Fatal Fury
Fatal Fury, known as Garō Densetsu in Japan, is a fighting game series developed by SNK, first released on SNK's Neo Geo system. Similar to other games from the genre, the franchise involves rounds where the player is given access to both combos and special techniques needed to defeat enemies. The franchise was started by Fatal Fury: King of Fighters, and has come to include several spin-offs and anime adaptations.
Though only three characters were playable in the first installment, the cast was expanded with each new game. The story focuses on the antagonism between the children of the late Jeff Bogard, Terry and Andy, and the South Town crime lord Geese Howard as well as several fighters allied with both factions to see which side will win in a series of fighting competitions. This original story arc ends with the fourth instalment, Real Bout Fatal Fury, with Geese's son Rock Howard taking over as protagonist in Garou: Mark of the Wolves to find the mystery behind his legacy. After Mark of the Wolves, the failure of the Neo Geo's successor and SNK's bankruptcy contributed to the end of the Fatal Fury franchise, until its 26-years hiatus was ended with Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves, released on most modern system, which ends Rock's arc while giving the player new forms of exploring each character's role in the story for the first time.
Fatal Fury: King of Fighters was designed by Takashi Nishiyama, the creator of the original Street Fighter at Capcom. After leaving Capcom for SNK, Nishiyama wanted to create a fighting game with a storyline and characters that were easier to empathize with, something he wasn’t able to achieve with Street Fighter. Fatal Fury inspired multiple sequels published by SNK following its success. There have also been several original video animations and manga adaptation based on the story. Its IP and Art of Fighting share the same continuity by placing a younger Geese in the second installment, Art of Fighting 2 whereas Art of Fighting lead Ryo Sakazaki would return in the remake Fatal Fury: Wild Ambition. Both Fatal Fury and Art of Fighting became the basis for the later The King of Fighters games by SNK where Terry, Ryo and other SNK protagonists fight alongside other crossover characters created by SNK in new tournaments. Critical response to Fatal Fury was positive, drawing positive comparison to Street Fighter II based on special moves and visuals.
Gameplay
The original Fatal Fury is known for the two-plane system in which characters fight from two different planes. By stepping between the planes, attacks can be dodged with ease. Later games have dropped the two-plane system, replacing it with a complex system of dodging, including simple half second dodges into the background and a three plane system. Characters have moves that can attack across the two planes, attack both planes at once, or otherwise attack dodge characters. The plane system was fully abandoned from later releases beginning with Garou: Mark of the Wolves.Later Fatal Fury games have experimented with various mechanical changes. "Ring-outs" allow a character to lose the round if the character is thrown into the edges of the fighting backdrop; single-plane backdrops, where dodging is eliminated altogether, causing moves that send opponents to the opposite plane to do collateral damage. The "Deadly Rave" is a super combo used by several characters, where after execution, a player had to press a preset series of buttons with exact timing for the entire combo to execute. The "Just Defend" is a type of protected block in which players regained lost life, did not wear down the player's guard crush meter and removed all block stuns making combo interruptions smoother.
Plot
Setting
Fatal Fury and its sister series, Art of Fighting, are set in the same fictional universe; while Art of Fighting takes place in the late 1970s, the story of Fatal Fury begins over a decade later in the early 1990s. The two series are set primarily in the same fictional city of "South Town", loosely based on the real-life city of Miami. The Wolves sub-series takes place in the neighboring city of "Second Southtown".Many characters from both Fatal Fury and Art of Fighting appear in The King of Fighters series, which is set in its own universe that ignores the continuity established in the Fatal Fury and Art of Fighting games so that the characters from both series could battle without having to age any of them.
Characters
As with most fighting games, the Fatal Fury series has an extensive cast of characters that increases with each installment. The series' primary protagonists include Terry Bogard, Andy Bogard and Joe Higashi, all introduced in the original game, and female ninja Mai Shiranui, introduced in Fatal Fury 2; these four characters have appeared in every series entry since their debut, with the exception of Garou: Mark of the Wolves. The series' most prominent antagonist is Geese Howard, a crime lord in South Town responsible for the death of the Bogard brothers' father, who is often accompanied by his right hand man Billy Kane. Other members of Geese's family have appeared as major antagonists throughout the series, including half brother Wolfgang Krauser; distant relatives the Jin brothers; and brother-in-law Kain R. Heinlein.Garou: Mark of the Wolves acts as a soft reboot of the series, taking place ten years after the previous games and featuring an almost entirely new cast of fighters, with the story primarily focusing on Rock Howard, son of Geese Howard and protégé of Terry Bogard. Terry, now completely redesigned, is the only returning character in Mark of the Wolves; however, other legacy Fatal Fury characters return in its sequel, City of the Wolves.
Certain characters are shared with the Art of Fighting series to more closely establish continuity between the two; for example, Art of Fighting 2 features Geese Howard and depicts his initial rise to power in South Town, while multiple Art of Fighting characters appear in City of the Wolves. Some characters have also made appearances outside the Fatal Fury series, particularly in The King of Fighters.
Story
In 1981, ten years prior to the events of Fatal Fury: King of Fighters, Terry and his brother Andy are adopted by Jeff Bogard, only for Jeff to be killed in front of them by his former rival Geese Howard. Determined, the brothers spend the next decade training to become stronger, meeting new allies Joe Higashi and Mai Shiranui, before returning to South Town to participate in the "King of Fighters" fighting tournament being held by Geese. After winning the tournament, Terry and Geese have a showdown at the top of Geese Tower, and Geese is sent falling from the building, believed to be dead. One year later in Fatal Fury 2, Geese's half brother Wolfgang Krauser hosts a new global King of Fighters tournament in a bid to draw out Geese's killers and prove himself stronger. At the end of the tournament, Terry defeats Krauser, who is said to have taken his own life in shame.In Fatal Fury 3, set three years later, Terry and his friends learn that Geese survived his fall using a magic scroll, and now seeks to recover the three legendary Sacred Scrolls of Jin, said to imbue their user with great power. With the scrolls spotted in South Town, Terry and the others race to recover the scrolls before Geese while also contending with Jin Chonshu and Jin Chonrei, two Chinese orphans possessed by the spirits of their ancestors that seek to use the scrolls to resurrect themselves. Geese recovers the scrolls, but chooses to destroy them so they cannot be used against him. In Real Bout: Fatal Fury, to assert his power, Geese holds another "King of Fighters" tournament, which culminates in a final battle between him and Terry. Geese is once again knocked from his tower, and though Terry tries to save him, Geese refuses and willingly falls to his death. Seeking to end the cycle of violence, Terry decides to raise Geese's now orphaned young son, Rock Howard.
The story continues in Garou: Mark of the Wolves, taking place ten years later. Terry and the now grown up Rock are invited to participate in the new "King of Fighters: Maximum Mayhem" tournament. The two later learn that it was organized by Rock's maternal uncle, Kain R. Heinlein, who seeks to use Geese's legacy to make Second Southtown an independent city-state. When Kain reveals that Rock's mother Marie is still alive, Rock leaves Terry to go with Kain in order to learn the truth and save his mother. One year later in Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves, Kain's investigations determine Marie has been held captive by Mr. Big, who demands Geese's legacy in exchange for her freedom. Billy Kane reveals to Rock that Geese's legacy includes the Sacred Scrolls, which Billy had preserved and given Geese fakes of to destroy. Before Billy can give Rock the legacy, all of it is stolen by an unknown figure. Days later, a new King of Fighters tournament is announced by Franz Stroheim, with the stolen legacy offered as the prize. Rock, Kain, Billy, Terry, and several others enter the tournament to retrieve the legacy and rescue Marie. While Marie is successfully rescued, an accident causes Rock to become possessed by the Sacred Scrolls' curse due to being a distant descendant of the Jin family. Terry and the others free Rock from his possession and destroy the scrolls. Having reunited with his mother and made peace with his father's memory, Rock decides to move on with his life.
Several other Fatal Fury games have been released, though these games' stories are not a part of the main series canon. These include Fatal Fury: Wild Ambition, which retells the story of the original game with characters from later entries, and Real Bout Fatal Fury Special: Dominated Mind, in which new protagonist Alfred stops the evil White from filling the power vacuum in South Town after Geese's death.