Garou: Mark of the Wolves

"One of the best 2-D fighters...And it has Terry Bogard in it!!"

Garou : Mark of the Wolves is the last (developed by the late SNK) in Street Fighter's main rival, the Garou Dentetsu series. This new title takes place 10 years after Dominated Mind and of all the old characters, only Terry is still here. He no longer sports his trademark outfit, red cap, jacket and all. Instead, he's had his hair cut shorter and wear a completely new outfit but hasn't abandoned Jeff's gloves. Well, did you actually expect he would… ? The other characters are all new although some are not completely knew as they were integrated in the Garou and KOF storyline a while back. These new characters are : Rock Howard, who like the name implies, is the son of Geese Howard (the dead Geese ?…we'll see about that…) and who has been trained by Terry himself ; Kim Dong Hwan and Kim Jae Hoon, the sons of Kim Kaphwan, and both rely on kicks only just like their father ; Hotaru ; Gato (the sage) ; sexy Jenet ; Marco, who is Ryo's student ; Hokutomaru ; the evil-looking and weird Freeman ; Tizoc, a wrestling champion ; Kevin, an FBI member out to track Freeman, (I pity him) ; and the two bosses, Grant and Kain.

Now features have been added of course. Most noticeably, battles take place on one plane only and the ability to go into the background to suddenly attack your opponent from the side is no longer possible. The Escape feature which was Garou's trademark has also been abandoned much to my dismay but I got used to it after spending three consecutive hours on the game. Instead, there is now the T.O.P. feature which consists of a special attack which you can perform during a limited time. Azt the start of each battle, you can set your T.O.P. gauge and this is made possible by choosing a portion of your lifebar which is seperated into 3 parts for this reason. Once you've made your mind, you can access your special attack by pressing CD while your character is flashing, indicating that you have reached this portion of your lifebar.

There are also the kick-ass feint moves which consist of confusing your opponent by doing only the opening animation of a move and special taunts which can be done at the end of each round. A great innovation is that the winning quotes changes against each opponent and some characters actually have small cinematics between them to tell you more about the deep plot (SNK excels in those) like the one between Terry and Rock or the one between Marco and Tizoc.

For their last Garou, SNK seems to have spent a lot of time designing it and what a good idea ! The graphics of this last title is simply awesome. Beautifully-designed characters and backgrounds will make you speechless and you'll stare in awe as those big characters who move about without the least glitch. Indeed, the anime style of the previous Garous and the 'small' designs' have been abandoned to be now replaced by 'big' characters who take up a lot of the screen. Taking into account the fast animation of the game that still prevails, I can just be surprised at how the hell did SNK manage to do this…The characters are very well-drawn with a stunning amount of details like Rock's hair and how he dresses it after winning a battle and the colours are simply beautiful. Backgrounds have been dealt with in the same manner and they're all beautiful with rich colours and a huge amount of details provided you get the time to notice those. And who can forget Terry's stage which has got to be the best in a 2D beat-em-up (the stage where it starts to rain in KOF '99 is nothing compared to this one) ? His stage takes place on a cargo train and the background (provided he's not giving you a hard time) is really amazing.

And now the music…People who've played the Garou Dentetsu and KOF series are probably aware at how good SNK is with the soundtracks. And this new title is no exception ! From Rock's highly-rythmed theme which has an air of déjà-vu to Freeman's freakish music, the soundtrack of MOTW is one of the finest I've ever heard. It doesn't equal that of KOF 2000 but then, it would have been most intricating if that has really happened. Just to say that the music in this title is once more terrific and that you'll love the themes. Hmmm…voice-acting ? C'mon dude, this is Garou…What were you expecting ? Once again, the voices are great as well as the sound effects. Well, the Power Geyser has been replaced by the Livewire( ?) but the voices are as good as can be. My favourite has to be Freeman with that scary voice of his and those groans that are still echoing in my head.

MOTW sports a fantastic gameplay (oh…what a surprise…) and no doubt, your Neo-Geo will stay out for a long time with this title. Kain and Grant are already selectable in this version and no codes are needed to enable them. Actually, they aren't as strong as the real bosses but I had already observed this on the Arcade version. A practice mode has been added so that you can get used with the controls and practice your combos as well as options which are very useful indeed.

This game is fantastic and hugely entertaining. SNK fans will love it and even if you're not a Garou fan, you'll like the good looks of that game and its deep plot and awesome control. Yeah, the game costs a lot of bucks (and I had to import it too !!) but hey, that's what the Neo-Geo is all about…

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 06/25/01, Updated 11/09/02