debut The King of Fighters '95, the team would've consisted of Nakoruru, a ronin vagabond named Haohmaru, and an American ninja named Galford D. Weller, who fights alongside his pet dog Poppy. However, the idea was dropped due to time constraints. Because of the fourth saga's storyline involving the concept of time and space within a multiverse, this would enable the original plan to truly come to fruition, thus the Samurai Team would finally make their debut in The King of Fighters XV via a downloadable pass, with the sole exception of Galford being replaced by the female newcomer Darli Dagger from Samurai Shodown (2019), a strong African ship-maker who wields a jagged saw-sword named Libertalia while being raised by pirates in Merina Kingdom, Madagascar. Following the fourteenth tournament incident caused by Verse, to which Nakoruru is displaced in the modern timeline along with other characters from outside The King of Fighters multiverse, her home timeline is also affected as well, bringing the warriors she once knew into the present KOF timeline. Among the warriors Nakoruru found and immediately team up with were her old friends, Haohmaru and Darli Dagger. Realizing that the mysterious yet dangerous threat of Otoma=Raga might somehow be connected to the current situation that the fighters are facing at the moment, Nakoruru, Haohmaru, and Darli join the fight, presumably to possibly return to their home timeline. After the events of KOF XV, the trio find themselves encountering a recently revived Mizuki Rashojin (from Samurai Shodown II), to which they decide to have her come along with them in continuing to explore the modern world, much to Mizuki's personal reluctance. Reception The characters from The King of Fighters series were said to be a varied cast by Eurogamer magazine, since the cast includes characters from other SNK games. IGN agreed, commenting that every character has their own unique moves and praising their visuals, even though the magazine mentioned that the characters have old two-dimensional designs. IGN criticized that learning the characters' special moves was difficult. In reviews for the first game, IGN praised the main character Kyo Kusanagi as one of the most enjoyable characters to play, remarking on his dynamism and movesets. GameSpot also praised the characters designs, saying they "shine through, resulting in a cast of characters that's diverse and not plentiful". In other reviews, they complained about the lack of improvements in the character's