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Submitted by Gaming Briefs and Nostalgia Bits

Time now for a special post all about the Fatal Fury series, the second most popular fighting series in its time to Street Fighter, which provided some of the ideas for how to design this game. Let’s start with the first game, released in late 1991, over here in 2 parts:

And watch here for the endings for all 3 players.

This was how it began, with this story-based game in which you have three protagonists, two brothers and one friend, Terry and Andy Bogard, and Joe Higashi, who are seeking to avenge their father’s death at the hands of South Town’s crime boss, the aikido-trained fighter Geese Howard. The opponents here are certainly tough, and Raiden, who later became Big Bear, is probably the second hardest next to Geese.

The game even had a sly sense of humor in how, when you first play with Terry and Geese learns who he is, he says, “I didn’t know Bogard had a son!” and then, when you play with Andy, Geese says, “did Bogard have two sons?” Boy, that was certainly amusing.

Interestingly enough, one of the designers of the first Street Fighter from 1987, who later went to work for SNK, may have worked on this game as well. It became so popular that, just like Street Fighter, there came a few anime productions based on it as well. And the following year, that’s when it really took off as a franchise, with Fatal Fury 2, seen in the next recording (SNES version):

And watch here for the endings to all the characters.

With this, we had 8 characters to choose from. Joining the first three legends, aka the Lone Wolves, were Cheng Sinzan, Kim Kaphwan, Jubei Yamada, Big Bear, the former Raiden who now took up a new name and costume, and also, one of the hottest chicks in video games, Mai Shiranui! She’s since become SNK’s most popular lady combatant, appearing mainly in the long-running King of Fighters series. I remember thinking about Mai years ago that she had a very “bouncy” figure, and then discovering that there were plenty of people who agreed with me! Plus, her bionic bosom was surely the first to really bounce in video games, when she did her super-cute victory pose and exclamation with her eyes twinkling. This was a few years before Tecmo’s Dead or Alive came along and really worked on this idea. Mai is also the girlfriend of Andy Bogard.

Not only did SNK know how to cash in on the craze Street Fighter 2 started, what made the Fatal Fury series stand out well in all the crop was that it had a style and interface all its own, with two planes to fight on. In the first game, this could usually only be reached when knocked onto it by an opponent, or when the opponent jumped there themselves. In the sequel, with the help pressing two buttons, you could jump there any time during the fight. Interesting thing about 3 out of four of the bosses was that they otherwise had only one plane, sort of like 3 or 4 stages in the first game, but this time with objects in the background that could injure if knocked onto them. And the final boss, Wolfgang Krauser, while I hadn’t initially known at the time, appears to be Geese’s half-brother, also a very menacing fighter. Look out! That projectile of his is dangerous! The endings are simple, but to view them, you need to complete the game on one credit.

As mentioned before, this became a huge hit, and led to plenty of merchandise, anime productions, etc. Then, the next year after this came Fatal Fury Special:

And click here to watch the endings for all the characters.

In this installment, not only are the four bosses now selectable, but 3 players from the first game make their return: Tung Fu Rue, Duck King, and also Geese Howard! Those reports of his demise in the hospital clearly were exaggerated, weren’t they?

Mai has at least two new abilities to use to her advantage as well: a diving attack, and, if she didn’t have it in her debut, she now has the ideal ability to catch her opponents in the air and press them firmly to the floor.

And the most interesting surprise available in this game is inclusion of Ryo Sakazaki from Art of Fighting! If you can complete every stage without losing a round, you’ll be facing him as an opponent. There’s a way to unlock him as a fighter, but I have no idea how at this point.

Two years after this, SNK made Fatal Fury 3: Road to the Final Victory, which expanded upon the double-plane concept slightly - there’s now three of them! When beginning, you usually start in the middle one. And here’s a little recording of that here:

And click here to see the endings for the characters. With this, we have still more newcomers, those being Blue-Mary (full name is Mary Ryan), the pretty blonde chick, a kickboxer named Franco Bash, Bob Wilson, a capoeira expert who may be a disciple of Richard Meyer at the Pao Pao Cafe, Sokaku Mochizuki, whose face cannot be seen, Yamazaki, a gangster with a score to settle with Geese, and also Jin Chonshu and Chonrei, the two official bosses here. And the plot involves the search for a bunch of valuble scrolls, though I don’t think you really see any of them here. Some of the special skills have been changed too (Joe Higashi no longer has his rapid punch).

And there’s be some more, with Real Bout becoming the title, which I’ll write about in a followup post.

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