CHARISMATIC COMBATANTS

Well before the first game in the series had its name, even before it was a team-based fighting game, it had its character concepts. The series has its roots in a pitch called ‘Survivor’, a scrolling beat-’em-up that would have united the stars of the and series. Though that never came to pass, the concept of a crossover between SNK’s popular characters remained, and became . The first game in the series featured plenty of characters from those two popular fighting game series, but also drew on SNK’s history, with teams featuring and too. There were even original characters – the American sports team and the heroic Japanese team, led by series protagonist Kyo Kusanagi, as well as the infamous final boss Rugal Bernstein.