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Fatal Fury: City of Wolves gets the SNK series back on track at the cost of a strong story mode

SNK's much-beloved fighting series makes a strong comeback but don't go in expecting a lot of single-player meat on this stylish bone. Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves sets the series up to pack a powerful punch in the future, particularly if it spends a bit more time fleshing out its offering for solo enthusiasts. No Street Fighter, no Fatal Fury. It's that simple. But whereas one of these historic fighters went on to evolve and adapt with its audience over the years, the other was stilted early on thanks to publisher SNK's financial woes, leaving fans wondering what the landscape of this genre would be today if this iconic fighting game rivalry of the 90s were allowed to continue. Well, over two decades on from when the Fatal Fury series last got an entry, we now have a better idea thanks to the release of Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves earlier this week. ‌ Perhaps most surprising of all is that, against all odds and aside from some questionable financiers, the full game is actually kind of great; at least, if you can get past the absence of a strong single-player offering, which has since become a modern fighting game standard in Fatal Fury's absence. ‌ Getting the most obvious point out of the way first, I understand perfectly well that a strong single-player campaign is not what most players are looking for out of a fighting game. That being said, as more of a casual fan myself, who isn't compelled to learn the incredibly intricate systems and defensive techniques, I still enjoy getting to hang with these games' cast of colourful combatants. Hence why this rise of cinematic story modes in fighting games has been a pleasure to witness, particularly since the original full-scale reboot of Mortal Kombat back in 2009. You'd think this would mean Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves would be encouraged to bring something similarly meaty to the table, but alas, although there's an attempt at a single-player RPG mode of sorts included by way of what's called Episodes of South Town, it pales in comparison to recent narrative offerings presented by Mortal Kombat 1, Tekken 8, and of course Street Fighter 6. The remit right now with Fatal Fury has clearly been to focus on making a brilliant fighter that can compete with its rivals first and foremost, yet I still can't help but feel there was an opportunity for Episodes of South Town to pack much harder of a punch, because as it stands the mode feels relatively budget. It works like this: after selecting a character from Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves' mostly excellent roster, you're thrust into the first of three overworld maps, at which point you can engage in one of various fights against different characters based on your level. For my first run, I elected to play as Mai, and while it was admittedly cool at first to see her bounce and interact off the likes of Terry Bogard and others, the interactions being reduced to simple text boxes feels like a far cry from what other AAA fighting games have been doing. There's a strong argument that this relatively barebones approach was taken by SNK to get out of the way of the core bouts, but then these are available elsewhere, and Episodes of South Town was the chance to explore different territory. As it stands, progressing through Episodes of South Town is a simple case of clicking through menus on a map, playing through fights, and getting stronger. Only getting stronger and levelling up doesn't matter all that much since your upcoming rivals do the exact same. As minimal RPG approaches go it feels sloppy, and not all that different to the pre-existing Arcade single-player mode also included. ‌ Hungry like the wolf The bar for single-player fighting game modes was previously raised by Mortal Kombat almost a decade ago, setting players off within some incredibly cinematic – and admittedly convoluted – plot lines that cast you as one specific character in each unique chapter, pushing the story along while letting you get to grips with how that character works. Is it a perfect method of interweaving Mortal Kombat's time-spanning lore with the core fighting gameplay? Probably not, but it's a method that several other of the heavy-hitters have since sought to ape – with varying degrees of success. If I had to liken Episodes of South Town to any other recent fighting game mode, it probably would be World Tour in Street Fighter 6. The difference this time, however, is that the world your touring doesn't act as its own Like a Dragon -style hub that can be fully explored in 3D, but rather a gloried map menu that asks you to fill in most of the narrative gaps yourself. Much like Mortal Kombat's story modes before it, the World Tour mode in Street Fighter 6 served as a great way to learn the move sets of existing fighters without the need to spend endless time in a tutorial mode, and Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves would very much have benefited from a similar approach. Having said all that, the absence of a solid single-player offering doesn't discount the absolute stellar work SNK and developer KOF Studio has achieved in bringing back Fatal Fury in a big way. It might not be the most complete package compared to the competition – especially for less professional players like myself – but it is absolutely a solid foundation, and the kind that future Fatal Fury instalments can build upon. I just hope that, in addition to awesome new mechanics like the Rev system being iterated upon, the next entry also has its sights on bettering the competition by building in a more fleshed-out story mode that can stand toe-to-toe with what other modern AAA fighters have been doing.