"It's a first...."

Fatal Fury is the first of several different spawning of Fatal Fury games that is produced for several different systems, across several different consoles. In this first outing, you've got a choice between three characters, and only three; Andy and Terry Bogard and Joe Higashi pretty much round out your entire playable cast of fighters! As with other first time SNK fighting games, the offerings were pretty slim, and even though you only had three to work with, only one of the three was any good with the right person behind him, that being Terry, who could use that Crack Shoot like no ones business. In many successive battles, you'll fight the likes of Raiden, the huge wrestling maniac, and Duck King, a wild street punk who dances and fights in a break dancing style incomparable to any other fighter in the game! Speaking of other fighters in the game, SNK has this strange little fixation with making the computer somewhat stronger, faster and able to dodge and blow through your attack like nobodies business. You would have figured that with Art of Fighting being that way, they could have at least toned this down just a little bit! But alas, you're stuck with getting your butt kicked at every opportunity by outmatched computer controlled characters! What also comes to mind in Fatal Fury is that with the Genesis conversion, there was plenty of room to operate and make good on the capabilities of creating more fighters that you could choose from. However, you’re still stuck with only three characters, just like the arcade game, although you can unlock more for the two player versus game if you’re skilled enough to do it.

You have control of one of three characters, each of which has the potential to be dangerous in the hands of a skilled player, or at least one who has practiced enough. You'll battle through several different enemy characters until you reach the insanely powerful and almost undefeatable Geese who is awaiting you in his building! Where the game play takes a dive, is the fact that the computer outmatches you no matter what, and unless you have a good handle on your character and just what he can do, you're going to get your ass kicked more often than you really want to think about! Special moves are somewhat original, even though in my own opinion a couple of them were copied from the Street Fighter series, and renamed for posterity sake.

The two-player game is probably what gives Fatal Fury its saving grace. Allowing you to have a friend to fight against, you could at least select more characters and therefore have a wider variety to choose from while fighting! This adds in to a little more replay that could previously be found missing from the arcade version of the game. Being stuck with three characters is a drag to begin with, but at least you and your friend can play with more than Andy, Terry and Joe, which is a definite step up! Combinations in the game are limited to your experience in playing Fatal Fury, and if you’ve got a good understanding of Street Fighter and what can be accomplished there, then you should have no problem picking this up and making good with it.

The control can be slow and unresponsive in some situations and if you're looking to blast off a heavy hitting combination, you'll find yourself coming up short. The control interface here isn't very user friendly, and unless you have your timing down, you'll be blocked, kicked, thrown and stomped on more times then you can blink! Once you do have the control down, the moves are done ala Street Fighter style and really aren't that hard to pull off, as long as you get the timing down correctly! When you do finally have the game down to a science, there should be no real problem in playing through the game and doing so in a professional fashion. Simply because the game offers up very little in terms of forgiving control, you’ll have to have a good handle on what the Street Fighter games have had to offer in the past in order to get a true handle on the game. You could almost consider this a test of your directional skills, simply because the game doesn’t follow the original format of back and forth, but is more or less all over the place on the directional stick!

Bright and colorful, Fatal Fury boasts some pretty impressive visuals, and some really flashy special moves. Unfortunately, it doesn't save it from the occasional image break up, and in some very noticeable cases, game slow down when the action becomes highly intense! Gamers will find reason to complain, although fans will probably overlook this as simply being a 'first-time' game glitch. While SNK does do a good job, it does have its problems, simply because with all of the impressive visuals and the flashy special moves, there are points of pixelation and break up in key points of the battles. You’ll also find that some of the flare of the arcade machine that is offered here isn’t as muted as it was with the Genesis hardware, so if you’ve played the game before, be in for a slight surprise!

The music is upbeat and funky, but doesn't match the game in some places. Duck King on the other hand, and his stage music makes a pretty good stand, and will have your foot tapping after a few moments of listing to it. The voice overs and even the actual in game sound effects sound pretty good, and some of them are original, even though you'll be sure to hear ported over effects from the Art of Fighting series before too long! Speaking of the audio, with most of the game music, you’ll find that the Arcade sounds that you hear can be a little tough on the ears after about an hour of play. While it does make a good effort, most Fatal Fury fans will probably cringe now after hearing what it is on the next generation systems. Not a bad thing mind you, but also not a good thing when looking at past attempts at home sound conversions!

Smash and bash on a first time out, you'll find Fatal Fury the first course of several Fatal Fury games that have gotten better, and worse over the years! Fans of the series who started here, will find that the game has little in flaws, and much in innovation, while everyone else will see it's an Art of Fighting/Street Fighter clone with different characters and locations as well as a slightly used story. The action, while intense at some points, offers nothing new that you haven’t played before and with the lack of playable characters through the story mode of the game, there isn’t much more than a one time through by yourself! The two player versus option is a good addition and the extra characters are as well, but in the end, it’s an aged game and a rather average one at that.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 10/04/01, Updated 01/10/02