When we reported that King of Fighters ’98 ($2.99) was coming to mobile soon, we were not kidding around, as soon meant “this week" – you can download this classic Neo-Geo fighting game regarded as one of the best in the series right now. The port is done by the usual suspects at DotEmu, who handle most of the King of Fighters and SNK games ports. Much like their other ports, there’s gamepad support, including MFi gamepads, though the touchscreen controls have been surprisingly adequate for pulling off the convoluted super moves.

Gameplay-wise, it’s similar to King of Fighters ’97 ($2.99) – hopefully it’s not as brutally difficult. I doubt that, though. Even if you’re familiar with the Street Fighter language of fighting games and how to pull off moves, expect to get beaten down by the CPU opponents, even on early difficulty levels.

The series’ ongoing storyline was paused in this game to allow characters who died in the story in previous editions, such as Rugal, to return, so there’s a diverse character selection here of returning and alternate-version fighters, for those who follow the series. Otherwise, there’s a bunch of people with crazy alternate versions beating up each other in teams of 3, for reasons that are not adequately explained. But then again, “King of Talking Things Out" would not be as interesting of a series. And that’s why we have many versions of King of Fighters. And that rhythm game too.