Fatal Fury Special

"Fatal Fury Special Transitions to SNES Smoothly"

Fatal Fury Special for the SNES is a great game. The music may leave a little to be desired but overall the game makes a nice transition from the Neo-Geo to the Super Nintendo. The controls feel great and the graphics look great too. Really the one department that is severely lacking is in the sound department. That hurts the game overall. The quality of this port from the top-notch Neo-Geo to the SNES loses some animation due to the fact that the cart has been reduced in size from 150 megs down to 32. However overall the SNES version looks and plays good.

(gameplay - 9)
The moves are very easy to pull off with the SNES controller. The four-button layout doesn't max out all the SNES buttons, so there are special moves for the L and R buttons. The control is tight and responsive even though the game suffers from minor slowdown here and there. The characters are responsive, the moves are easy to pull off, and the controls feel great.

(story - 8)
Wolfgang Krauser is the bad boy in this game. He is the boss character as well as Axel Hawk, Laurence Blood, Geese Howard, and Billy Kane. There are several other fighters found in this game, all of which have a vendetta against Krauser. The game is set up in Southtown, where you must battle against other competitors from around the world in order to earn your fight with Krauser at the end.

(graphics - 8, sound - 5)
The characters are smaller here than in the Neo-Geo version and the backgrounds don't look nearly as good but overall they are polished and animated nicely. This game looks great, with the characters being recongizable and the stages have variations in the time of day from round to round. Some stages, like Kim Kapwhan's have weather effects like snow. Pretty impressive stuff. The music leaves a lot to be desired. The SNES really does a poor job emulating the Neo-Geo sound, and I don't know why. For the most part the music just sounds like it was recorded in a tunnel and it comes through like it is on tiny speakers. The sound effects are much better, but for the most part the sound just fails to impress. This is a huge disappointment as Fatal Fury Special has some great music and on the SNES it just isn't good at all.

(replayability - 7)
Playing this game repeatedly may get old as the CPU seems too easy. The graphics are as good as they can be, but this game just doesn't bring the arcade quality feel with it. This game had the potential to be one of the best SNES fighters but just failed to come through. Really a disappointment overall, as Fatal Fury Special is one of my favorite games on the Neo. On the SNES this game just suffered from poor music and an easy Artificial Intelligence.

(recommendations)
There are many quality fighters for the SNES but Fatal Fury Special is not one of the better ones. It makes for a much better experience on the system it was made for, the Neo-Geo. On the SNES you get better quality graphics than the Genesis but worse sound. The game is just too easy for my tastes and therefore can be beaten repeatedly with little effort. This easiness really puts a downer on an otherwise fine port, the graphics are great, the stages look pretty good, and the weather and time of day effects add to the overall atmosphere. If you love SNK and don't own a Neo-Geo, this game is worth buying. But if you own a Neo-Geo, or just don't like SNK very much, then this isn't worth your time.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 06/30/04