The fighting game genre can be a complex battle to be up against. Especially if you haven’t seen the series in 26 years. Can Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves make a return and find its footing within the fighting game community?
The Struggles Of The Fight
Garou: Mark of the Wolves was the last we saw of SNK and the end of the Fatal Fury series back in 1999. From the reign of the Fatal Fury games starting in 1991, the series had a place in the fighting scene. With many regarding the series as one of the best. Now, years later, 26 years later the fight continues. SNK made a large return to form in 2016 with The King of Fighters XIV. And now this marks the return of Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves, with the team behind The King of Fighters game taking on the challenge of bringing the Fatal Fury series back to top place among the fighting community.
Choose Your Battles
We see the return of all our classic fighters, like Terry, Mai and many more. But if you aren’t aware of whom each of these fighters are, you can learn their story within Episodes of South Town. The game’s story mode. Mixed within other modes, such as the expected Practice and Tutorial modes to learn each of our returning fighters. It’s the online portion of the game that is where I expect most players to spend their time. I played most of my time on my PlayStation 5, which at the time of writing didn’t have access to online. We were later given PC codes to test the online component. Which, from my brief time with the PC online capabilities, worked rather well with custom matches and very few issues.
Learning the backstory of our fighters is presented through hitting the City of the Wolves story mode, Episodes of South Town. This RPG story mode has us leveling up and unlocking skills as we learn our fighters’ backstory and more. Unfortunately, this is one of the worst storytelling in a fighting game I have yet to experience. I felt like I was stuck in the past 20 years ago with poor, boring lines of dialogue as Mai speaks with others across the city in search of the Shiranui Hunter that is creating havoc throughout South Town. Just one of the many different storylines in the Episodes of South Town mode.
“Damn, aren’t you easy on the eyes? Wanna go somewhere and have some fun together, little lady”? Read one of the many horrible lines of dialogue throughout the game. Which is then followed by repetitive victory voice lines after winning a fight, that came fast and quick. I can’t tell you how many times I heard Mai say “I’m the best in Japan” within the first hour of the game. I understand that shortly after playing a fighting game you will begin to hear the same victory lines, but I wasn’t hours in before they began. It was less than an hour. More victory lines of dialogue would have been a very welcome addition to not hear the same lines over and over.
After selecting your fighter, you will be given a location with an option to choose from a multitude of pins scattered throughout the location with varying leveled fighters to put your skills to the test. I felt the leveling system was inconsistent. A fighter 4 levels below me shouldn’t be much of a competent opponent. However, they were able to defeat me once or twice. While others comparable to my current level were far easier to overcome. This wasn’t always the case, but certainly something I noticed during my journey across South Town.
Finding Your Rhythm
Every new fighting game brings a new set of skills to learn. Selecting the right fighter can be challenging to find your rhythm. After many attempts, I was able to find the ‘ONE’ that seemed to fit my playstyle the best. Preecha, a small, agile kickboxer with a comfortable set of moves and pressure that I was able to feel like she was connecting the move sets with precision. Learning these new moves was challenging and with the introduction of the REV system, they became flashy stylized moves.
S.P.G (Selective Potential Gear) new to the series, can be set in three locations along your health bar. Front, less effective, Middle, and at the End of your health bar for the more powerful effects. It’s up to you where you would like to place this S.P.G. system, and it should present an interesting twist when fighting your opponents. The S.P.G and REV systems, when combined, will enhance your set of moves, allowing you to pull off some incredible in-game cinematic maneuvers.
It’s good to see the return of a classic and make its way into the new era. The art style of the characters felt like a modern version of what I would hope for with the series. The combat would connect on point and have a sense of snap that felt very satisfying mixed with the new S.P.G. and REV systems. It was fun and enjoyable to play. However, the less-than-exciting Episodes of South Town need a lot of work along with the poor choice of dialogue. I am excited about the future of Fatal Fury with a much-welcomed return. But it definitely leaves room for improvement with the next installment.
