ACA NEOGEO Fatal Fury

Genre: Fighting Game

Players: 1-2 Competitive (Local), Online Leaderboards

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Review:

Fatal Fury, not to be confused with Real Bout Fatal Fury (that’s a later game in the series), is a Fighting Game originally released in 1991 in arcades as Fatal Fury: King of Fighters, a subtitle that would go on to become a spin-off/successor series to Fatal Fury. After its initial arcade release, ports of the game released on the NEOGEO home console and Super Nintendo in 1992, and in the years since it has been brought to numerous other consoles (including as a launch title for the NEOGEO CD), with this ACA NEOGEO version releasing on Nintendo Switch in 2017, a month after the launch of the console.

In its original release, Fatal Fury was clearly created to try to capitalize on the massive popularity the Fighting Game genre enjoyed at the time thanks to Capcom’s highly successful Street Fighter II. The creator of the original Street Fighter, Takashi Nishiyama, was the even game’s lead designer. However, I tend to think that the Fatal Fury series, at least at its inception, was always two steps behind the Street Fighter franchise, and this is no more obvious than in this first game in the series.

Graphically, Fatal Fury looks good, albeit perhaps not quite as polished as Street Fighter II, and the game features some excellent 2D pixel art character designs and imaginative stages. The game features brief voice clips, and the chiptune music is decent, albeit not especially memorable.

What’s more, right from the start, Fatal Fury establishes four of the characters that would remain mainstays throughout the series – Terry and Andy Bogard, Joe Higashi, and series villain Geese Howard (yeah, the big bad of the series is a guy named Geese. I suppose it makes about as much sense as a villain named Bison).

However, that’s where pretty much everything positive I have to say ends. Terry, Andy, and Joe are the only three playable characters in the game. Perhaps this compared favorably to the original Street Fighter, where you could only play as Ryu and Ken, but it’s outright embarrassing next to Street Fighter II’s roster of 8 characters, and pathetic when stacked up against more modern Fighting Games.

What’s more, by today’s standards, the gameplay feels stiff and clunky, and the two-lane gameplay system, while interesting, ultimately seemed to me to be more annoying than practical.

When it comes to the specific features of this port, players are given a decent array of options and features. The game features the Japanese original release, the English original release, and Caravan Mode, a 5 minute score challenge with Online leaderboards. Furthermore, in-game players can access display settings, save states, game settings, and a digital manual. It’s a decent selection of features, though sadly what’s missing is online play, and there’s no art or making-of content to speak of.

Look, Fatal Fury is an important game in the history of Fighting Games – despite the series lagging behind Street Fighter, this is the start of a franchise that would become the best competitor the classic Street Fighter series would ever have (sorry, Mortal Kombat). But it’s a pretty lousy start, and one that has aged terribly. And given this game’s absurd $8 price tag, I think the only people who will want to buy this game are those who are obsessed with that history. Everyone else is far better off playing one of the later games in the series.

tl;dr – Fatal Fury is a Fighting Game that’s the start of a franchise that would grow to become the best direct competitor the classic Street Fighter series would ever face off against. However, the series gets off to a rocky start here, with stiff controls and an embarrassing roster of only three characters. Unless you’re looking to spend a pricey $8 just to see a part of the history of the genre that has aged horribly, skip this game and play a later entry in the series.

Grade: D

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