Yuri Sakazaki

Yuri was created to be a woman spoiled by her older brother Ryo Sakazaki. Although she was given a tragic past due to her mother's death and her father's disappearance, SNK gave her an upbeat character. For the character voices, they used all pro or semi-pro voice actors. Yuri and King were done by the same person.[1] Once it was announced Yuri would be a playable character in Art of Fighting 2, the staff behind The King of Fighters '94 wanted her to be as part of the cast. She replaced the character Big Bear from King's team due to memory issues. Afterwards, the team added Mai Shiranui to the team and form the Women's Team. Yuri's designer said the character had some bosom animation but not as much as Mai; she spent much work on Yuri's calves.[2] Additionally, the Art of Fighting staff wanted Yuri to appear in the game, thus, she was added to the Women Fighters Team as the leader.[3]

In making Yuri for The King of Fighters XIII, director Kei Yamamoto stated Yuri wanted the character's moves to focus on kicks. Due to the skill required to perform some of her special attacks, Yamamoto feels Yuri's players to train themselves in order to use her properly. There was originally an attempt to give the character one of Robert Garcia's moves because of both of them handling their lower limbs, but was removed due to not fitting Yuri. Yuri's redesign gave the staff a good impression in how she her sprites changed, especially liking the universal lower body due to her combination of white gi and blue pants.[4]

KOF: Maximum Impact marks the first time since Art of Fighting 2 that she has received a new outfit. Such outfit is composed of a green camo print shirt, short pants, dark green gloves and green shoes.[5] In KOF: Maximum Impact 2, some of her extra normal outfits make her look like fellow Kyokugen practitioners; color scheme B makes her look like Ryo (blond hair, orange gi and black tights), while scheme F resembles Robert Garcia's outfit from The King of Fighters '99 to 2002, which consists of brown hair, orange gi with black long-sleeved tights, and no headband.[6]

Yuri has been well received by Japanese gamers, having been voted as the 19th favorite character in the 1997 character popularity poll on Neo Geo Freak's website.[48] In 1995, Japanese magazine Gamest ranked her as number seven in the list of the top characters of 1994.[49] In 2018, Yuri was voted as the tenth most popular Neo Geo character.[50]

Yuri's character has received mixed responses from English-language video games publication based on her role in Art of Fighting. Eurogamer noted that Yuri's kidnap in the first game was "a mostly unfathomable quest", senseless since she is later taken as hostage by her own father.[51] GamingExellence liked Yuri's introduction in Art of Fighting 2 as a playable character as it gave more variety to the character roster. However, he complained about her being removed in Art of Fighting 3 "with less than stellar replacements"[52] Similarly, IGN enjoyed Yuri's charactization in the sequel due to how it contrast her previous role of a damsel in distress.[53] with Thunderbolt sharing similar opinions due to the variety of new characters in the sequel.[54] HonestGamers found hilarious Yuri's interactions with Ryo in the second Art of Fighting game but lamented how she was unplayable in the third and how she only made cameos to assist Robert.[55] Complex saw her as dertivative archetype based on Ryu from Street Fighter though the site found her brother closer to the design.[56]

Journalists also explored Yuri's role in The King of Fighters franchise. The Armchair Empire liked her cosplay by Fio from the Metal Slug series in KOF: Maximum Impact as it contrasted other new outfits which he considered embarrassing.[57] Den of Geek listed her as the 67th best The King of Fighters character for her upbeat personality as well as the impact she made in Art of Fighting 2 when she became a playable character.[58] Originally absent from KOF XII, Eurogamer appreciated Yuri's return to The King of Fighters XIII as she once again forms the Women Fighters Team.[59] PC Mag criticized how in KOF XIII both Yuri's and King's outfits can be destroyed if they are defeated through special moves due to the humillation this gives them.[60] Niche Gamer stated that while the Art of Fighting team from The King of Fighters XIV perform similar moves, they still provide varierty, referring to Yuri's as "both cute and utterly unpredictable".[61] Den of Geek noted that the trio and the team in general has been characterized as more comical characters in The King of Fighters than in Art of Fighting though in XI they accidentally created their own rival.[62]

While the character of Dan Hibiki from the Street Fighter series is deemed as a parody of Ryo due to his similarities with Ryu and Ken from such series, he often shows mannerisms similar to Yuri's.[63][64] Mangaka Nobuhiro Watsuki designed the character of Makimachi Misao for the Rurouni Kenshin manga series, some fans complained that the character was very similar to Nakoruru from the Samurai Shodown video games series. However, Watsuki responded saying that the character was more similar to Mai Shiranui or Yuri, comically saying he was "making his own grave" due to the similarities with the SNK characters.[65]

• Quotations related to Yuri Sakazaki at Wikiquote