Super Fighters S (超級格鬥S), later re-released as Super Fighters 99, is an unlicensed Game Boy Color game directly based on The King of Fighters developed by Vast Fame and initially released in the late 90s. It is heavily based on the official The King of Fighters '97 game, with its character roster being taken from that game. Its gameplay takes design cues and uses the engine from Takara's official The King of Fighters Game Boy ports.
Unlike the official The King of Fighters Game Boy games, the character roster is actually split up into teams instead of having random characters from every team. The only ones not set to teams are Iori and Shingo, who did not have teams in The King of Fighters '97. The roster are as follows:
Team selection menu of Super Fighters 99
Hero/Esaka team: Kyo, Benimaru, and Goro.
Kyokugen team: Ryo, Robert, and Yuri.
Fatal Fury team: Terry, Andy, and Joe.
Women Fighters team: Mai, Chizuru, and King.
Ikari Warriors team: Leona, Ralf, and Clark.
Psycho Soldier team: Athena, Kensou, and Chin.
Korea team: Kim: Choi, and Chang.
New Faces/Orochi team: Yashiro, Shermie, and Chris.
'97 Special team: Yamazaki, Billy, and Blue Marry.
Single entrants: Iori and Shingo
Additionally, Rugal serves as the final boss, despite not appearing in the official The King of Fighters '97. The game's intro is based on The King of Fighters '98 with alterations to exclude characters not present in The King of Fighters '97.
Gameplay of Super Fighters 99
While many of the characters are taken from the previous official King of Fighters and RealBout Garou Densetsu Special ports done by Takara, several of them have new sprites that were designed specifically for this game and do not appear in any of the official Game Boy ports.
The gameplay engine used is Takara's original engine used in their official The King of Fighters ports. Specifically, the version used originates from the Game Boy bootleg hack The King of Fighters '97, a hack of Takara's Nettou The King of Fighters '96 with strong ties to Vast Fame, the developers of Super Fighters S. All gameplay aspects, including team/single options, is the same as those found in Takara's original games with the exception of link play, which was removed.
Trivia[]
This game technically has support for the Super Game Boy, and displays a unique border when played on the add-on. At least on original copies exclusively using the Super Fighters S (not Super Fighters 99) name in-game, a programming oversight prevents the game from displaying graphics after the initial monochrome logo screen, although the game will still run code by this point, being able to accept user input and play sounds. It is unknown if other versions fix this issue.
Gallery[]
The King of Fighters 2002 cartridge.
Complete copy of the Taiwanese release.
Back of the Taiwanese release's box.
English cartridge of Super Fighters S. Despite the different label the game itself is completely unchanged from the Taiwanese release.
