The King of Fighters '94 (KOF '94) is a 2D fighting video game produced by SNK in 1994, released on the Neo Geo MVS arcade system, AES and CD home consoles.

In 2004, to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the series, SNK released a remake subtitled Re-Bout for the PlayStation 2, with higher resolution graphics and 3D environments.

The basic gameplay system of KOF '94 is similar to SNK's previous games like the Fatal Fury series, Art of Fighting and Samurai Shodown.

As with most other fighting games, each character has a set of basic, unique, and special moves that can be performed by the player with a specific series of joystick and button inputs.

The players can also access their character's Super Move when the life gauge is 75% empty and flashing red like in Fatal Fury 2.

Taunting an opponent can reduce their power gauge, slow down their manual charging, and stop them from reaching the maximum level.

If a character is losing a match against the opponent, then the player can call one of the remaining teammates standing on the sidelines to jump in and perform a support attack.

[1] Rugal Bernstein, a notorious and ruthless but skilled and influential black market weapons and drugs dealer bored of the lack of competition, he decides to host a new King of Fighters tournament after the previous K.O.F.

At the tournament's conclusion, Mature, Rugal's personal secretary, invited the Japan team to fight their final match within Black Noah.

It is there when Rugal revealed the true purpose of his tournament: defeat the winning team and add them to his grisly collection of previous challengers who were turned into statues.

[4] According to an interview with veteran designers of The King of Fighters series, the prototype version of the game was a Double Dragon-style side-scrolling beat 'em up, titled Survivor.

It would only use core characters from the Art of Fighting and Fatal Fury series, specifically allowing players to play Robert Garcia and Terry Bogard for location testing.

[8] SNK artist C.A.C Yamasaki commented that although the lead programmer thought the game would not sell well, he believed it would eventually become popular.

[9] The SNK staff also had troubles with advertising the game due to a lack of money and some of their ads were noted to be of a poor quality.

[10] Kuwasashi expressed pressure about creating a young lead who would clash with veteran fighters but still thought it would beneficial for sales.

After several discussions, the staff decided to creat the new hero Kyo Kusanagi with the idea of a more realistic fighter than the ones seen in other fighting games due to his younger age, relationships and stylish clothes.

[12] Masahiro Nonaka was inspired by the late musician Yutaka Osaki when voicing Kyo in order to give him an appealing personality despite initial doubts.

[16] The English Team was composed of King from Art of Fighting along with Billy Kane and Big Bear from the first and second Fatal Fury games.

Designers had several problems with Big Bear concerning capacity and the Art of Fighting staff insisted on adding Yuri Sakazaki to KOF.

Yuri replaced Billy Kane, and later Mai Shiranui took Big Bear's place to form the England Team (later known as Women Fighters in the following games).

[22] Tanabe and his team worked to properly balance the cast through trial-and-error although they intentionally made Heidern one of the most overpowered characters.

A remake, titled The King of Fighters '94 Re-Bout, was released for the PlayStation 2 in Japan only on December 28, 2004, commemorating the tenth anniversary of the franchise.

[1] According to IGN's Jeremy Dunham, the game "was essentially a cross between Fatal Fury and Art of Fighting," with a faster control response.

[52] Reviewing the Virtual Console release, Dan Whitehead of Eurogamer identified the use of characters from multiple franchises and the Team Battle Mode as the most distinctive points.

[55] Maximum similarly called it "the first beat-em-up to offer more than the Street Fighter series" and said that the game "helped spearhead the SNK renaissance".