The King of Fighters '96 (ザ・キング・オブ・ファイターズ '96ナインティシックス) is the third game in The King of Fighters series by SNK. This game is the second chapter of the story arc "Orochi Saga", which began in The King of Fighters '95.
The game was ported to the PlayStation and Sega Saturn in Japan; the Saturn port requires a memory expansion cartridge to run. Like with '95, '96 would receive a Game Boy product based on it, called Nettō The King of Fighters '96 (ネット ザ・キング・オブ・ファイターズ '96ナインティシックス); it was also released in Europe, as The King of Fighters: Heat of Battle.
In terms of gameplay changes, this is the first game in the series to allow characters to run and roll, while also redrawing the sprites from the ground up from the prior installment.
