The King of Fighters ’96 Neo Geo Collection playthrough (Neo Geo CDZ, English subs)

The King of Fighters ’96 Neo Geo Collection playthrough (Neo Geo CDZ, English subs)

KoF ’96: Neo Geo Collection is an encyclopedia of game lore, featuring several different modes. It was only released in Japan, but you can enjoy an English translated version of the game by turning closed captions on. The main draw is the character profile -here you can ask any of the game’s 29 characters about various things. It’s all fully voice acted and features almost every cast member returning to reprise their roles.

You can thank shmuplations for accepting my commission request for getting this translated into English, so please visit the site, or if you’re on Patreon, please consider supporting::

home

https://www.patreon.com/shmuplations

I’ve also made a shrine for this game on my own site, which contains stuff like box and manual scans:
https://rq87.flyingomelette.com/RQ/KOF96C/1.html

VIDEO CONTENTS:
Opening demo: 0:47
Official story: 2:12
Inside story: 6:05
Character profiles: 9:47
Command list gameplay: 1:24:50
Sound play gameplay: 1:27:02

INSIDE STORY
This is a hidden option, although it’s not very difficult to unlock: Just highlight “Official Story”, then press up or down and the “Inside Story” option will appear.

CHARACTER PROFILE SPECIAL NOTES:
-Sometimes, certain characters won’t answer questions (Geese really doesn’t seem to like interviews). I’ve added the real answers in brackets.

-Monster Maezuka ends his comment with “send me your letters there too!”. This last part is what Choi says when defeated in the games -“otegami choudai!”

-Krauser’s “Guild of Gessenkrieg” line proved to be a massive headache. Just visit this page for the full story:
https://rq87.flyingomelette.com/RQ/KOF96C/kra2.html

-The flub Terry’s VA does appears to be for a take of Terry’s Fatal Fury 3 ending:

-Andy’s voice actor mentions a “Reiko-chan” at 42:01, he’s referring to Reiko Chiba:
https://snk.fandom.com/wiki/Reiko_Chiba

-Joe’s profile is narrated by Mai. His usual voice actor, Nobuyuki Hiyama, must have been unavailable. It’s unknown the real reason Hiyama didn’t voice Joe for his KoF ’96 Collection interview. The most popular theories fans have is that SNK didn’t want to pay him to do it, or there were simply scheduling conflicts and he couldn’t be there (I think the latter is more likely). Something I’ve read is that most of SNK’s voice actors and actresses were Osaka based, whilst Nobuyuki was Tokyo based, so that might have been part of the problem as well.

COMMAND LIST
This mode lets you battle it out with any character, but only for 60 seconds. You can view each fighter’s moves first, then head into combat and take on the CPU (it’ll always be a mirror match). You and your opponent both have infinite health, so the round will always end in a draw.

SOUND PLAY
Whilst this mode offers a sound test (featuring the game’s arranged sound track) it also has several art galleries. Two of them let you view the game’s sprites and backgrounds from the game’s cutscenes. The other two let you view sketches and other artworks of various characters, including some who were not in the final game, or were completely changed -such as an early design for Chizuru at 1:32:17. Some art appears to be concept art for KoF ’97, such as a possible early Shingo design at 1:32:02 and Yashiro at 1:32:06.

I hope all SNK and KoF fans enjoy this!