KOF '98 / 98UM Special Music Info and Conditions Search Request
So as a quick catch-up, in both versions of King of Fighters '98, there are special songs that will trigger when one of a specific pair of pre-requisites are met.
A Specific Match-Up is currently on the Stage, or a Specific Team Composition is on the AWAY team (basically meaning the game has that sides music play)
in the NEO GEO original, there is
ESAKA Forever (Iori vs. Any Kyo), COOL JAM (Any Kyo vs. Iori) for condition 1,
and Hey! (Any Mai + King + Any Yuri) for condition 2
and added in the PS2 revamp, were
FUNNY ESAKA (EX Kyo, Benimaru, Daimon), Club-M ~Blue Sky Flute~ (EX Terry, EX Andy, EX Joe), Long-Horned Beetle (EX Ryo, EX Robert, EX Yuri) Unusual Tiger and Dragon (Any Ryo, Any Robert, Takuma), Desert Requiem (Ralf, Clark, Heidern), Get 'n Up (Any Mai, Any King, Kasumi), Arashi no Saxophone (Iori, Any Billy, Eiji) for condition 2
a bunch of new songs for either existing or new EX characters (whereas before it was just Kyo, Chris, Shermie, Yashiro, and Rugal. and now i think we only lose out on EX songs for teams Fatal Fury and Art of Fighting) and the weird extra requirement for Psycho Soldier REMIX '96, where Athena must be in your team, Without either Kensou or Chin, and Athena MUST be your starting character.
and MY LOVE ~Uplifting My Courage~ (Athena vs. Kensou), and Blue Mary's Blues ~Vocal Version~ (EX Terry vs. EX Blue Mary) for condition 1
now Condition 2 is easy to test. Just boot up Vs. Mode and have the team on player 2 match one of the listed teams above... Condition 1 is where it gets confusing and frustrating. And where I desperately want to make sure I'm not missing anything.
as far as I know right now, you can only hear the unique songs if your opponent is in Arcade Mode (Team or Solo... i think. it's a lot easier to test on Team for obvious reasons). None of the other conditions (specific solo character or team) have any annoyingly specific restriction, that makes it so you're never going to hear the song when against friends or other folks locally or on Fightcade
(the only exception that i've noticed is Blue Mary's Blues ~Vocal Ver.~ for some weird reason. if i had to guess it's because the game never uses EX characters outside of Orochi forms and Omega Rugal)
Honest to god, is there something I'm missing here? Is there a way to have the matchup songs play without being in Arcade Mode that I'm not thinking about?
Posted Sep 30, 2026, 3:51 AM UTC