Kyo, Joden and Ali's voices are from The King of Fighters 98, Gees' voice is from the PlayStation version of Real Bout Fatal Fury, the " Winner" sound clip is ALSO from The King of Fighters 98, the Continue Countdown is from Real Bout Fatal Fury and the " Round 1!" and " Fight!" sound clips are from the PlayStation port of X-Men vs. The death cries are from Super Street Fighter 2. The sounds come from many different games.Many recent reprints of Top Fighter 2000 drop the original name from the cartridge label, using the name " Mortal Kombat 8", and feature character artwork from Mortal Kombat Gold and Mortal Kombat: Deception.For example, holding B then pressing D, DF, F will allow Ali to throw his flaming punch. Additionally, characters may perform special moves if the attack button is held down and then the directional movements are put in. An overlooked control bug exists in both versions characters are unable to attack if Forward + B are pressed at the same time.The sprites for Michael Jordan and Muhammad Ali are edits of Lucky Glauber and Heavy D from The King of Fighters '94.
The controls appear to be somewhat better than other Mega Drive bootleg fighting games, such as Tekken 3 Special.
The stages are cobbled together using elements of backgrounds found in several different games, including World Heroes, Street Fighter II, The King of Fighters '95, and Fatal Fury 2. Each character has their own special moves and one super move, along with 8 stages that aren't character-specific. Top Fighter 2000 MK VIII is a fighting game with 8 opponents and no repeats between them.