I promised myself that I'd try out the Fatal Fury series after seeing how cool Terry looked in Smash Bros, so I decided to start at the game's roots. So what did I think? I think FF kinda sucks, but it's not unbearable to play. As a matter of fact, I like that it sucks. You can call it Stockholm syndrome, but something about constantly losing to the bosses' cheap moves, and seeing how they mocked and laughed at me was the motivation I needed to keep going and prove myself as the Garou Densetsu™. I learned something about my opponent from each battle, which immersed me and almost made me feel like a martial artist. And I can't write my thoughts on FF without mentioning Geese. He's absolutely an input-reading, cheating, father-killing piece of shit that almost made me want to tear my hair out, but even he was easy to exploit once I found his weakness. All you have to do is throw him, then spam Burn Knuckle when he gets up. I guess it's not as simple as I made it out to be, but it helps a lot. I think this was a decent introduction to Fatal Fury, and I'm eager to see what the rest of the franchise has in store.

I played the game on Fatal Fury: Battle Archives Volume 1 with the Arranged soundtrack included in the collection. This first Fatal Fury is a pretty simple game; it innovates with a two-plane fighting system, but the system isn't really fun to use. The game is also pretty unfair for both sides—you can cheese the hell out of the CPU, but the CPU can destroy you in 3 seconds sometimes. I'm not a big fan of some of the designs either, but I can say the main characters and the main villain are really iconic.

Now, talking about the good things, the game looks amazing. The scenarios are full of life, the songs are great, and the special attacks feel and look pretty good. The dialogues are simple, but I really like them. The story is where this game shines the most in comparison to Street Fighter II, to me. I would recommend you to give a try if you're a fan of SNK or the Fatal Fury trio.

After creating the original Street Fighter, Takashi Nishiyama would then go on to leave Capcom shortly after and work for the company SNK, who at that point in their existence, didn’t really have too many noteworthy titles to their name, because Metal Slug didn’t exist yet, and that series is clearly the best set of games they ever made. But nevertheless, after joining the company, he would then play a big part in several games for the company that would be… pretty much almost exactly like Capcom’s games, such as Ghost Wings, a game which is pretty much just 1942 except not. Eventually, he then decided to create a brand new fighting game, one that would not only be a spiritual successor to the original Street Fighter, but also one that would put more emphasis on both storytelling and the use of special moves. And so, sometime after the release of Street Fighter II from Capcom, SNK would then release Fatal Fury: King of Fighters.

So just as how Ghost Wings was basically just 1942 with a different name (at least from what I have seen), the original Fatal Fury would basically just be Street Fighter II with a different name, which fans of the series may debate, but I mean… it is pretty obvious when you play it for yourself. Although, in comparison to Street Fighter II, there are some changes that make it stand out somewhat in comparison, and it made the game fun enough to experience for the first time. I wouldn’t consider it to be on the same level as Street Fighter II in terms of quality, but on its own, it is still a good fighting game, and a good start for what would become both a long running series for SNK, and yet ANOTHER even longer running series for SNK.

The story is pretty much exactly what you would expect from a fighting game from this era, and dare I say, almost an EXACT COPY of the plot and backstory of Ryu and Street Fighter, but in comparison, this game tells the story much better, with various cutscenes in between fights to help build up the upcoming threats, as well as showing story moments (although the dialogue in these cutscenes read like they were written by a 5-year-old), the graphics and animations are extremely well done, which is no surprise, given this is SNK that we are talking about here, the music and sound effects are great, giving just the right amount of energy and “umph” that a fighting game needs, the control is simple enough to grasp and execute, while giving you combos and moves that make things complex enough to where learning them feels satisfying, and the gameplay is that good ol’ 2D fighting goodness, with a little more in there to spice things up.

The game plays almost exactly like your typical fighting game for the time, where you choose a fighter and battle various opponents around the world, landing many different punches, kicks, grabs, and other moves to deplete your opponents health bar until you defeat them. In addition, in between several of the fighters, you will also be able to take on arm wrestling bonus stages to get more points, and these can be pretty fun and satisfying, even if your hand feels like it is going to fall off afterwards. For the main gameplay, in comparison to other fighting games at the time, there is a little here that makes this game stand out, gameplay wise.

The most notable inclusion for Fatal Fury would be with the introduction of two-lane battles, where during the fight, the opponent can jump in between the background and foreground lanes, and you can follow suit, giving you different perspectives for whenever you are fighting the opponent. It doesn’t really change up how you fight your opponent that much, but hey, for the time it came out, it was pretty impressive to see in action. In addition, for the single player mode, you can have a second player join in and help you fight against the opponent you are currently facing, rather than fighting one on one for the whole time, which is not only a cool change of pace, but also is a great help whenever you are fighting a particularly tough opponent in the game.

It all has the basic 2D fighting game conventions that make for a pretty good game, but there are some things that are holding it back from being on the same level as Street Fighter II in terms of quality. First off, you can only select 3 characters to fight as, which is pretty damn limited. Now, I’m not saying every fighting game needs a huge roster of characters for me to be satisfied by it, because after all, Street Fighter II had 8 characters, and that was plenty for what it was offering, with the characters mostly being pretty unique in terms of design and their movesets. However, in terms of this game, not only are there, again, not many choices for who you could fight as at all, but they all don’t really stand out too much from each other, meaning that you could just stick to playing as Terry Bogard the whole time, and not really miss out on much with the others. But hey, in the console versions, you could play as the other characters that you fight… only in versus mode…….. and only for the second player………….. seriously, what the fuck is that all about.

And secondly, this game also suffers from Fighting Game Syndrome, where the bosses later down the line get pretty damn difficult, with you needing the reflexes and skills of a god to even get close to beating some of these guys. I fully admit, I suck at these kinds of fighting games, but I can hold my own against plenty of the opponents in these games (with a little spamming here or there to help even things out), but some of these opponents are relentless, including Billy Kane and, of course, Geese Howard. They aren’t impossible, but if you aren’t really that good, like me, you will probably be at them for a while before you can manage to knock them down for good.

Overall, for being the first in what would become many, and I mean MANY, different fighting games later down the line, the original Fatal Fury still holds up pretty well, and I would recommend it for those who are a fan of the series, or for those who want a fighting game that isn’t Street Fighter. That being said, the sequels probably make this game look like ass in comparison, but I wouldn’t know, so let’s just assume they do.

Game #239

Genres have different approaches to their past that I find interesting. Some of the biggest I can think of actively discourage engaging in the past (FPS and rhythm being the biggest culprits here) in favor of more mechanically focused concerns- focuses on preferred instruments, settings and aesthetics. Others, like JRPGs and platformers, require a vocabulary knowledge of what makes these games tick before you can really internalize what makes one better than another.

Straddling the lines there are fighting games, which are just as prone to having people who'll tell you that you need to know the classics to have the skills, as well as having a large population completely eschew those classics cuz this one's got my waifu. There's not a right approach here either because they both have merits.

What's also interesting is that this game kinda sucks, but you can still see the decent ideas it had nestled in the games that followed. I think that building process is why fighting games have that fanbase that pulls so tightly to its history, and once they finally figured out what makes these games good then people could afford to come in and pick characters based purely on aesthetic concerns.

This is a long way to say "this game is bad to play but it's really important"

Fatal Fury | MaraSNK%

Superou minhas expectativas

É bem melhor que SF2, os três personagens são bem distintos um do outro, o jogo é lindo visualmente para época, trilha sonora clássica, e no geral, é um jogo divertido.

É bem legal ver as origens do time fatal fury

6/10

I have no idea why Joe “I’m Japanese but for some reason better at Muay Thai than any one actually in Thailand” Higashi is in this. If you’re going to limit the roster to only a couple characters, then make it just the Bogards so their story is more personal, and if you want to explore other characters and their background stories, then, you know…make up a full roster!

He is in it, though, and I’ll allow it for no other reason than I have a huge video-game-character crush on him with an intensity not seen since Alpha-era Ryu. Something about strapping young men in a gi about to beat the shit out of me, I don’t know. I’m about to enter one of these tournaments myself for, you know, reasons. “Hey, it’s me, I’m here to enter the king of fighters tournament or whatever, let me fight that guy first, I challenge you!” “Uh, okay… are you sure you know martial arts?” “Yeah yeah I’ll be fine.”

Fatal Fury is an interesting game to put it lightly as it’s not really good but at the same time it’s not really bad either. For me it just kinda exists in this weird limbo between good and bad might as well get the bad out of the way.
Only 3 playable characters, the controls are slightly unresponsive at times and it’s incredibly simple with only 3 attack buttons with one of them just being grab. Not to mention the “Duel Lane” system doesn’t really add anything. So what we’re left with is on the surface a borderline rock’em sock’em robots sim. But there’s more to this game.
First off it actually has something of a story which goes something like: 10 years prior to the game Jeff Bogard was murdered by a crime boss known as Geese Howard with his son Terry Bogard swearing vengeance. After years of training Terry has entered the King of Fighters Tournament put on by Geese in an attempt to enact the aforementioned vengeance. After winning the tournament and Geese realizing who he is. Terry is brought to Geese’s Tower where they have a fight to the death with Terry coming out on top knocking Geese out of the sky scraper killing him and thus completing his mission.
It's not Shakespeare but it’s definitely not a bad set up for the fights. I’d say the tournament set up is extremely cliché for a fighter but the thing is this was one of the first so it can get away with it and actually giving the protagonist a motivation other then “I want to be the very best” is a nice change of pace compared to other tournament arcs.
The graphics actually aren’t that bad. Like it’s far from the best looking game but it definitely has some personality and the music while not something I’d listen to on my free time works well enough with the gameplay
Now on to the main reason a lot of people play fighting games, the gameplay. As stated before Fatal fury has 3 attack buttons “Punch”, ”Kick”, and “Grab”. Of course Terry has plenty of special moves at his disposal. With a grand total of 4. Although you only really need 2 of them for reasons I’ll get into. Now these moves are executed in typical fighting game fashion. With stick movement and button presses. I’ll admit I haven’t played the other characters which is why I’m not talking about them hence why I don’t have this game as “Mastered”.
Terry will face a wide variety of foes on his quest each with their own fighting style. These guys put up quite the fight for Mr. Bogard and the game is genuinely quite hard and cheap…Until you realize that every enemy only has like 2-3 attack and have easily exploitable strategies with most of them being easy to cheese once you know what you’re doing. Even on the highest setting the Arcade Archive Version has to offer. Basically once you get the pattern down for each enemy you can just Power Wave and Burn Knuckle your way to victory quite easily. Even Geese Howard is not immune to this. Now I understand why people would think he’s hard. With his lightning fast Repukkens and his counter. But the thing is if you jump the projectile you can just grab him which goes though the counter making him not quite a total joke but pretty easy overall.
It’s funny, all my friends think this game is absolutely awful but I just can’t bring myself to feel the same. Now don’t get me wrong Fatal Fury does not hold up very well but I personally find it to bare minimum be a decent way to kill an hour and let’s be real it’s SNK’s first try so I’m willing to cut it a bit of slack here. Hence my generous rating. I mean it has to have done something right If I've played the entire thing 3 times.

Surpreendentemente competente e carismático pra época. Vai por um caminho um pouco diferente de SF2, entregando menos como jogo de luta, mas tentando ao máximo trazer uma bela apresentação, com inimigos extremamente únicos, cenários dinâmicos, maior presença narrativa com cenas do próprio chefão lhe observando durante as lutas e tudo mais. Realmente vale a pena a experiência pra quem gostaria de conhecer o início das lendas da SNK, e isso sem ter que ralar muito como nas árduas sequências de FF ou os primeiros KOF's.

In a way you could call this Street Fighter 2.
It's basically a refined version of the SF1 formula but this time it's actually playable and fun.

I played it two times solo and one time with coop because i was curious about it.
Coop is weird, it breaks the game because the cpu can't handle two people at the same time but what makes it chaos is that special moves have friendly fire, and in this game they deal a TON of damage. It's not rare to get juggled by the cpu and your friend or to get sandwiched between special moves and getting stuck in infinite blockstun.

It's worth experiencing at least once.

Sadly Geese can't be cooped, instead we had to take turns getting our asses kicked until i remembered empty jump > grab > meaty power wave is an easy win.