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SNK's new game, 'Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves (hereinafter Fatal Fury CotW), which has marked a milestone in the history of fighting games, is about to be released after finishing its second OBT.

SNK gained immense popularity by continuously producing fighting games that 90s gamers would have encountered at least once, such as 'Fatal Fury', 'Art of Fighting', and 'Samurai Shodown'. However, as popularity began to concentrate on the all-star The King of Fighters series, and with the shift to 3D as the mainstream, some series struggled to continue smoothly due to several trials and errors.

However, SNK, which gradually reorganized its 3D graphics technology starting with The King of Fighters XIV, is now aiming to fully continue the legacy of its masterpiece fighting game series with this 'Fatal Fury CotW', following The King of Fighters XV. Following game show demos and the OBT in February, Fatal Fury CotW, which has been verified several times up to the second OBT on March 27th, will be introduced one last time before its release on April 24th to show what kind of game it is and what charms it has to offer.

📒- Fatal Fury CotW, OBT on March 27th / Release on April 24th
- Terry, Andy, Mai, and Kim Kaphwan's roots are in 'Fatal Fury'
- Smart Style, RPG content EOST for beginners to enjoy

Even users who don't enjoy fighting games probably know the characters 'Terry Bogard', 'Shiranui Mai', and 'Kim Kaphwan'. I don't think I need to explain more. They have become iconic characters in the fighting game genre, like Ryu, Ken, and Chun-Li from Street Fighter, or Jin and Kazuya from Tekken.

Although they appear more often in The King of Fighters now, the series where those characters first appeared is the 'Fatal Fury' series that I'm going to talk about now. The first 'Fatal Fury' was in 1991, so this story started 34 years ago.

After releasing the belt-scrolling fighting action Street Smart in 1989, SNK began to seriously produce fighting games with the joining of some of the Street Fighter production team. And in 1991, they started the legend with 'Fatal Fury'. 'Fatal Fury' adopted some of the concepts of 'Street Smart', which involved fighting while traveling across the United States, and set in the fictional American city of 'South Town', it tells the story of three fighters, 'Terry Bogard', 'Andy Bogard', and 'Joe Higashi', fighting against the underworld boss Geese Howard in a 2D fighting game. Although there were trials and errors as it was the first attempt, it is a meaningful work as the starting point of legendary characters that are still familiar to users.

'Fatal Fury 2', which was released based on the trials and errors of that time, is a work that is remembered as a masterpiece by many users who reminisce about the 90s. It gained explosive popularity in arcades at the time with its unique and well-made combat system, such as evasion attacks, blow-away attacks, and line movement. In addition, SNK's excellent character design skills, such as 'Shiranui Mai', who established herself as a sexy icon, and 'Kim Kaphwan', who left a deep impression on fighting game players with his righteous Taekwondo, have made it one of the bibles of the fighting game world to this day.

After that, 'Fatal Fury Special', which laid the foundation for The King of Fighters 94 by making a surprise appearance of Art of Fighting's protagonist 'Ryo Sakazaki', and 'Fatal Fury 3', which began to show renewed graphics and sound, Fatal Fury gradually built its foundation. And in 1995, 'Real Bout Fatal Fury' completed the story that had been going on since the first game, leaving a strong impression on fighting game fans. In particular, the scene where Geese Howard refuses the help of the playable character after his defeat and falls from the building himself remains one of the ending scenes that is still talked about among fighting game fans. In addition, the MAX Super Special Move system introduced at that time was introduced from The King of Fighters 96 onwards, continuing its development in terms of system.

The 'Fatal Fury' series, which was completed once in that way, showed a somewhat stagnant appearance. In the early 98, 'Real Bout Fatal Fury 2' showed advanced graphics, special move animations, and fast-paced hitting action, but it could not surpass the popularity of its own fighting game 'The King of Fighters 97'. In addition, the poor performance of 'Wild Ambition', released in 1999, put 'Fatal Fury' in danger of being terminated.

However, SNK returned to its specialty, 2D, and threw a desperate move with 'Garou: Mark of the Wolves'. Set in South Town 10 years after Geese Howard's death, it took the adventure of composing all characters other than Terry Bogard with only new characters. In addition, Terry Bogard also appeared in a new look, taking off his hat familiar to users, which risked backlash from existing fans.

'Garou: Mark of the Wolves', which was released with these risks, is considered a successful example of character generation change in fighting games. Geese Howard's son and Terry Bogard's disciple Rock Howard, Kim Kaphwan's sons Kim Dong Hwan and Kim Jae Hoon, and B. Jenet, who established herself as another SNK sexy character, were all characterized by attractive character designs, narratives, and gorgeous dot graphics and animations to support their charms.

However, the Fatal Fury series has not continued since 'Garou: Mark of the Wolves'. It was revealed that the sequel was more than half developed at the time, but fighting game fans are well aware of the hardships SNK went through after going bankrupt once in 2001. Nevertheless, SNK overcame the hardships and revived, and is now trying to continue the story of their roots, 'Fatal Fury'.

'Fatal Fury CtoW', which was first unveiled at EVO 2022 on August 8, 2022, and officially titled at EVO2023 on August 7, 2023, is a sequel to 'Garou: MotW'. Rock Howard appears as the main character, and popular characters from the series such as Terry Bogard and Shiranui Mai appear in renewed forms. In addition, characters from 'Garou: MotW' such as Futaba Hotaru, B. Jenet, Kain R. Heinlein, and Griffon Mask will also appear to continue the unfinished story from the previous work.

In addition, new characters such as Preecha, Joe Higashi's disciple, and Vox Reaper, Grant's disciple, have been revealed, and a total of 17 characters will appear in the release version. In addition to the season pass characters after release, Ken and Chun-Li will also participate in a collaboration with 'Street Fighter 6'. Even on the 27th, the opening day of the OBT, soccer player Cristiano Ronaldo was surprisingly registered in the playable roster, further expanding the lineup.

The 'Fatal Fury CtoW', which is being prepared on such a large scale, has adopted the side-view battle style on the 3D graphics established after The King of Fighters XIV, overcoming the mistakes of the past. In particular, the effect part, which was regrettable from the past, has been arranged in a strong American cartoon style, which stands out as a unique style.

Various attempts have been made not only in graphics but also in the system. In addition to S.P.G, which inherits T.O.P from the previous work and gives attack power increase and health recovery effects every 1/3 section of the health gauge, the new system 'REV' in this work will show a diversified offense and defense aspect.

The REV system allows you to perform special attacks from the beginning of the battle, and can be used until the REV gauge displayed above the power gauge reaches its limit. First of all, before the battle starts, set the S.P.G. zone, which inherits the T.O.P of the previous work, in the desired place in the early, middle, and late stages of the health gauge, and the attack power increases in that section. In addition, REV Blow, which attacks while receiving the opponent's attack, can also be used in that section. Since REV Blow can be used even while jumping, it can be used to receive anti-air techniques and jump attacks.

In addition, the fun of designing various combos has been enhanced with REV Arts, which is an EX concept that strengthens special moves, and 'REV Accel', which connects REV Arts to other REV Arts or REV Blow. However, if the REV gauge rises to the maximum and overheats, REV actions cannot be used for a certain period of time, and the guard gauge decreases each time you guard, which can cause a guard crush, so you need to be careful.

The REV gauge rises when using REV actions, normal guards, or REV guards, and can be reduced by time elapsing, hitting attacks, or through just defense. In addition, 'Hyper Defense', which is activated by entering the → or ↘ direction at the exact timing according to the continuous guard technique, has the same effect as just defense, and it is another charm of 'Fatal Fury: CotW' to quickly activate super special moves, potential super special moves, and hidden gears with guard cancels to counterattack the enemy.

The fact that these complex systems have evolved to the point where they can be digested into fast-paced fighting action is welcome news for core fighting fans, but it may be a somewhat complex barrier to entry for beginners. Considering these aspects, SNK has considered users with two styles, 'Smart Style' and 'Arcade Style'. 'Smart Style' is a style that allows you to easily activate combination attacks or special moves by minimizing command operations. Users who are not familiar with fighting games can easily cope with the situation by continuing combos with punch or strong kick combos, or using special moves by combining directional keys with strong punches.

On the other hand, some advantages were given to the 'Arcade Style', which is familiar to existing fighting game users, to induce beginners to gradually practice the arcade style as they become familiar with it. In particular, 'Breaking', which interrupts the technical movements of some special moves, and 'Feint', which pretends to activate special moves, are only supported in the arcade style. By using these advanced techniques, you can aim for the opponent's missed attacks and even aim for a special counter 'Wild Punisher', so it seems that they designed it so that you can learn basic techniques in the smart style and gradually feel the unique tempo in the arcade style.

'Fatal Fury CotW', which showcased a demo version at Summer Game Fest 2024 and TGS 2024, conducted the first OBT from February 20th to 25th to check the network battle environment and quality feedback. In the first OBT, a total of 8 characters were playable, including the popular characters 'Terry Bogard' and 'Shiranui Mai', as well as 'B. Jenet', 'Kain R. Heinlein', and the new characters 'Preecha' and 'Vox Reaper'.

In the first OBT, the unique art style that stimulates emotions, the REV system that established a unique battle tempo, and the smart style for beginners and the existing arcade style were well received by users. However, some expressed disappointment that the battle environment was somewhat unstable and that there were few offline modes. In response to this feedback, SNK conducted more OBTs on March 27th prior to the release. In this second OBT, offline content such as Classic Versus and Tutorials were further enhanced, and Griffon Mask was added to the playable character lineup.

The changes in the second OBT, which was reintroduced in about a month, were quite surprising. First of all, the matching was different. In the early stages of the first OBT, matching was not easy, and there were cases where matching with opponents with high ping occurred frequently. This time, the feedback from that time was clearly received, and regional matching was properly implemented, and the matching time was also shortened by quickly finding opponents within a maximum of 60ms.

The tutorials implemented for both arcade and smart styles were also quite substantial. This is because they taught everything from really basic parts such as movement to various advanced techniques step by step. In particular, Fatal Fury CotW has some elements that are somewhat different from other games, such as REV and S.P.G, so it was necessary to teach how to use them. It was also impressive that this part was clearly pointed out and the so-called 'you have to get hit if you don't know' was significantly reduced.

Fatal Fury CotW, which I actually tasted after learning the tutorial, had a pretty strong impact. Above all, if you know the basics, even beginners can break through various tricks and taunts from the opponent to some extent and seize opportunities. For example, in 2D fighting games, the type that shoots fireballs and says 'come at me' is a gateway that beginners who do not know the game's system well experience at first. They are often faced with a dilemma of being shot down by anti-air attacks if they jump, and being hit continuously if they guard. At that time, by using 'REV Blow' in the S.P.G state, you can immediately punish the opponent who was only relying on fireballs and then go close to start the real game.

Another thing that beginners often suffer from is the low-level cheap tricks, but it was impressive that you can 'click' it with just one evasion attack button. Originally, you had to know the method to offset it for each character to deal with it, but now you can just unify it with one evasion attack and counterattack.

In addition, the 'Smart Style', which easily solves commands or combos that are difficult for beginner users to use with just one button, was also useful. There was a similar combo in the previous King of Fighters 15, but it was ambiguous for beginners to use because the combo was forcibly changed depending on the neutral state and the special move gauge. Reflecting the feedback experienced at that time, this time the judgment was somewhat flexible. In addition, it is divided into a type that only puts in combination attacks with normal attacks and a type that mixes REV Arts with command keys to put in powerful combos, so you can use them according to the situation.

Of course, this smart style has fewer play cases than the arcade style because it reduces the existing four basic input keys to two and assigns functions to the rest. However, even if there is pre-input, it takes quite a long time to train to input complex commands in order to some extent, and there is a risk of getting tired and leaving while learning. Therefore, the smart style type, which can be used easily and excitingly from the basics to some applications, even with some limitations, has become a recent trend in fighting games. SNK has made it easy to solve even the things that beginners find most difficult to deal with with its basic skills and know-how about fighting games.

The fact that the graphics, which could not keep up with the times, were undervalued despite the well-organized interior was the path of SNK's 3D games. SNK, which had been thinking about this several times to overcome this, felt like it was starting to ripen a little when it came to its fighting game's roots, 'Fatal Fury'. The quality has not jumped quantumly, but it has been well refined to be closer to American comics so that it firmly captures the characteristics of the work 'Fatal Fury'. At least, unlike the previous work where the effects fluttered and played separately, this time, the impact was delivered in accordance with the concept close to 'comics'. In addition, the effects that run through the whole body, such as REV Blow, were quite out of place in previous SNK works, but this time, they blended in naturally without such phenomena, allowing you to immerse yourself in the fighting game itself without any sense of incongruity.

Since 'Fatal Fury', SNK has produced countless fighting games and has become a game company that has reached the top based on its know-how. After that, there were several trials, but it has endured based on the power of the old days and has been making bone-cutting efforts to keep up with the trends again.

'Fatal Fury CotW', which has returned to its roots after several years, is also a work that shows the fruits of its efforts and SNK's in-depth understanding of the genre. You could see even at the OBT stage that the fast-paced fighting action reminiscent of the 2D era, as well as the various complex systems that require precise judgment and processing in the process, were harmoniously resolved. In addition, the 'Smart Style' that considers beginners and the active reflection of the latest trends were also noticeable.

Of course, there are still many mountains to overcome, such as the fact that the genre of 'fighting game' itself has declined a lot compared to the past and it is still difficult for beginners to approach, and that 'Fatal Fury' has been revived after being cut off for nearly 20 years, so it is unfamiliar to new users. In order to overcome these points, SNK is also introducing 'EOST' with RPG elements, and plans to expand the character lineup that users are familiar with, so it is necessary to watch the release of 'Fatal Fury CotW' and SNK's future moves.

Webzine InvenReporter Yoon Seo-ho
2025-04-10