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Fatal Fury: Mark of the Wolves
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Dreamcast - SNK - Action - Fighting - 2 Players
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| If you're one of the many people who still holds firm to the belief that King of Fighters is nothing more than a Street Fighter rip-off, than I have two things to say to you. One, you're wrong, and two, you'd have no problem with the assumption that Garou is just SNK's take on Street Fighter III. And surprisingly enough, you'd be right. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| At a first glance, the similarities are striking. Not only have both Garou and SF3 both had their cast almost completely stripped down, but the new casts actually match up with one another. You have your wee little ninjas, side show freaks, aspiring martial arts students, twins with opposing personalities, etc. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| If you delve into the actual gameplay, you'll notice more similarities, mainly in the form of the "Just Defend" system. Though this system was obviously inspired by SF3's parry, it's more intuitive, and not as game breaking as that aforementioned move. Instead of tapping forward when an attack comes, you tap back. After hitting back to block for so many years, this system is much more natural. When you successfully Just Defend a move, you gain a small token of life back, and are able to perform a counter. Thankfully, the counter system is limited, so matches never degenerate down to defensive stalemates. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| However once you look past the initial similarity of the games, it's easy to see that Garou isn't imitating Street Fighter III. It was simply inspired by it. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Cast changes and new defensive techniques weren't the only things added to this installment of the Fatal Fury series. The series has adopted a four button, KoF style control scheme, and abandoned the trademark 2-line system of the earlier titles. Frankly, all that jumping around annoyed the hell out of me, I'm glad it's gone. Another big change is in the commands that perform super moves. Just about every Potential Power in the game is performed with a double fireball motion. This works wonders in keeping the game combo oriented and quick. Also added is something called the "TOP" system. When in TOP mode, you gain a new attack, perform more damage than usual and actually regain a bit of health over time. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Sans Metal Slug, Garou is without a doubt the best looking piece of software to ever grace the aged MVS hardware (that's the Neo-Geo for those not in the know). Every single fighter in this game just reeks of great character design. Even Terry, the only returning character is given a new get up. Backgrounds are usually bustling with life, and a good chunk of them actually change between rounds. However the single best thing about the graphics is how well everything animates. This is another example of a game where still shots just don't do it justice. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| But Garou isn't my favorite fighter on the Dreamcast simply because it's pretty and technically sound. It's just a hell of a lot of fun to play. Though the cast isn't large by modern standards, every single character (again, minus Terry) is new. And though some of these characters do fight in a similar style to fighters of the series past, there's nothing as bad as lets say, the similarities between Remi and Guile. Something also needs to be said for the games depth. The combo system is complex to the extent of allowing you to incorporate things like feint moves into the mix. If you take into account all the other additions to the series, you really have something here. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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