I see that many of the KOF games are on sale this week and I was planning on purchasing one...which is the best version of this franchise on IOS?
King of Fighter i 2012 says it compatible with the iPad 1 and 3GS in the description which seems to indicate Universal.
i-2012 > 98 > 97 i-2012 isn't Universal. A free version of i-2012 was also released a little while ago. IDK if it's a Lite version or a freemium version as I didn't get it.
And does that really matter in this specific case? I'm not saying it doesn't, per se, having played it on phone and pad myself. However, the universal nomenclature really isn't as big a factor as playability on the respective formats. Some games that are universal may not reconcile button size/spacing on both formats particularly well whereas some games work out to where that isn't an issue even if they aren't universal and just use 2x mode. My point is that "universal" is often meaningless. Anyway, to the initial question: 98 if you have a controller. KoF 2012-i is the most cognizant that it's going to be played on a touchscreen.