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The King of Fighters '95 (1995)

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The King of Fighters '95 (KOF '95) is a fighting game produced by SNK for the Neo Geo arcade and home consoles in 1995. It is the sequel to The King of Fighters '94 and the second game in The King of Fighters series. It is also the first game in the series to be ported to other home consoles besides the Neo Geo AES and Neo Geo CD thus making SNK a second-party developer, with versions released for the PlayStation, Sega Saturn, and Game Boy.

The game features a similar cast to KOF '94 with the exception of the USA Team, which was replaced by the Rival Team. The plot features a new King of Fighters tournament once again promoted by the criminal Rugal Bernstein, who wants to take revenge against Kyo Kusanagi, who defeated him in last year's tournament. The game also introduces a sub-boss character, Saisyu Kusanagi, who is the father of Kyo. KOF '95 also introduces the fighter Iori Yagami, who becomes Kyo's rival in the series.

One of the main focuses in the creation of The King of Fighters '95 was the introduction of the Rivals Team, most notably Iori, who became one of the favorite characters of the staff. The game has received mixed reviews from various video games publications. Most writers have complained about the response from controls and long loading times from the PlayStation port. However, the introduction of the enhanced version of Rugal, Omega Rugal, as well as the differences among all the characters have been noted to be one of the best parts from the game.

The gameplay and rules are mostly unchanged from The King of Fighters '94. The main addition is the introduction of the Team Edit feature, allowing the player to create a custom team from any of the game's twenty-four characters in addition to the pre-defined teams in the game. Through the main play mode, players must defeat all of the teams from the game in order to fight the bosses: the brainwashed Saisyu Kusanagi, followed by a stronger Rugal Bernstein.

The King of Fighters '95 marks the beginning of a story arc that later became known as the "Orochi Saga". However, the only elements from the Orochi Saga known in this game is the introduction of Kyo's rival, Iori Yagami, and Rugal's use of the snake demon Orochi power.

Rugal Bernstein, thought to have perished in an explosion in the previous game, had in fact survived and sent out invitations to the teams from the previous game signed simply ‘R'. Only one of the previous teams failed to attend the new tournament: the American Sports Team, now replaced by the "Rival Team" consisting of Iori Yagami, Billy Kane (from Fatal Fury: King of Fighters), and Eiji Kisaragi (from Art of Fighting 2). Saisyu Kusanagi, Kyo's father, appears as a fighter for the first time (having made a non-playable cameo in KOF '94) as a computer-controlled sub-boss character. After defeating Saisyu in the arcade mode, it is revealed that Saisyu was being brainwashed and that Rugal will fight once again as a boss character, but as an enhanced version named "Omega Rugal".