It has been 26 years since the Wolves last threw down in Southtown. Although the original Mark of the Wolves was overlooked at the time for the more popular SNK titles like Samurai Shodown or King of Fighters, the world made noise when Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves was announced a few years back, despite some interesting promotional materials and choices. It’s now time once again for Terry and his new generation of wolves to take on the mystery of Geese’s legacy.
The Lone Wolves Are Back!
Following the events of Garou: Mark of the Wolves, Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves sees the cast adjusting to life since the last King of Fighters tournament. Rock Howard is now working alongside his uncle Kain, Terry Bogard is doing his lone wolf thing, and everyone seems to be getting by fine. That is, until a letter arrives declaring a new KoF tournament with the winner gaining the mysterious and inviting “Geese Howard’s Legacy”. The wolves of Southtown once again bare their teeth to find the legacy and uncover the enigmatic host of this latest tournament.
It’s a standard fighting game story mode. You get a little introduction to explain what your stake is in the tournament, a “Rival” fight, and then an ending. It won’t have much impact on gamers like myself who are weirdly invested in the lore of Fatal Fury/Garou, as it’s frankly a mixed bag of a follow-up to Garou’s cliffhanger.
Garou set a lot of events in motion to push the Fatal Fury series forward, much akin to that of Street Fighter III. It was a new generation with only a handful of returning characters (more on that later) and felt like it was shaking the foundations of the series at the time. Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves doesn’t really make much of a big deal of those events and what has happened just feels like “another working day”. After 26 years it feels almost anti-climatic. I get Terry is supposed to be extremely laid back, but when the child he raised is now running around with one of his long-time rivals and the guy who laid waste to Southtown is flying the banner of his arch nemesis, you’d think there would be more than “how ya doin’” thrown his way.
That isn’t to say the story is just restricted to the arcade story ladder though, as SNK has put together another mode called “Episodes of South Town” (EoST mode). It follows events around the tournament, either during, before, or after, and consists of more self-contained stories that allow you to learn more about your chosen fighter. These have more room for fun, goofy, and interesting writing due to a longer runtime, and I would personally suggest longtime fans of the franchise start this mode with Terry for some fantastic throwbacks.
While it doesn’t quite have the “cinematic” stories of titles like Tekken 8 or Mortal Kombat 1: Khaos Reigns, there is enough story and lore to uncover between the arcade and EoST modes to keep offline players or story lovers like myself engaged enough to spend many hours just grinding away. It might not live up to people’s expectations given the 26-year wait, but there is more story in Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves than I initially expected after King of Fighters XV, and I have to commend the developers for diving as deep as they did at times.
Rev Your Engines!
Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves is a traditional 2D one-on-one fighting game, which is unlike the previous SNK release of King of Fighters XV which was a team fighter. This feels like SNK’s direct response to Street Fighter 6 much like Fatal Fury and Art of Fighting were a response to Street Fighter II in that wicked way history tends to repeat. For fighting game fans, we are eating well.
What we have here is a 5-button fighter: 2 light, 2 heavy, and the REV button. You walk left or right and have jump and crouch. On double tapping a direction your character will either run or have a small dash depending on who you pick, and it’s a hold back to block if you’re not using REV kind of game. If you’ve played a traditional 2D fighting game you’ll feel right at home here.
Defense comes in several forms: standard blocking results in chip damage, “Just Defence” (when you press back on the exact frame an attack connects) negates damage, and can be canceled into a move allowing you to “take your turn” as well as granting a slight health increase. This system is high risk, high reward. Hyper Defence is similar where pressing a forward input works to do a parry. Finally, you have an S.P.G. attack (Replacing the T.O.P. system from the original Garou: Mark of the Wolves) which can tank an attack and counter with your own.
REV is the unique aspect of this game and it’s fantastic. Instead of the traditional “super meter”, the REV meter allows you to cancel moves into super moves, negate any damage with a REV block, and turn Super moves into EX-Supers, all at the expense of this meter that constantly builds unless you stop using it or land command combos. If you overdo it with REV, then you need to cool down. This locks a lot of your options and opens you up to being block-stunned. Finally, if you meet the conditions of having 2 “ultra/desperation/critical” moves stored, you’re in your S.P.G. section of health, and you have REV built up, you can bring out your character’s most devastating move to really bring the hurt and try to turn the tables.
S.P.G. sees you picking a portion of your health bar and when you reach this you gain access to S.P.G. attacks that have counter properties and which unlock even more combo potential. It’s a balancing act deciding if you want to hit this state from the get-go, during the middle of the match, or pull it out as a last-ditch attempt. Fans of Garou will appreciate the level of improvement this has over the T.O.P. system, though I will say it does seem to almost mimic the Drive Art/Parry system from Street Fighter 6.
Special moves are done with traditional inputs, but taking a leaf out of the modern fighting game book you can play the game with SMART inputs instead of the traditional “Arcade” inputs. What SMART does is limit you to one kick and punch button but replaces the others with a “Smart combo” button and a Special move button that when pressed with a direction changes what move is performed. This is ideal for people who struggle with inputs or are brand new to the genre and perhaps have been enticed to the product by a certain Footballer or DJ cameo character appearance. The tradeoff is the combos aren’t the most optimized and it restricts your use of “normal” moves. This is not something to be too concerned about at lower levels of skill, but it definitely becomes more restrictive as you rise the ranks and start coming across the diehards.
Legends Never Die, They Get Better
The roster of Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves is fine enough for what it is, but I feel there are several missteps here that somewhat hold it back for both fans of the Fatal Fury franchise and those who have spent the last 26 years holding out hope for the sequel to Garou: Mark of the Wolves.
In terms of returning characters from the previous game, most of the cast is back sans Kim Jae Hoon, Freeman, and Grant (at least in playable form). This means fan favorites like Rock Howard, B.Jenet, Hokutomaru, and Tizoc are all here again, driving the legacy of the wolves into the new generation.
Unlike in Garou, Terry isn’t the only character returning from the Fatal Fury games. This time he is joined by Mai Shiranui and Billy Kane, soon to also be joined by Andy Bogard and Joe Higashi in the upcoming Season 1 DLC. To me it somewhat waters down the “Future of the Wolves” when the original characters return like this, so hopefully Joe and Andy receive a makeover in the style of Billy and Terry where they get a few new moves and a totally new look.
New characters Preecha and Vox Reaper are the “student” characters of Joe Higashi and Grant with new twists on familiar gameplay for those characters. Then, of course, we can’t miss the controversial “real life” characters of Cristiano Ronaldo and Salvatore Ganacci. The latter seems to have had a little more effort into trying to integrate him into the rest of the cast and tone of the game, whereas Ronaldo sticks out like a sore thumb with an awkward character model and lack of availability in any single-player game modes on launch.
Preecha and Vox are some fantastic new additions to the roster, and the Billy Kane redesign while being very hit-or-miss is the kind of brave new look I would have expected for anyone returning from the Fatal Fury series. Mai does get a new look, but it’s just more casual and “safe for work” in comparison to Billy’s. I don’t personally like the guest characters because they feel awkward in the fact that real life people are themselves in this fighting game, as it creates this weird tone shift and feels like SNK are unsuccessfully trying to mimic the success of other guest characters. This is especially a damn shame too when they got it so right with Baiken in Samurai Shodown. Not to say that the characters aren’t fun to play, because they are, they just feel “off” in an uncanny valley effect sort of way.
Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves fits just about every archetype for a fighter you can need, you’ve got your rushdowns, grapplers, and your zoner. If you’re coming from Street Fighter looking for a “Ryu” archetype we have Marco, and if you’re looking for a Zangief type then we have a Tizoc. The roster is brilliantly well-rounded for just about every type of character, and despite the awkwardness of Salvatore Ganacci’s appearance, even he does have such an endearing and funky fighting style to fit the “joke character” archetype but in a way that he is still very much able to stand his ground.
Option Select!
Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves has plenty of modes to keep all the Lone Wolves of Southtown busy. There’s the traditional Arcade Story Ladder that pits you against the AI in 8 fights culminating in a fight with the hard-as-nails final boss. There’s training that has a tutorial to teach you the ins and outs of the game, with the standard training mode when you can set up any situation allowing you to practice moves and combos until your bones give in. And finally, there are combo trials for both Arcade or SMART users allowing you to get a glimpse at some bread-and-butter combos.
Episodes of South Town is where you get the most of your offline content. There is a story to follow for every character (aside from Ronaldo). These last a few hours and see you moving a cursor across maps of South Town, Second South, and Central Bay while fighting various AI characters with different rules such as “Constantly draining health” and leveling up (allowing you to equip different parameters for your character). All this while unlocking titles for your profile and various gallery items to have a gander at. It’s a fun single-player mode that offers a challenge in its new game plus state or the hidden optional fights, has some great writing, and even houses two iconic mini-games from the SNK vaults that are fun little time wasters. As fighting game single-player content goes, although Episodes from Southtown is a touch shallow when considered as an “RPG mode”, it’s actually a load of fun and a worthy time sink for those who don’t want to play online.
Other single-player content comes in the form of Survival and Time Attack. The rules of Survival are standard: you have one life bar to take on the entire roster, it doesn’t replenish, and the AI wants you dead. Time Attack sees you fighting the roster to get the quickest time and hit the top of the leaderboard. These are simple time sinks, but fun when you just want a quick blast and some bragging rights.
Color Edit is here again and allows you to edit the colours of most of the cast, though Ronaldo is sitting this one out again. It’s quite a basic mode and doesn’t offer the levels of customization that the sprite-based KoF games used to but it still allows you to show your unique creative side for your chosen main character/s.
There is a gallery mode with tons of artwork and other goodies to unlock and look at. There’s also a fantastic Jukebox mode that houses not only the OST for this game but also the soundtracks for the entire Fatal Fury/Garou franchise with the ability to make your perfect playlist from these. King of Fighters XV did the same and I’m so happy SNK is keeping that ideal going forward.
Take It Outside
Successful fighting games ultimately live and die by their multiplayer. While there are exceptions, the most popular ones (particularly the ones you see at premiere tournaments like EVO) are usually the ones with a good online multiplayer package and Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves has taken all the missteps from previous games and for the most part created the most stable and viable online matchmaking yet. It helps that the game packs quality online matches running on Rollback Netcode, a vast improvement in smoothness over the old forms of netcode which could make the game unplayable for classic wi-fi warriors.
Your options for fighting are Ranked, Casual, and Room Match. The game will either take your word on what your skill level is, or you can have a fight against the AI and it will determine what level you are going in on Ranked. Win matches and you gain rating points, lose them and you lose points, with the ultimate goal of being the highest ranked and most dominant player you can be. Luckily there’s going to be a large player pool to wade into, as the game also has crossplay between Xbox, Playstation, and PC from the get-go.
You can create a private lobby if you want to match your friends or put together a session for multiple friends. You can maybe go King of the Mountain rules and just observe other fighters going at it if you feel like it. For a modern fighting game, this has all the basic options you need for a good online experience.
Another thing seemingly mimicked from Street Fighter 6 is the Clone Mode. With this setting, AI will copy your and other players’ fighting styles to present you with much more realistic style matches. Perfect for those wanting to get practice against other people without actually fighting other people. As daft as it may sound, sometimes you need the real touch without the judgement of dropping combos or making unsafe moves, and this helps scratches that itch.
What I do wish SNK had copied from either Tekken 8 or Street Fighter 6 would be the lobby system. Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves bombards you with menus and the most awkward way of inviting or making friends I’ve seen since King of Fighters XV. It relies on different codes rather than usernames, likely due to the game being cross-platform, but without any way to search for them unless you either match with the person or are in contact with them and can get them to send the code to you. This isn’t an especially big problem, but it just feels archaic compared to peers. (Pro tip! You’ll find your code in the Online Profile is on the Online selection in the main menu.)
While the pool of players I could match up against was limited due to playing the game before release, I had the chance to play with a handful of different players from various locations and had a mostly smooth time throughout. Being temporarily on rather poor Wi-Fi myself, I was worried about what I was getting into, but only a few matches had a small instance of lag which only lasted briefly. This is easily the most stable SNK experience I have had yet, and I would say the net code runs just as well as in the other big-name fighting games out there using rollback.
Looking Good!
Fatal Fury: City Of The Wolves employs a comic book/cel-shaded graphical style leaning heavily into the early 00s bulky look, with noticeably strong use of the color yellow. At first glance, this game looks very “Garou-esque”, but when you start to peel the layers back a bit you’ll notice this has just as much in common with Fatal Fury: Real Bout, painting even more similarities to the Street Fighter series. Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves also tonally feels closer to Real Bout and the original Fatal Fury games than it does the gritty street tones of Garou: Mark of the Wolves, which admittedly caught me by surprise.
Still, I love the visuals in Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves. The characters feel full of life, the action is clear and explosive and the movement so fluid. It does everything King of Fighters XV did on the visual scale while dialing it up further. Pairing the SNK unique art direction with modern comic book stylings makes for an absolute joy to observe in motion.
The stages are gorgeous and several of them are 3D renditions of iconic stages from Garou: Mark of the Wolves. There’s lots of references to catch going on and one of the stages even allows the use of the “two-lane system” from the Fatal Fury side of the franchise, something I didn’t think we would see again in fighting games outside of obscure (and criminally underappreciated) titles like Diesel Legacy. What did grind my gears about the stages was that the action in the background seemed to go at a slightly lower frame rate and felt blurred and overly shiny, creating an awkward visual experience. It’s easy to try to ignore in some stages, but borderline impossible in Marco and Terrys!
Special move cinematics are spot on, the artwork sublime and the main menu is so charming to look at you just know the game is going to be special on sight. I might find its tone a little off in places, and I wouldn’t personally consider this “Garou 2”, but I feel it hits its own happy medium between the two points of the franchise and at its very best forges its own identity as City of the Wolves.
Sound of the Underground
Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves features a comprehensive Jukebox with full soundtracks from the furthest reaches of the franchise, but also there is a fairly decent original soundtrack for this game on top of it. The character themes all have that signature SNK twang to them and they manage to tread the line between modern and arcade releases. There is also another soundtrack for the game featuring licensed tracks, funnily enough including some from Salvatore Gannaci, as well as Steve Aoki and others. This game’s own soundtrack is heavily dance-focused which is not really my jam, but there are so many options to choose from you can’t go wrong.
Sound effects are all crisp and give all the right indicators for what attack is coming out, giving you that extra layer of strategy if you know the character well. There’s an English and a Japanese dub; both do the job well, though I’ve spent so long with the Japanese dub for SNK titles that I can’t personally get used to an English voiceover for Terry.
SNK have seemingly leaned into audio fidelity since they came back on the scene with King of Fighters XIV, and this game lives up to that building legacy. Everything sounds amazing, and the fully customizable soundtrack is something that fighting games are embracing, so naturally SNK have dug deep and thrown every song and the kitchen sink in.
Verdict
So has SNK learned from their previous games and made Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves a game worthy of the mighty Lone Wolves of Southtown? The answer to that is a resounding yes. In my humble opinion, this is the finest SNK game since King of Fighters XIII and does the legacy of Fatal Fury/Garou proud.
It looks amazing, the new systems feel completely natural, it has an excellent flow to the matches, the roster is well balanced, and the free Season 1 DLC featuring Chun-Li and Ken Masters from Street Fighter are just a nice sweetener for that. The game just feels so good to play and string moves together that I can just see people getting hooked by it. As a fighter, it feels like the perfect combo of modern gaming and arcade gaming.
For a casual gamer, I still believe there is a healthy amount of content here to grip and perhaps be your gateway game into the genre. This is the highest bar and likely the best game to convert anyone over to the series. The admittedly somewhat confusing marketing will undoubtedly create some curiosity in some gamers interested in its real life guest characters, but I expect them to stay for not only the best alternative to Street Fighter 6, Tekken 8 and Mortal Kombat 1, but for the game that has the best chance of winning the bout and becoming King of the Mountain.
FATAL FURY: CITY OF THE WOLVES IS A MUST BUY
Want to see more Fighting games? How about checking out our review of UNDER NIGHT IN-BIRTH II Sys: Celes?
Many thanks go to SNK for a PC review code for this title.
Pride of utopia & greatest thing ever, I found the One Piece, Collected the Dragon Balls & won the Mortal Kombat Tournament in one night, it was quiet for me that night! Follow me on Twitter @powahdunk
