Loving that Dreamcast version with its animated intro and 3D stages.

BEST fighting game still being played on tournaments all over the world in 2018 and beyond.

I love how close the 3D backgrounds in the Dreamcast look to the original ones. They blended very well with the pixel art characters since the game ran in 240p, at the cost of VGA compatibility.

This channel deserves WAY more subscribers and views! Keep up the great work, Retro Core!

I had the Dreamcast version. Still the best version I had.

The best fighting of all time.

Kof 98 is my all time favorite!!! The Ultimate Match is by far the best version!! All the extra characters and extras make it AWESOME!! GREAT VIDEO!!!!

Always loved how snk took time when porting their fighting games to home consoles. Art of fighting, samurai showdown and fatal fury ran great even on the megadrive and snes

This reminds me of my childhood trying to find a non expensive good home version to play. Classic game!

Cheers Mark! The Steam port of KOF '98 Ultimate Match is worth checking out too - it's actually an exclusive update for the PC with tweaks and revisions to the PS2 port in the form of a 'Final Edition'.

Watching the intro start up brought back memories of playing on neoragex and the happy feeling of being able to play at home and for free.

It’s my best fighting game ever, of all time!!!! Thank you 🙏, and as always, good job 👏👍!!!!

My introduction to KoF was KoF 98 on the Dreamcast and I have to say what a way to make a first impression. Well done video man!

WHOW!!! Those 3D background look amazing!

I love 98, but the orochi climax in 97 is my favorite story in all the 90s games. I'm always torn, just shows how great those games were.

Karsten here mate, i thought you stated you would never touch KOF i nbattle of the ports :D glad you did!

Your Battle of the Ports series are always fun to watch. King of Fighters '98 is my favorite in the series. Great job with this episode.

I had turned 10 at the time of the Arcade release! No wonder this was my favorite in the series.

One of my all time favorites. I’ve also owned all of those at one point. Anyways, amazing job as alway. Hope you do all the KOF’s. They all have very interesting ports.

I'm not a big fan of the 3D remake's balance issues, so of course I like the original the most. '98 is one of the best KOF titles overall and I play the AES version on the Neo Geo Arcade Stick Pro. Thanks for the remind, let's fight a few rounds!

Separating the Neo-Geo Arcade and Home versions, that's a first! Well played :D

Great video! One of my top fighters of all time. I owned a Neo Geo CD and this was my only game for a while so my buddies and I played it to death. Similar story when I imported a Dreamcast at launch. Suffice to say we played it a lot. One of the few fighters I can random characters and use them fairly effectively.

The Dreamcast version is my favorite and really got me into SNK games

Another great video comparison!

I really appreciate and Enjoy ur Show, Keep up the Amazing Work

Ultimate Match for me, since it has the characters missing from regular 98 that probably should have been there in the first place (namely Geese, Mr Big and Krauser. Plus Orochi and Goenitz as hidden bosses)

Ohh the ultimate match.....The selection screen music still stuck in my head

I love that intro song

Yes ! Love battle of the ports

I like the Dreamcast version, in spite of the non-VGA. :) (and because that's the one I have... heh.)

AES is my favorite. Also the 360 version was alright since it had online play.

This should be quite an interesting one, since KoF 98 is so damned good.

Amazing BotP! KOF98 is playability at it's best. I miss a Saturn port...it would be fantastic for sure.

Great show as usual.

Arguably the best one....

13:23 - certified Shingo player moment

I really like the 3D backgrounds

This is one of the best KoF

Thanks mah boi!

My favourite KOF! I was waiting when you would do KOF98 mate! Loved it!

Great video i have this game on my Xboxone .

アケアカ NEOGEO all the way.

Another great offering Mark

Ok, this is already an amazing video by the name alone. This game looks so great!!! Did you know that there was a bootleg Genesis version made? Yes, I'm actually series. Look it up!!!

Never had the Neo Geo version or had access to the arcade original. But I got the Dreamcast version shortly after its release and had a ball with it. Probably still have my original saves (and definitely still have my original game). Hell, just talking about it makes me want to fire it up again.

KoF never really jelled with me the way Samurai Showdown did.

Another great video! Surprising no Saturn port but we have a great dream cast port instead. Btw your audio sounded a bit different, but very good. have you upgraded your mixer?

Walk this way, talk this way.

I think i like both the Dreamcast and PS2 versions. i might try this game on my PS2, once i get a working controller for it. i belive i first played this game on a Neo-Geo emulator for the PSP that had it, i do recall enjoying the game.

Still love it. Although my best playing game was KOF'97, there is no denying how great KOF'98 truly is. It played like 97 but brought back everyone from 94-96. It's truly SNK's Marvel vs Capcom 2. Redundacy aside, I still would've liked to see a Saturn port even if just to show up the PS One one last time!! I still have my NGPC and DC link cable. Too bad my SvC: MOTM is MIA... >w< Great installment!

I have the MVS version of this game. I think it's one of the best in the KOF series, though I like 2000 a little more.

BURN KNUCKLE!! POWAA WAVE!!

Hmm my favorite version of this game? Well I have it on Wii's Orochi Saga, PS1, and on 98 UM, so I go with 98 UM due to the extra characters and options not found on the other releases. The DC version seems to use studio vocal samples due to sounding the cleanest, but the music has to restart each and every round, kind of annoying if you ask me.

I was wondering when the next king of fighters game would be

Overall based on extras, closest to original release and game price, the Neo-Geo CD version wins for me.

I wish you could have used original hardware for the dreamcast version.They designed the 3D backgrounds with 240p in mind so they retain the look of the original NeoGeo sprites. It was very unique and had great execution. Great video , regardless.

Also, probably due to being an emulator, but the Dreamcast footage is higher resolution than it’s supposed to be. Particularly the backgrounds.

The absence of a Saturn port is no surprise if you consider that by 1998 and going forward the Saturn was considered a "dead" system and so SNK wouldn't want to waste resources on it. The surprise for me is the absence of a GameBoy port given how SNK has released some KOF games on it, regardless of their chibi thematic. Great video as usual, Mark!

I want to point out that there’s a KOF 98 UM for Xbox Live. There’s no 3D background and no re-arrange soundtrack. But everything else is included. Including the original KOF 98 game.

Pity there was never a Saturn version.

Ah, good ol' The King Of Fighters '98. The best in the eyes of many in the series Mark. I love this game and gladly agree that it is the best for sure. The Neo-Geo AES and MVS are the best choices for me to play it on bro. Nothing against the NGCD version, but it takes too long to load. 8^) If you like, your welcome to also post this on the Neo-Geo thread over there as well bro. Anthony..

I think you missed the PGM2 arcade port from 2009, unless I missed it in there. I've never played the arcade remakes, and probably spent the most time with the dreamcast version. It's my favorite KOF for sure.

I love KoF series and while I can admit 98 is better than the titles it came before, I play 97 whenever I sit down to play some KoF. I can't help myself. Great video as always

I own all the KOF Japanese imports for my ps2.. My favorite by far is KOF 99 and 2002 ultimate collections. 98 is good to. You should do a comparison of King of Fighters 94. The PS2 version has a really cool intro.

Dreamcast my favorite version (^^)

ps2 all day!

You didn't mention the Dreamcast version also has the music restart after every round (like the NeoGeo CD version) and it doesn't cycle through the different times of the day after every round (all versions of each stage exist in the Dreamcast IIRC, it's just that the time of day is fixed to whatever is chosen for Round 1 for all the rounds in a match).

Nice my very first king of fighters game but I got it on ps1 the good thing about it though is that you can set a one button special for faster gameplay. Ps1 controllers have 4 trigger buttons which make it alot easier to do special combo btw theres an Anniversary Edition hack for mame which added the chars from the ultimate match and my fave to play on the go with my tablet.

good choice Rerto Core , you have choosed one of the best KOF and fighting game ever made . anyway the worst version of the game is the psx1 port because of the characters frames messing , and it used the mono sound .

thank you mark it was really a HUUUUGE and great video now wanna know my favourite version of all time it is the one and only THE NEO GEO CD and second it is the dreamcast and third it is the one and lovely playstation 2 port yup this was my top 3 anticipating versions for this game now can you make next week to be real bout fatal fury special please?

Retro Core if you ever do future KOF games you might want to set flash to off. Red and White Strobing lights trigger seizures worse than any other colors. Just a tip for the future

I always preferred 97 myself but.... it's a kof game so all good

I think I like AES the most. Arcade perfect but with some options you could change? Yes please. Are your captured videos in RGB limited (16-235) range while emulation is at RGB full (0-255) range (which is the appropriate choice for KZfaq / computers / smartphones)? The PS2 FreeMCBoot thing someone else mentioned is just a temporary "soft-hack" that involves putting a hacked memory card into your PS2. It doesn't change anything permanently - doesn't involve any hardware mods, or changing any software on the system, or even opening the system up. You just have to use either certain exploits in certain games to then run some software or have someone who already has a hacked PS2 create a hacked memory card for your PS2. Doesn't work in the SCPH-90xxx series though. It's not difficult, risky or expensive to do (you can buy pre-modded memory cards under $10 I believe) and it's no more illegal than using an emulator for a game you don't own. I mean the emulator wasn't that bad for this video but just wanted to try and clear up misunderstanding around FMCB. I do think FMCB would be a little better a solution.

Since you included the Ps2 UM version,you should have included also the IGS KOF98 UM which plays perfect on Mame. Fantastic PS1 port that growed up with it and a big miss from Saturn (because 98 is the best Kof for most people).

0:34 walk this way "homage"? XD

Maaaaark!! Where is the Switch's ACA NEO GEO ver. 😫? That's practically the "ultimate" Arcade Perfect port. Anyways, fantastic content as always. Thanks for your quality!!!!!

Was KOF 98 on the Dream cast called 98 in Japan, or was it Dream Match 99 like in the US?

i Knew it The XBOX360 (XBLA) Version Port of KOF98UM in Game Mode Selection to Play Neo Geo Mode!

I really like the NEO GEO CD port... and the Dreamcast port of course (if you can call it a port of the arcade of course). My Suggestion for the next 'Battle of the Ports' is Trojan by CAPCOM.

Dreamcast Wins!

11:10 >My PS2 can't play unofficial disks How are you using a Playstation 2 in the modern day without Free McBoot? It's the easiest way to load up ISOs from either hard disk or LAN with OpenPS2Loader (I use LAN myself), or from a DVD with ESR. Not to mention that it's getting harder to find classic games these days without resorting to piracy (and before you bring up "the developers" argument, these are old, pirating games on old hardware only keeps money from scalpers), especially combined with how retro collectors tend to act (which is to say that the "Neo-Geo collector" mentality has extended to retro gaming in general), you never know what game might become rare next because of destruction of copies to make a collector retain his/her supposed value. Remember the classic Xbox devkit made into a PC by that one redditor, or the Starcraft Gold source code.

That is so odd, that SNK updated this game 10 year later but than again they did the samething with KOF 94. Is the Dreamcast's anime intro available in the PS2 version?

DAMN no Saturn version!!. Why was '98 remade again in 2008? is it regarded to be the best KOF game or something??

You forgot to mention the character friendliness. on the order select screen, I believe you press start and you'll get icons showing how friendly they are towards each other( red faces being mean- meaning you get no extra stock carried over, to a happy face meaning they'll give you an extra stock). I It's a shame it's a step down from the PS port of 97. I found that 97 had a good amount of frames and good sound- but the downside, like all of them was the really long loading. 98' on DC was certainly the best way to play for a good while until 98UM. It does work under RGB if I recall correctly.

My Dreamcast Kof ‘98 game was packaged as KoF ‘99, complete with all the packaging and disk art. The shop owner where I’d bought it said that the fact that it was ‘98 on the game disk was down to a disk printing error. I’ve no idea if this is true or not though.

Ah my number fighting game of all time. Too bad you forgot 98 Final Edition, which as the name suggest is the last version of KOF98 made, only for Arcades and PC/Steam. Still a great video as always.

Well guess what? I have the Ripoff of the PSP that just plays NES games and I somehow got it into a music maker once. You know. Anyway I got new batteries put in because of the screen dimming for no reason with the Energizer batteries and have now been experimenting with the thing again, and have got it to look like a jumbled mess with random sprites. Which by the way just now I got it mostly white screened with weirdly a grassy ground underneath the boxes to choose if you want to the language to be Chinese or English. I'll get back to playing some Donkey Kong after watching the video of yours.

I have UM on Steam, and the online is pretty good! Also, for the 240p-only Dreamcast games (and games that support 240p natively along 480p like SF3: W-Impact), a proper SCART cable or even a VGA box from BeharBros would work great. The latter, especially since it has a switch to go to 240p/480i out for games like this. So through that, you could output to your Framemeister or OSSC to the capture card.

KOF98UM epic👍

What about the 360 version of KoF 98 UM?

I'm late to the party but no KOF 97? Although I love hearing great things about Saturn Ports, I prefer getting my port comparisons from you.

Good to know PS2 KOF Collection is poor, i was planning to get it one day :) Shame PS One once again got bad port.

I don't know what's with ultra pixelated retro games for big KZfaqrs, the games wasn't looking like that in our old CRT TVs, that's why there are filters in emulators to simulate the look, designers made the games taking in account how the CRT TVs resolution will smooth those sprites...

Dreamcast version is my favorite, however they did improve quite a lot of things in KOF 99 on Dreamcast (my favorite KOF by the way). When playing on real hardware, KOF 98 has two things I dislike : - the resolution of the 3D backgrounds is too low, they don't look so good on CRT - the music resets after each round Both of these points are fixed in KOF 99. On Neo Geo CD, there were too many tracks in KOF 98 for SNK to include each time both the one starting at the beginning, and the arranged version starting in the middle. KOF99 fixes this. However the loading times are quite long, even on CDZ.

@Retro core i own 98 um on ps2 the usa port is a thing

What do you think of the ps4 version?

Really weird SNK Dreamcast games don't support VGA. I got a Dreamcast S-Video cable just for playing SNK games, but it's the only example I can think of where I have to swap cables just to play certain games.

i prefer KOF 97 and KOF 2002 but this one is very good too

Hard to beat the Dreamcast version, let's be real here.

Is the 360 version emulation then?