Where it all began - for people that played later entries first, this will feel clunky as hell.
Ah, KOF94. There's so much beauty and yet so much pain that comes with the beginning of the King of Fighters series. The controls to this game are perfectly fine, but there is a stiffness to this game that takes a while to get used to, especially if your first KOF games were any of them after 1995. It will feel like going from a comfortable, self-parking automatic car, to a beat up manual car. It gets the job done, but it's a pain in the ass until you get used to it.
The main problem (or positive if you're into difficult games) for players will be the AI. This game and KOF95 have very defensive AIs. You will have to basically wait for an opening to get some good shots in. It's not like Street Fighter, for example, where characters have certain patterns and the openings become clearer as you keep playing the game. Being aggressive (like me) against the AI will likely end in defeat. It's a thinking man's fighting game. I'm saying all of this after playing the game on normal difficulty. If you play this at a higher difficulty setting, you're insane. Or a master of understanding the AI.
Aside from your usual strong punches and kicks, weak punches and kicks, and the usual stuff that's associated with Street Fighter II, you get a few other tools. For instance, you can sidestep attacks, you can charge your super meter, but given the toughness of the AI, you won't make much use of this. You might not even use your desperation moves (supers) at all, that's how hard this game can get. The AI will most likely block your desperation attacks.
All of this difficulty comes before you even face Rugal, the final boss. He initially doesn't fight you at full strength, and even then, he's a very annoying opponent. When you beat him while he's in his suit, he'll reveal his true power, and ho-ly fuck, is he a cheap ass motherf--he's a King of Fighters boss. They got easier over the years, if you can believe it. Rugal's genocide cutter is such a ridiculously overpowered move, and the rest of his special moves are not exactly soft, either.
If you somehow manage to beat him, you truly earned the ending scene after the fight. I would honestly not blame anyone for giving up on this game after losing to Rugal a few times. I wouldn't blame people for skipping this game and KOF95. They're very, very similar titles and mostly share the same problems.
That said, what are the positives to this game? The pixel art is absolutely wonderful, and it makes the stages all feel alive. For some people, that might be an obvious point - "well, yeah, it's a fighting game, why wouldn't they put in a good effort on the stages?"
You'd be surprised at how much SVC Chaos: SNK vs Capcom (a game that came out many years later) dropped the ball on that one.
The soundtrack has a few classics here and there. I'd say about half of the stages have songs that maybe won't have you bobbing your head along with them, but they fit their environment perfectly. Taking everything into account, the presentation of this game is good, if not great.
However, I must be honest: don't go near this game if you're not used to a challenging, defensive AI.