The Orochi Saga.

The longest and most famous of KOF’s story-lines, it’s often considered the series’ definitive arc. But in a lot of ways, it had to be. It needed to establish a new series, while also finding a place for existing SNK characters to fit within it.

And not just existing fighting game characters. Characters from SNK’s more distant past, like the Ikari warriors, or an updated take on Athena. It’s weird to think about KOF as a crossover nowadays considering how much it’s overtaken SNK’s other series, but there was once a real novelty to seeing Ryo and Terry in the same game(Now we’re at a point where it would be novel to see them return their own games, but oh well).

While the crossover characters would be fleshed out as time went on, the early installments definitely focused more on establishing the newcomers, whether it was the Kusanagi bloodline or the Ikari warriors’ new commander, Heidern, and his ties to the mysterious Rugal.

The fact that they were figuring everything out means there’s plenty of early installment weirdness, like Athena not being a pop idol, or Iori’s insistence on killing all Kusanagis in ‘95 before becoming exclusively Kyo-focused. Or even some design philosophies that would change, like Clark and Ralf not being given grenade supers because the developers thought bringing them to a fighting tournament would be cheating. We were still years out from Whip just straight-up bringing a desert eagle into the ring.

But that early experimentation really shines when it comes to the bosses. People sometimes split the Rugal and Orochi arcs into two different sagas, and I think most of that comes down to most KOF sagas revolving around an organization that’s established early on. The escalation that happens during the Orochi saga is completely unique – Rugal is the ultimate evil, a man who returns from seeming certain death, until it’s revealed he holds only a fragment of power from a sleeping god. It’s a complete shift in antagonists that hasn’t been tried in the series since, most relying on simply moving up the chain of power of each new threat or organization.

Even when the Hakkesshu enter the picture, they’re only barely connected by their shared elemental powers. Goenitz worships Orochi as a priest, but instead of making him a more generic severe and stern sinister holy man, SNK depicts him as relaxed, almost as if having God on his side means he doesn’t have to take things too seriously. CYS is a rock band itself formed by distinctive people from different corners of the globe, Vice and Mature are Rugal’s secretaries in surprise ascended roles, and classic Fatal Fury character Ryuji Yamazaki turns out to be a member – even if he doesn’t particularly care.

Unlike the NESTS bosses who share similar uniforms, or Those from the Past who share demonic forms, it’s hard to associate the Hakkesshu with each other at a glance. Yet, the Orochi saga is also the saga that comes together most cleanly. This is definitely in part because of the difficulties SNK faced during both the NESTS and Ash sagas, don’t get me wrong. But the way the Orochi saga shifted from one threat to another, or how its cabal of villains sometimes clashed, didn’t make it lose focus.

Instead, by having a well-loved villain usurped by a bigger one, and bringing a group of different people together under one overriding evil presence, SNK made Orochi feel that much more powerful. Even if the pre-’96 games are a bit rough, when you step back and look at the saga as a whole, the escalation, the impending threats, somehow all feel effortless. The experimentation of the early days lead to a confident conclusion and feel in ’97 without losing a step.

SNK’s new series was off to a damn good start.