With the biggest names in the scene returning with new titles, as well as several newcomers and remasters coming out in the past few years, this decade has been spectacular for fighting games. The growing excitement has been palpable—a year ago it finally reached me when I, a mere casual who enjoyed a bit of a brawl at parties and some single-player modes, finally committed to one. It feels that now, however, the honeymoon is over. Fans are taking issue with the core tenets of new installments, update reception is mixed, something I think every fighting game faces at one point in its lifespan. But where to now? Perhaps it is time for a new game to make some noise.
Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves does just that. Its guest characters bring fresh eyes onto the scene, it mixes fresh DJ sounds with the enchanting grooves of the classics, and it impresses with the Ben-Day dots visual style while retaining Fatal Fury’s rapid combat animations. It is a package that catches the eye, ear, and soul as it enters the scene in its own way: not with intensity or any aura of importance, but with a youthful energy that you, the player, have to step up to.
Ultimately, your main drive has to be the want to get better, to match the coolness factor of the game. City of the Wolves will not let you through without trial and error, mashing random buttons does not lead to anything cool happening, and untrained fingers will only go so far. For me, back in the beta, I could not even deal damage to the CPU opponents meant to set up your online rank. This is one you have to bite your teeth into despite its lack of that initial, flashy, feel-good draw modern contemporaries have—something I grew to appreciate with time.
Throughout the first hours, you will build your tempo and style, finding a character that fits you best. This was my first time learning a fighting game from the ground up, and though initially I felt lost, ultimately I think City of the Wolves does a solid job at guiding you without stepping over your creativity. It does not encroach on your self-motivated drive, instead offering just enough of an onboarding process via tutorials, practice tools, and single-player modes to push you in the right direction.
Basics can be learned through combo trials and an extensive practice mode, allowing for detailed scripting of an opponent’s behavior, starting position, reactions on block, and exploring the two control styles: a classic Arcade Style and the more assisted Smart Style. Online replay functionality lags a bit behind its competition, though its lack of input on your mistakes might have to do with the aforementioned freeform approach to learning. From these tools, you want to move on to the two single-player modes: Arcade and Episodes of South Town.
The latter is a pretty expansive RPG mode where fights award EXPs and unlock perks for all characters to use. Each character has their campaign, and although the writing is not particularly interesting, there is plenty of unique content here. For one, the majority of your opponents are going to be some variation/combination of characters exclusive to this mode. Without ever outwardly stating their strengths and weaknesses, their unique moves and tactics do a great job at intuitively teaching the players defense and offense against moves they will encounter as they move on to fight other players.
These CPU opponents have slower attacks that allow you to encounter interactions naturally. Aside from learning defense, it is likely through dozens of battles against them that a new player will discover how characters using power moves can be grabbed, colliding projectiles cancel each other out and the different playstyles and other players may adapt. Later, they will also encounter characters from the main roster to test out their findings.
Though admirable as a learning tool, EOST tends to drag on, especially if you complete it on more than one character with new game plus. The perks and stats gained as you progress may also instill bad habits, such as thinking your character deals more damage than they would during a regular fight or relying on mechanics unique to the mode. As a change of pace, it works well enough, I enjoyed occasionally going back to the bottle-breaking minigame, but the repetition sets in too soon to warrant the hours it would take to clear it on all characters.
I had a much better time in the Arcade mode, where I felt that I got to know each character. Here, everyone fights in the King of Fighters tournament over Geese’s Legacy, and even with only three unique cutscenes per fighter they do a great job at weaving the story through different endings—simple, but effective, with a lot of references to Fatal Fury’s past that allows you to get behind every character’s motivation and the sort of combat fantasy they represent. My only complaint here is that too many scenarios end with the same boss.
Additionally, the more standardized difficulty selectable when picking your fighter makes up for an offline experience closest to playing against real players. Some of these high-tier CPUs seriously do not mess around, using combos that will take off half your HP bar for any one mistake you make. It teaches you the value of proper spacing, good defense, and planning out your attack.
At its core, City of the Wolves is a game that is balanced around both defense and offense thanks to the Rev system. For many seasoned players, this step back from very offense-oriented titles will be very welcome. Blocks and attacks fill up your special bars, but should you block too much or use too many Rev moves, you will enter overheat mode, in which you can no longer access them until you cool down. Though you are not immediately at risk defensively, each block decreases the block meter underneath your health bar. Once that fully depletes, your next block will get guard crushed, and against any skilled player or high-level CPU that means the majority of your health will disappear soon after.
There exists a risk that the defensive options will overtake the offensive ones due to the S.P.G. system: a bar on your health bar that can be adjusted pre-fight to either a start, middle, or end position. Once you reach its threshold, your attacks are boosted and you gain access to special, armored Rev Blow moves that can interrupt your opponent’s attacks and function as new combo finishes.
While allowing its position to be modified proves to be an exciting player expression tool, matches can be completely flipped when one of the players enters the S.P.G. threshold, as the other has to now play very carefully. This may lead to both players feeling discouraged from performing offensive actions, instead waiting for a counter to launch into their offense.
Feinting is a great way of introducing an element of uncertainty into the mix. By pressing the Rev button at the right time after performing a move you can play out an animation that looks like the start of said move without actually committing to it. On top of serving as a combo extender, throwing out a move, stopping yourself, perfectly guarding, and retaliating is something that can get you out of those stalemate situations.
On the other hand, if the player in S.P.G. uses Rev Blows offensively as opposed to using them as a counter-move, dodge attacks, and certain supers can punish that strategy heavily, as long as they are timed properly of course. Overall, while Rev Blows and the S.P.G. meters are very powerful tools unique to each character, it does feel like enough options exist on both sides of the field to punish them sufficiently with enough practice.
Whether learning about these unique situations that come from such game-changing abilities on top of all the basics will be enjoyable is still up in the air, especially with many more characters hinted at by the developers, but for me, it is an exciting prospect. City of the Wolves is a very rewarding game, and nothing emphasizes that better than the fact I found myself actively wanting to play near everyone from the launch roster.
After the first time I got demolished by Gato’s full combo, I realized just how enjoyable it is to figure out the safe spacing and anti-air timing to understand his strengths and weaknesses. Moving from one newcomer to another, Preecha and Vox could not be more of an opposite, but they both exude an inspiring confidence through their animations and specials. I quickly fell in love with the wrestler Tizoc and his travel grab suplex. There is an archetype here for everyone, and thanks to their strong identities, both in gameplay and character, and universal inputs across the whole roster, it is easy to start maining anyone.
Even the real person Salvatore Ganacci, who I and many others were thoroughly confused by, rounds up the crew of misfits nicely. As more of a jokester character, his moveset is crazier than the others, but he does introduce levity and still feels intense thanks to a successful integration into the universe. The influence of his patron, Fatal Fury’s Duck King, goes as far as having Ganacci implement some of his moves into his repertoire, a theme that runs through the many protege characters in this entry.
The one character that sticks out is Cristiano Ronaldo. He does not feel properly introduced into the setting, kind of just shows up, and does not partake in EOST and Arcade modes. His playstyle revolving around the ball somehow looks more off than a flying DJ, and one of his Rev Blows is a goalkeeper save that does not fit his combat style, let alone his real life position. He admittedly does introduce some fun interactions into the mix, the ball can be an interesting factor to play around when it is on the field, but he was also undoubtedly my least favorite member of the roster.
A very important part of fighting games for me is how fun they are to watch. In multi-person lobbies, a good chunk of time is spent on observing others, and you want it to captivate an audience so that everyone can react when something crazy happens. In this aspect, I think Fatal Fury is safe for a top-two spot on the scene.
The unique animation style leaves you breathless, the cinematic supers have that tension building towards them due to the required prep time, the catchphrases get the crowd going, the music is a wonderfully varied mixup between classic SNK tunes and guest DJ tracks, and at high levels of play, it is just a joy to watch and hear all the meaty impact frames hit during a combo. Stages are really captivating too, very busy and wacky. Lots of moving parts and little scenes playing out in the background.
An exciting though currently underexplored aspect City of the Wolves is the return of the two-lane system. On release, only one map has this functionality, and while it undoubtedly adds new possibilities, it is hard to gauge how substantial of an impact its implementation will have on the game. Right now you can run it with a friend, and the visual of the two fighters staring at each other on opposite lanes is fantastic, but as it stands it just plays too small of a part in my evaluation of the game.
Its visual flair, defensive/offensive balance, and plenty of player expression opportunities make FATAL FURY: City of the Wolves an incredibly exciting title for the current state of the fighting game scene. Like others, I am sure it will have its ups and downs, but at release, it is just such a treat to experience this fresh and complex revival entry walk onto the scene with a bang. As much as the video game industry refuses to celebrate fighting games properly, we are in our sixth year of incredible releases for the genre, and the least I can do is give another one its well-deserved flowers.
Mateusz played FATAL FURY: City of the Wolves on PC with a provided review copy.
