If you’ve been reading my reviews of other Gameboy fighters, you know I have a disdain for them, and for handhelds in general. I figure instead of telling you once again about how this game is not terribly diverse, that fighting games cannot be done with only two buttons, and that fighters look ridiculous with Super-Deformed sprites–instead I’ll tell you about my disdain for handhelds, since no one is ever going to read this.

It started with a bus ride to D.C. in the fifth grade. From Massachusetts to D.C., to be precise. If you’re not good at roads, driving, and geography–that’s about an eleven hour drive. It was for school, with assigned seating on the bus. I was stuck next to the boring, snotty hall monitor type kid (think Martin from the Simpsons). Bored out of my head, I looked for something to do. Lo! I had brought along several Tiger handheld games which were more or less cheap knock-offs of NES games. As anyone who’s played a Tiger handheld for five seconds can tell you, they’re God-awful. Actually, they’re worse than that. I’ll have to invent a new word for their awfulness. But later.

Let me tell you, eleven hours of that coupled with boring conversation with the class snitch buried me in a black hell of handheld-hatred so deep I think that it’s quite possible I’ll never be able to fully enjoy them. To this day, the only handheld games I’ve ever liked are Final Fantasy Legend 3, Castlevania: Circle of the Moon, and Golden Sun. And that, as they say, is that. If you missed the era of Tiger handhelds, count yourself as being lucky.

In conclusion, King of Fighters ‘96 is a game.