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The Star
11-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Star
Review: With 'Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves,' an old rival keeps pace
Fatal Fury has always felt like the Pepsi to the Coca-Cola of Street Fighter. SNK's fighting game series emerged around the same time as Capcom's iconic franchise but never rose to its iconic heights. At 1990s arcades, when fans huddled around cabinets featuring Ryu and company, the ones showing Terry Bogard were usually open. That isn't to say Fatal Fury was a bad series, but it was never as popular despite having a more compelling story and experimental gameplay mechanics such as the two-plane battle system. The SNK franchise has been dormant, but the publisher resurrected it after 25 years. (Terry Bogard and other characters have been mainstays in King of Fighters though.) Melding the new and old The new entry, Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves , focuses on a new generation of fighters in the series while maintaining ties to the old guard. Series protagonist, Terry Bogard, remains at the forefront along with mainstays Mai Shiranui and Billy Kane come along for the ride. Another part of the roster focuses on Rock Howard, who represents the future of the series, along with other characters who debuted in Fatal Fury: Mark of the Wolves . When it comes to the mechanics, the new Fatal Fury again fuses the old and new but it's unified under what the developer calls the REV system. The final part of the roster revolves around celebrity and crossover fighters. They include Ronaldo (Yes, the soccer player is in a video game not named 'EA Sports FC') and Salvatore Ganacci, the famed DJ. Like other fighting games, City of the Wolves will add more characters after launch, and SNK has several big names, including 'Street Fighter' icons Ken Masters and Chun Li. Diving into the fighting systems When it comes to the mechanics, the new Fatal Fury again fuses the old and new but it's unified under what the developer calls the REV system. Similar to what Street Fighter 6 did, the combat system amalgamates the disparate ideas from previous entries into a cohesive whole. The Tactical Offense Position from Mark of the Wolves has morphed into the Selective Potential Gear, or SPG. The new entry, Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves, focuses on a new generation of fighters in the series while maintaining ties to the old guard. Before a match, players can decide which third of the life bar to place the SPG, and when their health reaches that extremity, it opens up a special line of moves. That creates a fascinating level of strategy, signalling an aggressive or defensive approach to a match. The SPG allows players to use a REV Blow, which works similarly to Street Fighter 6's Drive Impact, allowing players to absorb attacks and deal damage. Players also have REV Arts, which are comparable to EX moves in the aforementioned Capcom game. On the defensive side, SNK added a REV button that acts as a more powerful guard from attacks. It puts more space between the player and attacker while avoiding chip damage. The REV button is also used in Dodge Attacks that can avoid a strike and counter at the same time. Lastly, players have a Just Defense, which is a parry that slightly regains health and boasts other benefits. It seems more forgiving than comparable moves in other games. Higher level techniques Players can use most of these REV moves at any time, with the main limit being an REV meter. If players use REV commands too often, it overheats, putting fighters in a weakened state. Their guard can be broken and they won't have access to the key moves. It's best for players to judiciously use REV attacks instead of carelessly spamming them. SNK tries to keep up with the rest of the genre by adding a more role-playing game inspired mode called Episodes of South Town Mode. In addition, players have access to feints and a technique that lets players cancel out of certain moves to extend combos. It normally takes a higher degree of expertise to access these intricate commands, but in City of the Wolves , they feel more approachable with more forgiving timing to pull off these often difficult moves. That's a notable element for this franchise revamp, which does a lot to bring Fatal Fury to a new generation of fans while satisfying loyal veterans. SNK didn't forget where the fighting game came from and even added a two-lane system that's still gimmicky but has been a staple to the series since the original. In a primitive attempt at a 2.5-D battle arena, the system lets players fight in two different planes of the screen. Unfortunately, the two-lane system is limited to one stage at the moment. On the defensive side, SNK added a REV button that acts as a more powerful guard from attacks. It puts more space between the player and attacker while avoiding chip damage. SNK tries to keep up with the rest of the genre by adding a more role-playing game inspired mode called Episodes of South Town Mode. In it, players choose a character and they run through a long story where they level up their fighter and run through their story, adding new skills that gives them an edge in increasingly difficult scenarios. It's a welcome addition, but that and the training mode fall short of the high bar set by Street Fighter 6 . Despite that, City of the Wolves has plenty going for it with its strategic fighting game system and great cast of fighters. It feels like an entry that still hasn't lost ground to its rival yet it also hasn't closed the distance. More fighting game classics return: The release of Capcom Fighting Collection 2 is on the horizon, and I had an early chance to check out some of the titles in the compilation. It covers a notable transition in the genre as developers experimented with polygons, trying to figure out how they would transform fighting games. That gave rise to notable titles such as Power Stone 2 , which was well ahead of its time with its manic style in a 3-D environment, and Plasma Sword: Nightmare of Bilstein , a lesser-known title that let players move forward and back in a stage. Mixed in with these experimental fighting games are more polished 2-D fighting games that highlight the pinnacle of this sprites-based era. Entries such as Capcom vs SNK: Millennium Fight 2000 Pro and Street Fighter Alpha 3 Upper show off the beauty and charm that still resonates with fans. – Bay Area News Group/Trbune News Service ———— Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves 3 stars out of 4 Platform: PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X and Series S, PC Rating: Teen
Daily Mirror
27-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mirror
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.
New York Times
25-04-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
3 Video Games You May Have Missed in April
The video game industry spent much of April talking about Blue Prince, a manor mystery that will be in game-of-the-year conversations because of its layers of interlocking puzzles. Also released was South of Midnight, an action-adventure game set among the haints and rougarous of American folklore; our critic called it 'a sorrowful adventure embellished by magical realism and strands of hope.' Here are three other games you may have missed this month: Promise Mascot Agency Promise Mascot Agency is a peculiar little gem. It's about a disgraced former yakuza who takes over an agency that handles mascots. Yes, mascots, those large furry creatures that hype up crowds at American sporting events and promote small businesses in Japan. Instead of running gambling dens or shaking down store owners for protection money, your character, Michi, must take the straight-and-narrow path, ingratiating himself with these same store owners so they will hire his stable of people-size puppets. This contrast reflects the way management sims are often received. Most players expect to be handed a big gun, or some other lethal power, and get sent out on missions to knock around bad guys and cause some property destruction. Here you're running around a small seaside town, herding parakeets and anthropomorphic blocks of tofu to mall gigs. Yet playing Promise Mascot Agency is a joy. There's endless pleasurable distraction to be found driving your tiny truck around the low-stakes setting of Kaso-Machi, particularly in its colorful characters: a sweet old yakuza widow with a heart of gold, a mysterious mascot who builds scarecrows in rice fields, a bartender who trades gossip and serves drinks while dressed in a gimp suit. This town may be full of weirdos and freaks, but they're also where the heart is. Sharp, observant and shockingly funny writing brings their two-dimensional portraits to life. Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves Most of the digital bruises I earned playing fighting games came courtesy of developers like Capcom (Street Fighter), Bandai Namco (Tekken, Soul Calibur) and NetherRealm Studios (Mortal Kombat). But even their games can't avoid the influence of SNK's sprawling catalog of mean street-brawlers. After 26 years without a Fatal Fury game, Mark of the Wolves finally has a follow-up. The visual face-lift of City of the Wolves preserves its predecessor's 2.5-D environments, and I found myself deep-diving into the game's turbulent story line. That's expected from a studio that included branching subplots in the dozen King of Fighters titles it has released since the 1990s. Mark of the Wolves featured a first-of-its-kind citywide tournament following the death of a crime lord who had terrorized the fictional metropolis South Town, and whose son had been raised by Terry Bogard, the series protagonist. In true Shakespearean fashion, City of the Wolves includes a shocking familial revelation, magical scrolls and a 'dead' sibling making a surprise reappearance. City of the Wolves is refreshingly complex, although the barrier to entry might be lower for those familiar with move cancels and well-timed blocks. The franchise's two-lane system makes a return, albeit for one stage, and there is an R.P.G.-style single-player mode with missions strewn across the city's map. It is a robust re-entry into the Fatal Fury saga. Creepy Redneck Dinosaur Mansion III There is so much going on in Creepy Redneck Dinosaur Mansion III that it's hard to absorb it all. On the surface, it's a Match 3 symbols game, somewhat like the addicting time-waster Candy Crush Saga. But this is actually a major deconstruction of the genre. The story, featuring the hapless investigator J.J. Hardwell inside a maze-filled, dinosaur-ridden house, is reminiscent of old Sierra On-Line adventure games. It branches forward with diverse revelations, including of a creepy cult and a self-centered wizard. The trenchant humor, so bad it's good (mostly), recalls The Secret of Monkey Island. The story can be moving at times, too. Awful, a blob with three mouths, is portrayed as lonely and shunned. Its meta nature, a game about the travails of making a game, offers insight into a creation process that's often seen as mysterious. But thoughtful experimentation is what Xalavier Nelson Jr. and his studio, Strange Scaffold, do best. If they are not pushing the boundaries of traditional game making, they seem to want no part of it. Here, matching three swords to defeat a rogue computer in a dank basement required enduring 88 grueling rounds. I encountered a puff-chested, swearing bully who thought he was superior to everyone else. He was easy to defeat. And, of course, I threw pies to bring down a clown version of a pterodactyl. Yes, the tales of game-making can veer into the obscure and esoteric. But the wild ride in this lo-fi sci-fi experience leaves the player with a feeling of exhilaration.
Metro
21-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Metro
Fatal Fury: City Of The Wolves review - Street Fighter's greatest rival returns
Terry Bogard and the gang are back as SNK revive the iconic Fatal Fury series for a new 2D fighter that seeks to challenge Capcom's Street Fighter 6. As a new generation of consoles approaches it's interesting to think what their technical improvements might mean for various genres. That's assuming the next gen Xbox and PlayStation 6 are more powerful and don't instead focus on a new portable design, as seems possible from recent rumours. Whatever happens though, it's probably a good bet that it won't matter to fighting games. The Fatal Fury series dates back to 1991 and was created by the original director of Street Fighter, Takashi Nishiyama, as a response to Street Fighter 2, which he wasn't involved with. The original was very well regarded, but because it was a Neo Geo game it ended up being much less well known. Subsequent games did make it onto other formats, but the series is probably best known today because of the cameo of frontman Terry Bogard in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. For such a long running series there have been surprisingly few entries over the years, but 1999's Garou: Mark Of The Wolves (the franchise's Japanese name is Garō Densetsu, meaning Hungry Wolf Legend) is widely regarded as one of the best 2D fighting games of all time and a close rival to contemporary Street Fighter 3. The subtitle to this belated sequel is clearly meant to be reminiscent of that and the best thing we can say about it, is that it doesn't betray that legacy. Although it was released only a few months after Street Fighter 2, the original Fatal Fury was still remarkably similar to Capcom's game – despite Street Fighter 1 being very much a diamond in the rough. Right from the start, Fatal Fury had a greater emphasis on storytelling, with the travails of its main characters continuing through not just the sequels but sister series Art Of Fighting and crossover franchise King Of Fighters. You don't need to know any background lore to enjoy City Of The Wolves but even the Arcade mode has a proper story, of sorts. It's not exactly The Last Of Us, but each character is given clear motivation and goals and, unlike most Capcom games, a non-joke ending. There's also a role-playing style single-player mode called Episodes of South Town, where you pick battles from a map and gain experience with each fight, that ups your stats and unlocks new abilities. It still lives in the shadow of Soulcalibur 2's iconic single-player mode, complete with occasionally frustrating limitations on what moves you can use in each battle, but it's a reasonable effort for what is clearly a fairly low budget game, even if it pales next to Street Fighter 6's World Tour mode. If you're into SNK lore though it's an absolute treasure trove, almost turning into a visual novel at times. Unlike with Street Fighter 2, SNK will have been well aware of Street Fighter 6 while making this and there are certainly many similarities. City Of The Wolves has a Rev Meter which works very similarly to Street Fighter 6's Drive Gauge , except you're building it up during a fight rather than starting with it full. Just as with the Drive Gauge, this gives you access to special abilities, and more powerful blocks and attacks. However, if the meter overheats you can't use any Rev moves and your guard gauge will drop every time you block, until it's completely broken – which is the game's way of encouraging you to use the Rev Meter and not just let it go to waste. This also sets up a neat risk vs. reward mechanic, where a particularly powerful combo can overheat you and leave you vulnerable immediately afterwards. A key way to avoid this, other than just being careful, is your SPG (selective potential gear), which activates when your health bar is at a certain point – as chosen by you before a match. For as long as your health bar is in the chosen zone you're considerably more powerful and can make full use of things like Rev Blows – the game's answer to Street Fighter 6's Drive Impacts. If your eyes are already starting to glaze over at all that minutiae, we're afraid to say that City Of The Wolves' tutorials are not the best and don't even mention some of the more advanced techniques. Or if they do you're only shown how they work and not what they're used for, tactically speaking. This is a very technical fighter and while you can have fun with it from the start it's not really the game we'd advise to anyone starting out in the genre – which is not a complaint, just a warning. The game's roster has all the expected series regulars, including Terry, Mai, Hokutomaru, and Rock Howard. There are four new characters, with Muay Thai auctioneer Preecha being a good all-rounder for beginner players and Vox Reaper a more technical fighter focused on speed. Those are very welcome additions but the other two are weird real-world celebrities, in the form of DJ Salvatore Ganacci and Cristiano Ronaldo. Yes, that Cristiano Ronaldo. They both feel exactly as gimmicky as they sound and not at all keeping with Fatal Fury's general aesthetic. Ronaldo's use of a football is funny for a bit, and Salvatore's moves are all based around reference to his music videos, but that all gets old very quickly. Salvatore is clearly intended as a Dan from Street Fighter style joke character and yet Ronaldo is barely any better and, tellingly, isn't even part of the Arcade mode. More Trending If that's what's needed to give Fatal Fury some extra visibility though it's a small price to pay, in what is a very well-rounded and enjoyable 2D fighter. In terms of online it does have rollback netcode and while we'll have to see how this works post-launch the biggest problem at the moment is merely the slow and ugly menu system. It's a quarter of a century since Mark Of The Wolves and the games industry has changed enormously since then. SNK themselves went bust in 2001 and this new incarnation is owned by a Saudi Arabian organisation; that explains the two unwanted new guest characters, both of whom have ties to the country, but you'd never guess otherwise, based on City Of The Wolves' gameplay. It's not doing anything new, but then few fighting games ever do and even with the obvious steals from Street Fighter 6 this is a distinctive and enjoyably complex fighter, that should ensure a very healthy future for the franchise going forward. In Short: An excellent return to form for one of the most respected 2D fighters in the business, that makes a solid impact despite some gimmicky guest characters. Pros: Great combat system with plenty of depth, but still relatively accessible if you play as the simpler characters. More plot than usual for a fighting game and a full suite of online options. Cons: The tutorials are not very helpful, in a game that has a lot of esoteric elements. A very ugly and slow UI and menu system. Cristiano Ronaldo and Salvatore Ganacci are a waste of roster space. Score: 8/10 Formats: PlayStation 5 (reviewed), PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X/S, and PCPrice: £49.99Publisher: SNKDeveloper: KOF StudioRelease Date: 24th April 2025 Age Rating: 18 Email gamecentral@ leave a comment below, follow us on Twitter, and sign-up to our newsletter. To submit Inbox letters and Reader's Features more easily, without the need to send an email, just use our Submit Stuff page here. For more stories like this, check our Gaming page. 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