Real Bout Fatal Fury 2

"SNK delivers the 7th episode of Fatal Fury and it´s again the best to date"

Wow, another Fatal Fury! My first thought was "will SNK become sequel-addicted like Capcom, or what?", cause I couldn´t imagine that they could make a game even better than Real Bout Special. Okay, the backgrounds were bad in RBS, but for the unparalleled gameplay it was in my opinion the best fighting game so far.

But RB2 surprised me. It is no revolution, but takes RBS even a step further. Two all-new characters, very good backgrounds and the again improved playability makes it a dream to play. Okay, maybe I´m going to fast, so here it is from the beginning on: There are two new characters, Li Xiangfei and Rick Strowd. Rick is a boxer, Xiangfei is a Chinatown-girl, and while I cant see a specific style of fighting in her, she´s a mix of Geese, Tung and some drunken-master techniques. Both are a bit too strong, maybe the SNK guys have learned from their mistake were they made the newcomers in Fatal Fury 3 too weak. Hope next time they get the balance right.

The intro consists of some pictures of the newcomers, therefore are two different intros in the game, each of them features only Rick or Xiangfei. I like them very much, despite the fact that both are only a few seconds long.

All old characters from RBS are back, some have only minor changes, like Andy, Mai and Krauser, others changed dramatically, for example Laurence.

The line system is changed again, this time you fight only on the front line while escaping to the back line. It is not possible anymore for both characters to sway over to the back line together. The fighter who is coming back to the fighting line is able to start a combo with this move, so the line-switching system plays alot better again.

In general, there are the same things changed like fron RBFF to RBS: the character selection screen, the screens between the fights and the endings. The most noticable is that the portraits are from an other artist, therefore the characters look very aggressive this time. Some of them look very good, others are crap, they really don´t stand comparison with the pictures in RBS, they are still the best portraits in a fighting game so far.

The EX characters are gone, cause many moves of the EX versions are now "owned" by the normal versions. The hidden character this time is also a totally new one. He´s a young pilot called Alfred. He has very strong special attacks, but is unfortunately not playable.

The obstacles are gone, instead of them three of the backgrounds are 1-line stages. That means that it is not possible to change the lines, but you can knock your opponent into the obstacles in the background, like in Fatal Fury 2/Special. Finally, the good old Fatal Fury-quality backgrounds are back. They look very good and are the definitely best since Fatal Fury 3. All are totally new and have, like in all FF games, two or three daytimes.

The music is the same like in RBS, except Andy´s, which is another remix of the tune from FF3/RBFF. It´s very good, but I still prefer the original version. The musics of the three newcomers are new , but unfortunately not as good as the older ones. Overall the game has a very good soundtrack, but not good enough to join classics like the ones from Art of Fighting 2, Fatal Fury 2/Special, Fatal Fury 3/Real Bout and King of Fighters ´94.

But now onto the interesting stuff: the gameplay itself. On the first look there seems to be no difference to Real Bout Special. But after a few rounds you notice there are changes, the most noticable is that in combos it is no longer so easy to connect all hits like in the predecessor; if the opponent is too far away you may lose him/her cause you can´t connect your moves anymore.

There are more varied combos. Nearly all characters have new DM´s or SDM´s and some of them have also new special moves. This changes the balance totally, Laurence is much weaker than in RBS(no 14 hit S-Power combos anymore!), while Joe got a new P-Power move which makes him even more dangerous than before.

The artificial intelligence is absolutely excellent, in my opinion the best in the whole fighting-game world. The 2 player game can be very frustrating, sometimes you need only three good combos to win a round, so the player who is not so good may lose the desire to play. Reminds me somehow of Killer Instinct. My advice: don´t use the 2P-mode as long as you don´t have an opponent who is as good as you.

The only disappointment is that every character has only two winning poses, one for a win through a k.o., the other for a time-out. Where are those special two-player winning poses? And what about the pre-fight poses? Why have the SNK-people removed them? To save 10 Megs? Shame on you.

Real Bout 2 has a lack of King of Fighters-ish depth, but makes it up with fun, you shouldn´t forget that this is what games are all about.

Overall the game is a real killer, the best fighting game so far! It shows all other games that the playability is still the most important, not the graphics or to have dozens of characters in the game. Every Fatal Fury-maniac should also own this one!

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 11/01/99, Updated 11/01/99