Fatal Fury | |
---|---|
Genre(s) | Fighting |
Developer(s) | |
Publisher(s) | SNK
|
Creator(s) | Takashi Nishiyama |
Platform(s) | Arcade Dreamcast FM Towns Game Boy Windows Neo Geo Neo Geo CD Neo Geo Pocket Color Nintendo Switch PC Engine PlayStation PlayStation 2 PlayStation 4 PlayStation Vita Sega CD Game Gear Genesis/Mega Drive Saturn SNES Virtual Console X68000 Xbox Live Arcade Xbox One |
First release | Fatal Fury: King of Fighters November 25, 1991 |
Latest release | Garou: Mark of the Wolves November 26, 1999 |
Fatal Fury, known as Garō Densetsu (餓狼伝説, Legend of the Hungry Wolf) in Japan, is a fighting game series developed by SNK for the Neo Geo system.
Two compilations have been released:
The original Fatal Fury is known for the two-plane system. Characters fight from two different planes. By stepping between the planes, attacks can be dodged with ease. Later games have dropped the two-plane system, replacing it with a complex system of dodging, including simple half second dodges into the background and a three plane system. Characters have moves that can attack across the two planes, attack both planes at once, or otherwise attack dodge characters.
Later Fatal Fury games have experimented with various mechanical changes. "Ring-outs" allow a character to lose the round if the character is thrown into the edges of the fighting backdrop; single-plane backdrops, where dodging is eliminated altogether, causing moves that send opponents to the opposite plane to do collateral damage. The "Deadly Rave" is a super combo used by several characters, where after execution, a player had to press a preset series of buttons with exact timing for the entire combo to execute. The "Just Defend" is a type of protected block in which players regained lost life, did not wear down the player's guard crush meter and removed all block stuns making combo interruptions smoother.
Fatal Fury and its sister series, Art of Fighting, are set in the same fictional universe, with Art of Fighting taking place over a decade prior to the first Fatal Fury. The two series are set primarily in the same fictional city of "South Town".
Fatal Fury: Wild Ambition retells the events of the first game, but updated to feature characters from later series entries. Many members of the from both Fatal Fury and Art of Fighting appear in The King of Fighters series, which is set in its own universe that ignores the continuity established in the Fatal Fury and Art of Fighting games so that the characters from both series could battle without having to age any of them.
Main article: Characters of the Fatal Fury series |
As with most fighting games, the Fatal Fury series has an extensive cast of characters that increased with each installment. The three main heroes from the original game, Terry Bogard, Andy Bogard and Joe Higashi, appeared in each installment, along with female ninja Mai Shiranui beginning in Fatal Fury 2. Some characters have made appearances outside the series, particularly in The King of Fighters series and in Art of Fighting 2, the latter of which features a young Geese Howard. Likewise, characters from outside the series have appeared in the Fatal Fury games. Ryo Sakazaki from the Art of Fighting series makes an appearance in a hidden "dream match" in Fatal Fury Special, while his older self from Buriki One appears in Fatal Fury: Wild Ambition. Garou: Mark of the Wolves is the only Fatal Fury game not to feature any returning characters with the exception of Terry Bogard, who received a complete redesign; other legacy Fatal Fury characters are set to return in the upcoming City of the Wolves.
The Fatal Fury series chronicles the rise of "Lone Wolf" Terry Bogard (hence the Japanese title, which translates to Legend of the Hungry Wolf), and the simultaneous fall of the criminal empire of Geese Howard. Like many other SNK titles of the time, the first installment takes place in a fictitious American city called South Town. Brimming with violence and corruption, South Town forms the ideal backdrop for the annual The King of Fighters fighting tournament, organized by notorious crime lord Geese Howard. No fighter has ever managed to beat his right-hand man and appointed champion, Billy Kane, until Terry arrives.
The second installment of the series features Geese's half-brother, Wolfgang Krauser, who internationalizes the formerly local tournament in a bid to take on the world's strongest combatants. The tournament disappears from the storyline by the third game, having spun off into its own series. Instead, the third installment centers around Terry Bogard's attempts to stop Geese from obtaining an ancient scroll that would give him the powers of a lost and dangerous martial art form.
After the third game, the series was renamed to Real Bout Fatal Fury. In its first installment, the final and decisive battle is set between Terry and Geese. The King of Fighters tournament appears in this game. The second installment, which is named Real Bout Fatal Fury Special, features Wolfgang's return.
Garou: Mark of the Wolves takes place a generation later. It focuses on Rock Howard, Terry's protégé and son of Geese, who makes a shocking discovery about his past when he enters the tournament. The story is set to continue in the upcoming Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves.
Series producers Takashi Nishiyama (Fatal Fury~Real Bout Fatal Fury 2)[3] and Hiroshi Matsumoto (since Fatal Fury 3), were the planners of the original Street Fighter (where they were credited as Piston Takashi and Finish Hiroshi). Matsumoto is also the creator of the Art of Fighting series.[4][5][6][7]
The Fatal Fury series inspired a trilogy of animated productions produced by NAS with SNK, featuring character designs by Masami Ōbari. The first is a television special that aired in 1992 on Fuji TV titled Fatal Fury: Legend of the Hungry Wolf (Battle Fighters Garou Densetsu), which adapts the plot of the first game. It was followed in 1993 by another television special Fatal Fury 2: The New Battle (Battle Fighters Garou Densetsu 2) based on the second game, which also aired on Fuji TV. A theatrically released film followed in 1994, titled Fatal Fury: The Motion Picture (Garou Densetsu: The Motion Picture), which features an original plot and new characters. The first two TV specials were released on a single laserdisc and later on DVD.
VIZ Communications picked up the license for the trilogy and produced English dubbed versions of each of them, releasing them straight to VHS, and later on DVD. They were later released subtitled, with the first two Fatal Fury specials released in one video titled Fatal Fury One-Two Punch. The subbed version of Fatal Fury 2 features a scene involving a rematch between Joe Higashi and Big Bear (Raiden) that was cut from the dubbed version. The English DVD release of the TV specials, Fatal Fury: Double Impact, features this scene. If chosen to be viewed with the English dub, it would temporarily go onto Japanese with English subtitles during this scene.
Many soundtracks, manga comics, other books, video tapes, and drama CDs have been released in Japan for the series as a whole[8] and for each of its individual entries.[9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17] The events of the first game were also loosely adapted in the web series The King of Fighters: Destiny.
The fan film Fatal Fury: Mark of the Wolves was released on YouTube on February 10, 2021, starring Josh Mabie as Rock Howard (also as the director and of action design) and Christian Howard as Terry Bogard (also as the producer); these two also served as the writers and for co-fight choreography.[18]
Characters from Fatal Fury have gone on to make guest appearances in various fighting games such as Dead or Alive 5: Last Round, Tekken 7, Fighting EX Layer and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, as well as games from other genres such as Fall Guys.