The King of Fighters '99 - Reception

Reception

In GameSpot's "The History of SNK" article, KOF '99: Evolution was regarded as one of the best fighting game from Dreamcast along with Garou: Mark of the Wolves. However, due to the fact it was released during the PlayStation 2's launch and the Dreamcast's ending, it did not have very good sales. The Dreamcast port from the game received a 67 by Metacritic based on four reviews. Game Rankings gave it a 73.50% and a 75.33% to the PlayStation version, with both ports' percents being based on six reviews.

Various video game publications have commented on the game with GamePro giving it three stars and a half over five. The game was criticized by GamePro because the new gameplay of strikers "simply doesn't fit in the King of Fighters series, though, and is more of a novelty than a game mode." Although they complained on the quality from the PlayStation port, they liked that the loading times became shorter. However, Andrew Seyoon Park of GameSpot found the PlayStation port to be very good considering the limitations from the console. He gave it a 6.6, complaining on the animation and the voices. Additionally, he found disappointing how the number of characters from KOF '98 was reduced, noting also that the boss Krizalid is very hard to beat. The Dreamcast port also received a 6.6 by Park, who found it much better than the PlayStation version, but still found the game disappointing. He noted the striker system to be "clearly derived from the tag system from Capcom's Marvel fighting games" and complained on how there are popular characters who only appears as strikers in the game when he wanted them to be playable. IGN's Anthony Chau gave it a 8.5, commenting that although "people are probably tired of 2D fighting games, saying that they all play the same", he found KOF '99: Evolution to be very distinct. He found the new gameplay to be very entertaining despite knowing some "KOF purists hate the Striker system".