets trifled by Ash and all Kyo could do was just shake with anger.
The KOF XI ends with Kyo being beaten up by Iori gone insane,
and Iori himself loses his powers to Ash, becoming flameless.
In XIII where all teams are invited to take part,
Kyo angrily enters the tournament after being toyed around by Shroom and Rimelo,
And Iori is ridiculed by the Hakkeshu ladies for losing his powers.
Both Kyo and Iori have very good playable qualities in the game,
but while the main character sacrifices his life to save mankind in the dimensional rift,
Kyo and Iori haven't developed at all as they continue fighting until the end.
The boss of KOF '99 Krizalid means chrysalis in French,
apparently symbolizing 'the start of NESTS Saga'
and 'a boss that takes off his clothes after Rugal.'
As a clone of K', he has a similar appearance to Cool of 'The Fallen Angels'
and is used as a one-time character even with its status in the NESTS.
The boss Clone-Zero of 2000 is a clone of Original Zero,
who's the sub-boss of 2001,
so to tell the difference between the two,
we add the prefix clone and original.
Clone-Zero's appearance is based on Han,
a general of the Land of Asura in 'Fist of the North Star'
Actually the designer wasn't happy with the result of Clone-Zero,
so he included a newly-developed Original Zero in the game.
This is why the Original Zero is much more charismatic than the former in appearance
and has a loyal and deep heart unlike any other villain in the KOF series.
The final boss of NESTS, Igniz.
The name is derived from the Latin word Ignis, meaning fire.
He's a handsome and young-looking male who is actually 56 years old,
and this character concept was to adjust to the age of the voice actor.
The actual final boss of the NESTS Saga isn't Igniz,
but an old man created by Igniz's illusion.
This old man is Nests, the creator of NESTS.
Nests was originally planned to fight using a broadsword,
but during the development of KOF 2001 with sponsorship from Eolith,
Eolith had continuously asked for a 'handsome and youthful boss' to the designer in charge,
which led to the design of Igniz.
The final boss Mukai of the Ash Saga is a giant with a height of 2.31m which is about 7.5 feet,
even taller than Chang.
He's designed with a 'petrifying boss' in mind.
However, his original design is said to have a hairstyle like Majin Buu
and yellow light radiating from his body.
The sub-boss Shion of XI was conceptually designed to be one of Ron's daughters in 2003,
but it was rejected, and developers recycled this character to use Chinese martial arts.
Developers also decided to change his gender to a male to startle and appeal to fans.
Magaki is a boss designed to be 'an unappealing character,'
and is actually a reused concept of a character temporarily used in KOF '98.
The final boss Saiki of the Ash Saga is designed to be an 'annoying and loathsome character.'
His way of talking is derived from posts in Japan's community site 2ch.
He ridicules and disregards others and kills his loyal subordinate Mukai without hesitation,
and his lines as he perishes show that the design intentions were met.
The creation of KOF was actually a cross-over between Fatal Fury and Art of Fighting,
so Terry and Ryo were planned to be double protagonists.
However, Kyo is created in the process of adding an original character,
and he makes his way up to the main protagonist.
His original concept was a leader of a gang instead of a handsome high-school fighter.
His original name was Syo Kirishima,
which appeared as a striker for Kyo in KOF 2000.
The Korean team was originally planned to include another prisoner with Chang and Choi,
but circumstances have led to the addition of Kim.
But because the concept of Kim, a hero since Fatal Fury,
siding with prisoners was a little too strange,
So he became a character obsessed with 'rehabilitation.'
Of these characters, Choi resembled Freddy from Freddy's Nightmares so much,
that his design was changed 1 month before the deadline,
but he still had the Freddy outfit in the release video of XIV.
The bosses originally planned for '94 were Geese Howard and Wolfgang Krauser,
but with their plan to create "the mightiest and evilest boss character ever,"
They came up with Rugal Bernstein
with the looks of Wolfgang and skills of Geese.
These two characters actually appear in the ending of 94's Fatal Fury team.
In KOF '97 the one to turn into Orochi wasn't originally Chris,
but Shingo Yabuki,
but this was changed since the main characters were too much centered around Kyo.
In '97 and '98 Shingo takes up a special place in the selection menu,
and Shingo is the only character with a critical hit system.
It is said that in KOF '99, Shingo was again planned to be the boss who's brainwashed by NESTS,
but he was changed again.
The KOF 2001 NESTS team was supposed to include Diana instead of K9999,
but K9999 was added in order to prevent another Women Fighters Team,
and you might all know what happened to him…
The KOF series, with its innovative system of 3 vs 3 matching,
had its golden age until KOF '98.
There was a new change to this system in the NESTS Saga,
the striker system.
With this system, one more player is added to be a striker,
but responses differed highly,
leading many users to secede after KOF '99.
In KOF 2000, this striker system had developed even more
with formation of another striker and striker combo systems.
This caused mass problems such as lack of balance,
unlimited combo, and bugs,
giving the nickname 'The King of Strikers.'
But because this was the last KOF series with the label of SNK,
Another and maniac strikers were massively added
to create 'a dream match for all SNK characters'
and revived the original goal of KOF.
To introduce Another Strikers in KOF 2000 other than Rocky, Kang Baedal, and Syo Kirishima
are Kim Jae Hoon who's Choi Bounge's another striker.
He appeared on Garou: Mark of the Wolves of Fatal Fury.
He is the son of Kim Kaphwan and a serious, diligent man
with a strong sense of justice like his father.
Kim Dong Hwan is the Another striker of Chang,
also a son of Kim Kaphwan and older brother to Jae Hoon.
Unlike his brother, he is lazy despite his talents.
Kim Sue Il is the Another striker for Kim Kaphwan
and is the protagonist of Kizuna Encounter,
and as you can see, he is named after a Taekwondo martial artist Hwang Sue Il
who's famous for being the motion capture model of Hwoarang in the Tekken series.
Yuri Sakazaki's Another striker Nakoruru
is a famous character from the Samurai Shodown series.
Hinako Shijou's Another striker Lilly Kane
is the sister of Billy Kane and has appeared in several Fatal Fury series,
and has joined KOF Maximum Impact 2 as a hidden character.
Ryo Sakazaki's Another striker Kaede is the protagonist of the Last Blade series.
King's Another striker King Lion appears in Savage Reign.
Takuma Sakazaki's Another striker Gai Tendo is the protagonist of Buriki One
and joins the KOF XI as a surprise for fans.
Joe Higashi's Another striker Duck King
has first appeared as a semi-boss in Fatal Fury
and becomes a playable character in KOF XI.
Duck King was a potential candidate to join the KOF '97
in the 'vote to join the KOF from Fatal Fury'
but lost the vote by Blue Mary by a small margin.
From this point, Blue Mary was able to join all series until KOF XI,
but Duck King remained in the background until XI.
The Another striker for Athena is herself from the game Athena,
and the one for Kensou is himself wearing his Psycho Soldier outfit.
Chin Gentsai's Another striker Baitang
has appeared in Real Bout Fatal Fury special in Tung's stage.
Bao's another striker Kaoru Watabe
is a character that has appeared in the endings of the Psycho Soldier team in KOF '97, '98, and '99
as a fan of Athena who couldn't walk due to a disease,
but could walk again by seeing the Psycho Soldier Team and gaining courage.
What a cliché.
Vanessa's Another striker Fiolina Germi
is undoubtedly the famous character from Metal Slug.
Ramon's Another striker Duke Edwards
is the protagonist from SNK's first beat 'em up games Burning Fight.
Shingo's Another striker Cosplayer Kyoko
is designed as a female fan of Kyo,
but she can even use Kyo's moves.
Next, to introduce the Maniac Strikers,
Choi and Chang's Maniacs are Cool Choi and Smart Chang.
Ryo's Maniac G-Mantle is a parody of V for Vendetta by DC Comics
and was the mascot of Neo-Geo.
He was on the background of many SNK games,
but got soon forgotten.
Kasumi Todoh's Maniac Unknown is only unknown by name,
but is clearly Kasumi's father Ryuhaku Todoh,
who has appeared in first volume of Art of Fighting and has become invisible.
Lastly, Ramon's Maniacs Neo&Geo are the two protagonists of SNK's quiz series.
After KOF 2001 you could choose your number of Strikers,
leading to more splendid and quicker gaming,
But the entry barrier got even higher.
The game returned to its 3 vs 3 battles,
deleting the Striker system and adding a multi-shift system
that allowed shifting between characters during battle,
but was criticized by many that 'this wasn't KOF.'
As you can see from KOF XI,
the numbering of years was abandoned
and the series were numbered instead
which allowed more time to spare for development.
The previous tag-system was developed into
quick shift, saving shift, and guard cancel shift.
KOF XII was originally developed to be the final chapter of the Ash series,
but was cancelled mid-way and changed to a Dream Match.
There were many changes in the system,
but the game changed as a whole
with the illustrations and the in-game graphics.
This caused a few characters to lose a bunch of skills and became weaker.
There were few characters,
and users found it difficult to adjust to the new graphics.
However this gave rise to KOF XIII,
which shows a great evolution in graphics.
The game system was made easier
and a new desperation move called Neo Max has left a great impact.
The stories that were almost horrible before was made right by this series
and was supported well enough with the animations,
and the sounds did more than enough for the game.
The 13th series was actually appraised greatly by users,
and by September 2014,
the game was sold over 600,000 copies world-wide
and surpassed KOF 95' in sales that had the highest sales ratings.
However, SNK suddenly recruits 3D designers in its home page
and a video clip is released to the public in the 2015 Tokyo Game Show…
World-wide KOF fans that looked forward to the new series were in rage and despair.
This of course was subject to parodies and mocking,
with opinions that KOF should return to its 13th series.
The first three trailers shocked users into agony,
but future trailers have shown improvements.
Finally KOF XIV has been released in August 23, 2016
in the midst of anticipation and concern,
and there have been varying opinions,
but there are many opinions
that say that the game has been made better than what they had expected.
There are big and small problems to the KOF XIV
such as the mass replacement of voice-actors
and graphics that don't follow the time stream,
but there are positive reviews with the unique advantages of KOF XIV
such as 50 playable characters
and a new style of multi-player system
where six people can each control a character and have a team match.
With the desire that the future series of KOF
will continue its legacy with the 3D graphics,
we will end this 22 stories of the King of Fighters.
Thank you for watching this long series.
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