Twenty-seven playable characters, i.e., nine teams of three characters, are available, and you can also have the game unlock the two hidden characters from the options menu. The roster is classic KoF, obviously: expect to see the Fatal Fury team, including my favorite KoF character of them all, Joe Higashi, and other teams including the Heroes, Rivals, Women, Kim, Psycho Soldier, Art of Fighting, and even the boys from Ikari Warriors are here.
A smooth digital manual covers all of the included modes and the backstory, and a Command Reference is available at anytime during play in the pause menu. You can make a realtime save of your game as well, right in the middle of a match, which is a nice touch. Replays can be saved for later viewing, although I saw no way to share replays or view replays from others over the PSN, which is too bad.
Other settings and options between the NEOGEO Station interface and the game itself include toggling original bugs, choosing from four different wallpaper images, altering the aspect ratio, and enabling scanlines. About the only option missing I would have liked to have seen would be unlimited continues — players only get five continues, no more, meaning I’ll likely never stick with this game long enough to beat it.
KoF ’95 does feature online play — you’re able to create your own matches or join others, and the net code worked smoothly. It didn’t help me win, but at least it was technically sound, hah. The KoF series has more than a decade’s worth of fans, so I don’t think finding people to play online will be much of a problem.
As far as presentation, other than the initial loading time of the NEOGEO Station, SNK did a fine job. The inclusion of the Sound Player in the Station menu is nice, allowing you to listen to the background music of the game; the Sound Player interface is cool looking, with a lot of visualizations.
Overall, KoF ’95 is a classic, and SNK didn’t do anything to disrupt that with the PSN release.