King of Fighters '96 Combo Info

Last Update: Aug 13th, 1996

Right now there's not any "solid" combo information here, but instead my first opinions, thoughts, theories and such about combos. Please remember that I'm fairly new to the King of Fighters arena and so many of my observations may be pretty obvious to some people.

Juggling

Juggling can be done in KOF96, but I'm not sure which or which kinds of moves can juggle. It would seem that everything can.

A common Leona tactic is to catch you with that nasty Plasma Ball thing that she does while you're jumping. Once this happens she jumps up in the air, while you're getting nailed by the Ball and attacks you again. I've seen normal attacks hit with this "technique" and also her Super Move (one of the highest damage combos I've ever seen!)

Buffering Moves

Buffering moves in KOF96 is done a lot differently from the standard Street Fighter way of doing it. The timing is a lot different.

In Street Fighter (sorry to diverge here) two button presses must be done at the right times within the one motion. A perfect example of this would be this three hit combo:

Jump+Kick,d+Kick,DP+Punch (substitute whatever game you want into this scenario I think the only game that doesn't have a combo like this is Mortal Kombat -- and that's their problem)

In Street Fighter (sorry KOF fans) this move would be executed in the following way:

Example: Ken

  1. Jump in and hold Forward while you're jumping
  2. Attack with Roundhouse while you're in the air
  3. Joystick goes to Down position for a Forward Kick on the ground
  4. Joystick goes to DownForward position and press Fierce to complete the uppercut motion
This whole example, in Street Fighter, must be done very quickly. The Dragon Punch motion (F,D,DF) is accomplished in Steps 1, 3, and 4; the button presses are just added at the proper times.

This Buffering method is not necessary in King of Fighters '96 (although I'm sure it would probably work)

Example: Terry

  1. Jump in and kick, no need to hold any button
  2. Press Down and hit D
  3. When the kick connects, then quickly do the DP motion and press C
Do you see the difference? This combo would come off as: Jumping D, Crouching D, C Rising Tackle and would work quite nicely actually.

The moral of the story is, it seems King of Fighters gives you a lot more leniency when you execute combos. This buffering technique works, even if the combo is blocked. (Which can get you into some trouble if you turn a blocked D into a tall Rising Tackle!!!!)

More information to come later, as well as some actual combos (whooooooo!!!) =)