Kyo Kusanagi - Reception

Reception

Kyo's character has received praise and criticism from several video game publications and other media. The website IGN's writer A.E. Sparrow, has commented that Kyo is one of the most enjoyable to play in the King of Fighters series praising his dynamism of his moveset and fighting style. In another review, they considered him as one of the most useful characters from the games and one of the best ones for the "veteran players". However, they lamented the fact that Kyo has a few appearances in the volume from the manhua The King of Fighters 2003 in comparison to Ash Crimson, who the series is more focused. His recurring interactions with Iori Yagami during fights were commented to be appealing despite the fact English gamers are not able to understand them as well as to add depth to the games, even though some lack a storyline. The ending of Kyo in The King of Fighters '97 has been considered by 1UP.com as one of the strangest parts of the story. However, they considered Kyo's winning pose as the best one from the series. Damien McFerran of Virtual Console Reviews considered Kyo one of the most excellent creations from The King of Fighters series, as well as the most original one. Lucke M. Albiges Eurogamer praised Kyo along Iori to have one of the most unpredictable appearances in the series, and considered him a veteran character. In a retrospective view of the series' debut, Videogamer.com called Kyo one of the most popular video game characters from Japan. GameSpot has criticized the addition of the Kyo clones in The King of Fighters '99, commenting they do not add new things to the game since they share most of the moves that the original Kyo has.

Kyo has been well-received by gamers, with his character appearing in several popularity polls. In Gamest's 1997 Heroes Collection, Kyo was voted as the staff's second favorite character, placed behind his rival, Iori. In a 2005 poll made by SNK-Playmore USA, he was voted as the sixth fan favorite character with a total of 176 votes. Additionally, in the January 30, 1995 issue of Gamest magazine in Japan, Kyo was featured at No. 4 in the "Top 50 Characters of 1994". In the character popularity poll on Neo Geo Freak's website, he was voted as the third favorite character with a total of 2,574 votes. For the special endings in The King of Fighters '97, three video games journals, Gamest, Famitsu and Neo Geo Freak, had to create a team composed of three characters from the game so that they would be featured in an image after passing the arcade mode. The Neo Geo Freak's team created a team composed of Kyo, Mai Shiranui and Billy Kane. The special ending only appears in Japanese versions of the game. In a ASCII Media Works poll in which fans voted selected whose video game or manga character would like to name their children after, Kyo's name was tenth in the male category. Kyo's Japanese voice actor, Masahiro Nonaka, related greatly with his character as being young and reckless until he "grew up" in his later appearances although he later expressed some difficulty accepting Kyo on the same level. Merchandising based on Kyo's appearance has also been released. Yutaka released an articulate action figure and a puzzle from Kyo of KoF '97. With the release of new video games from the series, SNK developed new action figures as well as key-chains.