King of Fighters '94: Team Edit Edition

KOF94TE is a ROM hack for the Neo Geo game King of Fighters '94

All King of Fighters games allow you to pick a custom team of three characters ... except King of Fighters '94. This hack adds in the team edit feature. Finally Choi, Mai and Heidern can fight together!

Character select screen

A full on character select screen modeled after KOF95, and with two types of random select.

Member order select screen

Order select screen same as before

Game play

Custom teams in gameplay

Cutscene

Custom teams in cutscenes

Fight against Rugal

Custom teams fighting Rugal

Win screen

Win screens show the custom team that won

Continue screen

Continue screens show the custom team that lost

Japanese and Spanish

The hack fully works in English, Spanish and Japanese. I do not understand Japanese or Spanish, so I possibly made mistakes for those languages. If you find one, please let me know and I will fix it.

Using Rugal

Rugal is accessible via debug dip 1-4. This is almost identical to how the original game works.

Turning on debug dip 1-4

First, turn on debug dip 1-4.

Rugal focused in the character select screen

Then choose him as your character. You can get his alternate palette by choosing him with C or D.

Picking full form Rugal in the order select screen

To get regular Rugal, choose him with A in the order select screen. To get second form Rugal, move the arrow so it is above slot 2 or 3 then press A. They will stay empty, that is expected.

Once he is chosen, turn off debug dip 1-4, otherwise both characters will be invincible in the fight.

Why isn't Rugal a normal character?

In the original game, Rugal is only accessible via the same debug dip. I decided to take that route with the hack as well. It boils down to he's just the boss and missing things needed to be a full fledged character:

  • His normal form has no specials, DMs, or even a throw.
  • He has no charging animation in his normal form. Pressing ABC just makes him disappear.
  • He lacks a win portrait.
  • He can't be setup on the continue screen.
  • He corrupts palettes in his full form.
  • His transformation cutscene runs after defeating his first form.
  • He does a ton of damage and takes little damage. Using him in versus mode matches is pretty lame.

Release Notes

Version 0.10.1

Lots of work on the cutscene before Rugal and the ending.

Changes

  • Cutscene before Rugal now fully works.
  • The hack's ending is now in place. Although it might get better.
  • The "hack not done yet" message was removed. Hold start during character select to see the hack's version.

Known Issues

  • The group portrait after the credits is all messed up.

Version 0.9.2

Team random select: the left random box is character random select, just like in most KOFs. The right box is team random select, it will randomly choose one of the 8 established teams.

Changes

  • Team random select

Known Issues

  • The second and third cutscenes are still not correct.
  • Endings are not correct.

Version 0.8.2

Alternate colors now shown in chosen team avatars

This was a big change. So there might be bugs I missed.

Changes

  • When your chosen character shows up down below the character select screen, their color choice is now shown. So say you choose Terry with C or D, he will be shown down below in his purple hat and vest.Alternate colors shown for your chosen charactersSo here player one has chosen alternate Terry and Kim.

Known Issues

  • The second and third cutscenes are still not correct.
  • Endings are not correct.

Version 0.7.0

Fixes to the continue screen

Changes

  • The character who lost the match is now in the center of the continue screen.
  • When continuing, the character who lost the match is the one who yells out.

Known Issues

  • The second and third cutscenes are still not correct.
  • Endings are not correct.
  • Choosing alternate colors for a character is not reflected in the chosen team avatars at the bottom of the character select screen. For example choose Terry with D. He actually has his purple vest and hat, but in the chosen team avatar, he has his red hat and vest.

Version 0.6.0

Mostly bug fixes. Rugal is now usable by turning on debug dip 1-4. See the "Using Rugal" section above for more info.

This release involved a big clean up of the code, so there may be bugs I missed.

Changes

  • Rugal selectable via debug dip 1-4.
  • The CPU's chosen team is shown once it is picked in the lower part of the character select screen. This matches what KOF95 does.

Known Issues

  • The second and third cutscenes are still not correct.
  • Endings are not correct.
  • Choosing alternate colors for a character is not reflected in the chosen team avatars at the bottom of the character select screen. For example choose Terry with D. He actually has his purple vest and hat, but in the chosen team avatar, he has his red hat and vest.

Version 0.5.2

Several improvements, most notably random select. It works just like KOF98's random select.

Changes

  • Random Select
  • Win quotes for both single and versus play are now all correct
  • First cut scene is now correct

Known Issues

  • The second and third cutscenes are still not correct.
  • Endings are not correct.
  • Choosing alternate colors for a character is not reflected in the chosen team avatars at the bottom of the character select screen. For example choose Terry with D. He actually has his purple vest and hat, but in the chosen team avatar, he has his red hat and vest.

Version 0.4.1

This is a tiny release. It fixes the regressions that got introduced into the player cursors. Regressions bug me. Bonus, the cursor also wraps the avater better, so it looks nicer.

Changes

  • Fix the palette cursors
  • Haved player cursors wrap around the avatar better
  • Bump down the character grid a couple pixels

Known Issues

Same as last release.

Version 0.4.0

A small release that is more about pushing the latest out to correspond with the YouTube update video I just to published.

Changes

  • Some work on the cutscene before Rugal. Your custom team shows up ... sometimes :) And the cutscene dialog is all wrong. Lots more work to do here.
  • Changed Rugal to his KOF95 avatar instead of KOF98

Known Issues

Same as last release.

Version 0.3.3

A small release that fixes some bugs around continuing and the palettes. A single player playthrough should now fully work, including if you continue.

Changes

  • Continuing no longer causes the long delay
  • Continuing now re-fights the defeated team as it should.
  • When a second player challenges in the middle of a single play run, the greyed out teams are un-greyed during the versus char select. Once it goes back to a single player game, the defeated teams grey out again.
  • Continuing shows who the cpu team is in the char select screen
  • Greyed out teams in char select no longer have palette problems.

Known Issues

  • The cutscenes and endings have seen no work so far, they use one of the pre-established teams and have bugs in them.
  • Choosing alternate colors for a character is not reflected in the chosen team avatars at the bottom of the character select screen. For example choose Terry with D. He actually has his purple vest and hat, but in the chosen team avatar, he has his red hat and vest.

Version 0.3.1

The main feature of this version is single player mode is no longer endless. Thus it is now an almost fully functioning hack. But beware, it still has bugs and there is still more work to do.

Changes

  • Single player version now properly progresses.
  • Defeated teams grey out in the character select screen (see screenshot above).
  • Character select screen now handles Rugal correctly.
  • Demo mode is now completely correct.

Known Issues

  • When continuing, the character select screen does not show who the cpu team is.
  • When continuing, sometimes the cpu team hangs for 5-10 seconds on the character select screen. If you wait, it should progress to order select.
  • When continuing, you won't re-fight the team you just lost to.
  • Sometimes palettes are incorrect. Most notably greyed out teams in the character select screen and endings.
  • The cutscenes and endings have seen no work so far, they use one of the pre-established teams and have bugs in them.
  • Choosing alternate colors for a character is not reflected in the chosen team avatars at the bottom of the character select screen. For example choose Terry with D. He actually has his purple vest and hat, but in the chosen team avatar, he has his red hat and vest.

Version 0.2.1

Other than some minor polish and possibly some bugs I missed, versus mode is now fully functional. Single player mode still has several issues, see below.

Changes

  • Alternate colors fully working. In mirror matches proper colors will be chosen in all cases. To purposely pick the alternate color for a character, press C or D when choosing them.
  • Win screens fully working.
  • Continue screens fully working.
  • Clones (ie, more than one of the same character on a team) no longer allowed. I thought I was going to put this behind a code, but now I am pretty sure I won't. The game engine just wasn't designed to handle this and I think making it happen will be a lot of work.
  • Random stages in versus mode, a small touch to make the game a bit more modern.
  • Both players can always choose a new team in versus mode. This is different from real KOF94, but modern games tend to allow this so I added it.
  • Fixed lots of little bugs and added lots of little polish here and there.

Known Issues

  • Single player mode is still endless.
  • In attract mode, the cpu randomization is not shown.
  • In attract mode, the order select screen shows six Heiderns.
  • When continuing, the character select screen does not show who the cpu team is.
  • When continuing, sometimes the cpu team hangs for 5-10 seconds on the character select screen. If you wait, it should progress to order select.

Version 0.1.3

The hack still has a very long way to go. But, in its current state you can use custom teams if you don't mind the (many) issues this version has.

Known Issues

  • In single player mode the game doesn't keep track of which teams you have beat. This means single player mode is endless.
  • Win screens show one of the preformed teams, not the team you chose.
  • The continue screen shows one of the preformed teams, not the team you chose.
  • The CPU doesn't always pick alternate colors, so often in mirror matches both characters are the same color.
  • Versus mode often uses the same colors for mirror matches too.
  • You can not purposely choose the alternate color for characters.
  • In single player mode, the char select screen does not yet gray out teams you have defeated.
  • During the demo, the two CPU players randomly pick a team in character select but their randomization is not shown.
  • Minor sprite glitches during order select and gameplay. Very minor and often not there at all. Depends on what team you chose. Choosing Chang or multiple Changs makes this happen more often.
  • You can choose clones without issue. Ultimately clones will not be allowed.

More details at the milestones page.

Build the ROM

prefer to do it yourself? Get the files from the GitHub releases page

Drag kof94.zip from MAME here,
Hack created by Matt Greer
Original game by SNK
GitHub repo