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[The King of Fighters 94]

The King of Fighters 94

The King of Fighters '94 (officially abbreviated KOF '94) is a 1994 fighting game released by SNK for the Neo Geo arcade and home console. It is the inaugural game in The King of Fighters series by the same company. The game was originally ported to the Neo Geo AES and Neo-Geo CD following its original arcade release. In 2004, to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the series, SNK released a remake titled The King of Fighters '94 Rebout, which featured the original game and a new version with high definition graphics.

The game is a fictional crossover featuring characters from SNK's previous fighting game properties Fatal Fury and Art of Fighting, as well as revised versions of characters from their pre-Neo Geo games Ikari Warriors and Psycho Soldier, and original characters created specifically for the game. The plot features the creation of a new King of Fighters tournament created by the criminal Rugal Bernstein, but this time with teams composed of three members unlike the ones from Fatal Fury, which had no teams.

Unlike it's sequels, in KOF '94 you can not choose individual characters.  You simple choose a preset 3 man team and then you can choose your character order.

Button Layout

If you want to be a Neo-Geo purist, then your button layout for KOF '94 will use the classic Neo-Geo style layout:
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 ○  
   
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To kick in new school it's best to use the 'capcom' button scheme.  I believe this is what most players use nowadays, and makes things a little easier.
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Input

= 8 = up
= 2 = down
= 6 = forward
= 4 = backwards
= 9 = upforwards
= 7 = upback
= 3 = down forward
= 1 = down back

= quarter circle forward (d, df, f = 236 motion)
= quarter circle back (d, db, b = 214 motion)
= half circle forward (b, db, d, df, f = 41236 motion)
= half circle back (f, df, d, db, b = 63214 motion)

= LP
= LK
= HP
= HK

c. = crouching
sf. = standing far
sc. = standing close
j. = jumping
hold X, then X = Charge move notation
   
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Movement

Walking
Holding or   makes your character walk left or right.
It is better to think of walking in terms of walking 'towards' or 'away' from your opponent.
So if you are player 1, when the round starts,   will have you walk towards your opponent.
If you are player 2, when the rounds starts   will have you walk away from your opponent
This guide will assume you are on player 1's side as the round starts.

Crouching
  will make your character crouch, while crouched you can not walk unless you are using a fatal fury character.

Crouch Walking
Fatal Fury characters in KOF '94 can slowly inch their way towards the opposition while crouched.  To perform this simple hold  

Jumping
will make your character jump straight up, this is often called a 'neutral jump'.  You can also jump towards your opponent with   and you can jump away from your opponent with  

Dashing
Quickly inputting  , will have your character quickly dash towards your opponent, it's almost a tiny fast hop.  You can also do a retreating back dash by quickly inputting  
I might add that this dash mush be inputted very quickly for it to come out.

Attacking

Normal Attacks
Normal attacks have three variations:  standing, jumping and crouching.
- Light punch
- Light Kick
- Strong Punch
- Strong Kick

It might be noted that sometimes it's only important to differentiate between punches and kicks and not their strengths.  In these cases P will represent   or   and   will represent   or  

Command Normals
These are 'extra' normal attacks, performed by a button press + a direction
Examples:
Kyo's Axe Kick :  +
Kyo's Geshiki: Naraku Otoshi :  + in the air

Body Tosses
At close range you can throw the opponent in either direction:
+ or  + at very close range
will throw the opponent in the direction chosen.

High Damage Attack
Pressing  + will result in a high damage attack.  
This attack knocks then enemy back and can be done while standing or jumping.

Special Moves
These moves are 'special' because each one has unique properties.  Special moves generally involve some kind of stick movement and then a button press.
Examples:

+P is a projectile attack for Kyo, Terry, Ryo and others.
Hold , then  +P is the command for Terry's Rising Tackle.
+ while close is Ralph's Super Argentine Back Breaker, it's a more powerful throw, but a special move nonetheless.

Meter
While building meter isn't an attack per say, the only way to utilize your meter is by unleashing a powerful MAX attack, so I think it falls under the offense category.
There are two ways to charge your meter:
Firstly you gain meter by taking damage, this is very slow.
Secondly by holding  + + you can, like Goku, charge up your meter.  This meter charging method is very fast.

MAX moves
MAX moves are KOF's equivalent to Street Fighter's Super moves.  After your meter is fully charged you can unleash a very powerful MAX move.  MAX moves can also be performed at will when you have such low life that your life bar is flashing.  These moves have complex and varied motions to execute them. some examples are as follows:

Ryo's RyuukoRanbu :   +
Andy's ChoReppadan : hold  , then   + +
King's Illusion Dance :   + +

Dizzying
If you pummel your adversary enough, they will go 'dizzy' and green crescents will materialize and dissipate above their head.  In this state your opponent is at your will and is completely defenseless.
I will up date the properties of dizziness, i.e. what exactly causes it and weather it's duaration is variable.  I will post updates after some expirimentation

Assist Attack
When you do eventually get dizzy you can call in a teammate from the background to jump in and attack your opponent.  This is performed by pressing  + + while dizzy.  Properties of this attack will be further elaborated on.

Taunt
While not offensive in nature, I suppose the taunt is an offensive mind game which is, for the most part pointless.  To be a dick and perform a taunt press   while the stick is centered and your enemy is on the opposite side of the screen.

Defending

Blocking
Holding   will allow you to block high.  You can block low by holding  .
Blocking will negate all damage done except from special and MAX moves.  Special and MAX moves cause chip damage when blocked.
Some moves must be blocked low, and conversely certain moves (namely jump-ins) must be blocked high to be successfully blocked.

Attack Avoidance
Attack Avoidance can be performed by pressing  + .  Also called the 'lean', this is a move that makes you temporarily invulnerable to all attacks.  Although Attack Avoidances are invulnerable at first, just like any other move they contain recovery frames which leave you vulnerable to the opponent's attacks.

Combo System
- With the opponent on the ground, jump ins can combo into standing normals.
-Standing normals can combo in to certain other standing normals
-Standing normals can be canceled into Special moves or MAX moves.
-Because of the simple nature of the combo engine, many of your bread and butter combos will
involves something like Jump in  ,  + , , , special move.  These seem to be B&B combos in tournament videos I've scene and so I imagine they are effective.