King of Fighters '96 marks the start of traditional KOF. Despite that, it's still a lot of fun to play today, and whilst being the first to use the style of gameplay it's sequels would expand upon, it still holds its own very well.
Port wise, the Saturn port is fantastic. It uses the Saturn's RAM Cart, allowing the game to have impressively quick loading times, meaning unlike prior SNK fighting game ports on CD based consoles, you won't be stuck waiting at a loading screen wishing you were playing the game already. The visuals look amazing as well, with not a detail missing. The only thing I can fault it for is being a very bare bones port, no palette editing, no training mode, none of that. You get the most basic modes and some settings to mess around with, however that's not necessarily a bad thing, as it allows you to get into the game very quickly, which coupled with the games speedy load times, results is a very fast boot-to-play time.
Overall I can't recommend this game enough, whilst it's main formula is expanded upon in '97 and '98, what's here is still incredibly fun and solid, and is worth your time to at the very least try it.