KOF Kyo is, indeed, a visual novel of sorts.  You play as Kyo, and the storyline is centered around that of The King of Fighters '97, leading up to and including the final battle with Orochi. The fights are not in realtime, but turn-based, with a tedious menu system revolving around action points.  The art was done by some random manga artist, whose name I can't care enough to remember.

This game was awful.  Nice voices by the original actors, but the art is pretty off-model and the combat itself is boring, boring, boring.  If someone wanted to take the time to translate it, more power to them.  But I'm not sure that having it in English would make it worth playing.  The only noteworthy aspect of the game is that it goes into some detail about Kyo's family, including his sister, Aoi.  I don't know if it's considered canonical or not, though.

It's an interesting idea that was executed horribly.  That still balances out to "bad game."

i've beat the game many times back in the day , yes it could be much better in many ways , and to the above poster , no its not canon and his cousins are exclusive for the game right now , there was a manga released after KOF96 ( a few chapters , and it used the same characters design which is a shame , SNK have some of the best character designers in the industry specially before they go bankrupt ) about the event after the tournament and the game continued that taking place before a month or so of KOF97 , KYO is the champion and building a team for the coming tournament , its easy to think that the game story is cannon as it follow the canon story closely ( a little tweak here and there and they could make it the official story ) .

you got something wrong,KoF Kyo game takes place in the summer of 96 and 97 but KoF Kyo manga takes place of summer between 95 and 96.And they are both canon.Manga starts with Kyo's victory over Omega Rugal but the game starts with the upcoming summer break of Kyo before 87 tournament

Necroposting isn't gonna help the process, tho.