The character portraits, while still by SNK’s house artist Shinkiro, have a much more modern-feeling, cleaner look. The look and feel of The King of Fighters ’99 is quite a bit darker than the other games, which also shows through in the soundtrack. The roster is relatively small, and feels a bit lazy, seeing as how two characters are literally Kyo clones (Kyo-1, who plays like the ’94/’95 Kyo, and Kyo-2, who plays like the ’96/’97 version.) Iori and the “real” Kyo (who has another new moveset and is the version used in all following games) are initially hidden – they weren’t going to be in the game at all, but SNK eventually added them due to popular demand. Other new characters include the sadistic military girl Whip, stupid little kid Bao, Tae Kwon Do master Jhun Hoon, and Chinese girl Xiangfei, the latter of which is taken from Real Bout Fatal Fury 2. The new hero is K’, joined by cyborg grappler Maxima. The King of Fighters ’99 starts the NESTS storyline, a plot of an evil organization who seeks to clone the world’s most powerful warriors and use their DNA for their own nefarious purposes.
