Fatal Fury Special

"Complete Fatal Fury 2"

Fatal Fury Special is actually just an upgrade of the Fatal Fury 2 title in which the boss characters are unlocked and ready to play. Though the game really doesn’t feature anything impressive and the boss characters when used are cheap, there is something to be said for giving the consumer what they want. SNK has always been known to create some pretty difficult and rather hard to learn fighting games, with this title being no exception to the rule. Even though Fatal Fury Special is little more than an upgrade on an already existing fighting game, there is something here for any fan of the SNK line.

-The Game Play-

The game play is your typical fighting game fanfare with a few selectable characters, best two out of three battles and plenty of fighting moves for you to learn. One of the things about the Fatal Fury series though, is that the moves and using them all successfully takes plenty of practice and skill because the directional movements are all over the place. However, once you’ve gotten a handle on what you have and what you need to work with, the next part of the game is simply selecting a character that matches your playing style.

Mai, Kim, Jubei, Big Bear and Chin round out the old roster, and Krauser, Geese, Duck King and Tung Fu Rae round out the new with plenty of moves and attributes that will test your skills. Most of what a fighting game offers you is the ability to work with different characters that allow you to create combinations based on speed and power. Where Big Bear and Chin are rather large and slow, they hold the most power where Mai and Kim are smaller and allows for faster, yet less powerful hits. The boss characters on the other hand are overly powerful and once you learn them, there will be no stopping you.

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!

-The Visuals-

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.

-The Audio-

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 games.

-The Verdict-

Fatal Fury Special is actually the same game as Fatal Fury 2, yet the boss characters of Geese and Kruaser are unlocked and available to play. Another plus to the game is that the addition of more character to the roster leaves more to learn and play with, though the interface is still hard to work around. While the visuals and the audio are still slowly coming along, there is still plenty of room to improve here, and the control scheme is hard to work with. If you like the challenge of having to learn some difficult to control characters and love the insane difficulty that most SNK fighting games offer, then you’ll love this title. If not, then you may want to return to the Capcom fighters and save your money for an easier to learn fighting game.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 08/09/02, Updated 08/09/02