Hello friends. Thank you for dropping by. You probably know that I’m a huge fan of fighting games. I’ve been playing them for 45 years. The first fighter I remember playing was Warrior by Vectorbeam.
I wrote about this when I was doing a look at the Virtua Fighter relaunch. With that said I’ve avoided posting on the Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves for some time now. People may think that I’m biased against SNK, or only write about Street Fighter, but that is far from the truth. In fact
the very first blog that I posted here in 2014 was dedicated to Mr. Karate from the SNK universe.
I’ve written a lot about the history of Fatal Fury, the creators, and the characters on this blog. I was such a fan of the Garou series specifically that
I tracked down the manhua (Chinese comics) based on Garou: Mark of the Wolves. I loved all fighting games, it’s just I loved some titles more than others.
I was very passionate about the Garou / Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves project for some time.
I started talking about the development of the game in 2022. It had been ages since I was excited for a classic game to return.
By March of 2024 I shared everything that I could pull from the character reveal, and gameplay trailers. I did a look at
how the characters featured in the game evolved from concept art. With the guest character reveals of Mai, and Terry in Street Fighter 6 I had to mention
why Mai Shiranui was important in fighting game history. Yet once the final details of the game were announced this year, and released on April 25, 2025 I had yet to say anything.
Why would I walk away from a sequel that I had been waiting on since November 26, 1999? That was when the original Garou: Mark of the Wolves came out. After a quarter-century wasn’t it going to be worth the wait? Sadly the answer would be no. The game was the embodiment of
The Monkey's Paw. The short story taught us to be careful of what you wish for. Sometimes it’s better for things to stay dead, and buried. Even though SNK said that their new Saudi owners would not influence the direction of the games it was obvious that wasn’t entirely true. The game would be pandering to pop culture, rather than celebrating the fighting game legacy that built an industry.
Will Borger with Digital Trends summed up everything that needed to be said about Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves. Mr. Borger's review touches all the basis for the game itself, but does us all a favor and explains why it doesn't reflect the fighting game community at all.
There was a quick answer as to why I walked away from the game after a release date was announced. The two guest characters revealed were shockingly disappointing. Rather than include a classic character from the SNK universe, or any crossover characters from Capcom, Sega, ARIKA, or Namco. The developers decided that a professional futbol / soccer player, and a DJ would be the welcome additions. These two people were so outside of the fighting game orbit that they would have never been voted on by the actual players. The athlete himself
had been in the news for sex crimes. As for the Swedish-Bosnian DJ... he might be a global superstar but I had never even heard of him. Apologies
to Super Greg for being overlooked as a better Hip Hop representative. It was obvious that the Saudis were directly influencing the development of the game.
SNK would not bother to do as much of a cultural deep dive as Capcom did with Street Fighter 6.
That is not to say that a soccer character couldn’t be used in a fighting game.
Roberto Miura from the Capcom game Rival Schools: United by Fate showed us that it was possible way back in 1997. Not only that but athletes had already been used in an SNK fighting game.
Team USA aka Team American Sports appeared in King of Fighters ’94. These was a professional boxer named Heavy D! A pro football player / race car driver named Brian Battler. Lastly there was the
basketball pro named Lucky Glauber. So yes the game could have used pro sports athletes, as long as they were made somewhat fantastic, and not just a copy / paste of an existing athlete. As for the DJ… fighting breakdancers could be done well. See
Helicopter in Capoeria Fighter 3.
In many ways the bigger insult to the Fatal Fury series was in adding a real DJ to the game (whom I would also not name). Hip Hop already had a representative in the series called Duck King. This character debuted in the original Fatal Fury on November 25, 1991 then appeared another 11 times over the decades. The mohawked star was a literal street fighter. He was a battling b-boy (breakdancer) using tumbles, and sweeps to great effect. He was followed by a crew of baby ducks, wore street clothes, had a flamboyant personality, and was beloved in the fighting game community. Even if it was revealed that mentored the DJ in the new game it would have been better to stay with the original South Town legend. It was clear that the people working on SNK today didn’t understand the tone, and feel of the original series.
The early days of the arcade era were very experimental for most studios. In the ‘80s SNK was known for its bold game designs. They did combat game exceptionally well because
SNK founder Eikichi Kawasaki was a boxer in his younger days. He wanted the fights in his games to be more visceral. This meant that masters of various forms were welcome to be represented in their releases. That was why
SNK introduced Capoeira to arcade goers way back to 1989. The developers had a great appreciation for fighting in all styles. When MMA started to surpass all combat sports in the late ‘90s
they developed a rare 3D title called Buriki One in 1999. It was the same year that they released Garou: Mark of the Wolves. Many of those team members had since retired, or moved to other studios. The current team at SNK was good at recreating themes, and elements of classic games with modern art, aesthetics, controls, and game play. The thing they seemed to lack was the imagination, and appreciation of the influences that created the iconic series.
The new developers didn’t seem to know how to add a new character into the franchise that wasn’t pulled from old design notes. Worse yet they were listening to the whims of their Saudi owners, and just throwing in real people for no reason. This made me afraid that they would try to reboot Buriki One next. Or they might reconsider bringing back other games based on the cold reception of Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves. At least I hoped they would do better if they were thinking about it. What about you? Did you pick up the game? Was it your first time playing an SNK game, or were you a veteran player like me? I’d like to hear about it. Tell me about it in the comments section. As always if you enjoyed this blog, and would like to sponsor me
please visit my Patreon page and consider donating each month, even as little as $1 would help make better blogs and even podcasts!
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