The story
The King of Fighters NEOWAVE was the first KOF made for Atomiswave. It has 36 fighters to start with, three play modes to choose from (Super Cancel, Guard Break and MAX2), and a fifth button, Heat, for stronger attacks. SNK's own history gives the arcade release as 27 July 2004.
AW-NET wasn't ready on day one. A notice on awnet.jp set the start of NEOWAVE's network service for 10:00 on 5 August 2004, about a week after the game reached arcades. An advert in AOU News called it the first network-compatible game in the series.
On AW-NET
Members got records and national rankings, character usage rates, and Character Edit, where you could save teams and set a player name. Location-test screenshots in Arcadia No. 51 show three saved custom teams and names of up to eight capital letters and digits.
The shop sold seven extra fighters: Orochi Yashiro, Orochi Shermie, Orochi Chris, Kim, Vanessa, Ramon and Geese Howard. Geese came in the third wave of extras; his command sheet tells you to hold Start and pick K′ on the character-select screen. Players reported buying him on 25 October 2004.
Arcadia No. 52 (September 2004) announced four extra colours for each character, and No. 54 gave their price as 600 points. The same issue lists phone wallpapers at 15 points and ringtones at 30, with tracks from the game's soundtrack announced as ringtones.
A NEOWAVE card album sold in autumn 2004 carried a code you could enter on AW-NET for an exclusive phone wallpaper.
Events
NEOWAVE was the game AW-NET built its events around. Fight Money gave every player a purse that grew with each game and changed hands in versus matches; Ring Battles did the same with rings. Each ran three times between November 2004 and February 2005, and top players earned titles. See Events for the rules and dates.
Offline
Offline, the card kept your match count, wins, losses and win streaks. Extra fighters, extra colours and the events didn't work. Like Isuka, NEOWAVE showed a green ONLINE in the bottom-right corner when connected.
Events and rankings recorded matches played in the arcade. NEOWAVE had no online matches against other arcades.
Points
15 points for starting or joining a game, and 5 for each versus win up to your fourth in a row, so 15 to 35 per credit.
First NEOWAVE previewArcadia No. 49
NEOWAVE advert and spring campaignArcadia No. 50
NEOWAVE player names and rankings previewArcadia No. 50
NEOWAVE advert; spring campaign extendedArcadia No. 51
NEOWAVE location-test screensArcadia No. 51
NEOWAVE's services, and Kintaro on saleArcadia No. 52
NEOWAVE poster advertArcadia No. 52
NEOWAVE card album as a reader prizeArcadia No. 52
NEOWAVE and Kintaro adverts, October 2004Arcadia No. 53
NEOWAVE portrait advertArcadia No. 53
NEOWAVE: Geese and the Orochi fightersArcadia No. 53
NEOWAVE rank points and 144 extra coloursArcadia No. 53
NEOWAVE local tournamentsArcadia No. 53
Draw NEOWAVE's new coloursArcadia No. 53
NEOWAVE advert: Kim, Vanessa and RamonArcadia No. 54
NEOWAVE portrait advert, November 2004Arcadia No. 54
NEOWAVE prices: fighters, colours, phone extras and titlesArcadia No. 54
Kim, Vanessa and Ramon's coloursArcadia No. 54
NEOWAVE glossaryArcadia No. 54
NEOWAVE advert, December 2004Arcadia No. 55
Geese Howard: 3,500 points from early NovemberArcadia No. 55
Geese gift campaign, ring rules and rare cardsArcadia No. 55
NEOWAVE event titlesArcadia No. 56