Page 1 - Intro/Character Roster
Page 2 - Fatal Fury
Page 3 - Fatal Fury 2
Page 4 - Fatal Fury Special
Page 5 - Fatal Fury 3
Page 6 - Real Bout Fatal Fury
Page 7 - Real Bout Fatal Fury Special
Page 8 - Real Bout Dominated Mind
Page 9 - Real Bout Fatal Fury Special 2 / First Contact
Page 10 - Wild Ambition
Page 11 - Garou: Mark of the Wolves
Page 12 - Anime
Fatal Fury Special / Garou Densetsu Special - Neo Geo / Neo Geo CD / SNES / Sega CD / Game Gear / PC Engine Arcade CD / Playstation 2 / Xbox 360 (1993)
American Neo Geo Cover |
Fatal Fury Special (Arcade) |
Fatal Fury Special (Arcade) |
Each stage from Fatal Fury 2 has been retained, although they cycle through different times of day (stages that began during the afternoon in Fatal Fury 2 now begin during the dusk) and each of the four new characters has their own original level, which all look great.
Especially noteworthy stages includes Duck King's level, which has an
extremely disorienting strobe effect before each fight begins, and Ryo's
stage, which features several Art of Fighting character cameos. In several
levels, reaching round four in a fight will often cause rather bizarre
details to appear in the background. In Terry's stage, Kim will fly by
when the timer reaches 20. In Andy's stage, that guy driving by on a
scooter in the background will occasionally drive off the walkway into
the canal. In Joe's stage, a silhouette will appear in the water. In Big
Bear's stage, Kim will rarely fly by. In Cheng's stage, the boat will
spring a leak toward the end of the round. In Billy's stage, there will
be laundry set out to dry. Also, it's possible for Kim to knock people
in the background off of their scooters if timed exactly right.
Fatal Fury Special was the most popular game in the series at the
arcades, and was HUGE in Japanese arcades, so it was ported to several
consoles at the time. The SNES version, again done by Takara, was a buggy disaster in Japan. It was somewhat fixed for th American release, but the sound and graphics are worse than the port of Fatal Fury 2.
The Sega CD version was actually programmed by Funcom, who also handled the Sega CD Samurai Shodown port. It makes Ryo Sakazaki available from the beginning, and actually looks pretty decent, considering that it's working with a fraction of the color palette of the arcade version. But the sound samples are awful, the announcer is mostly missing, a huge number of background details have been cut, the load times are aggravating, and the backgrounds don't change between rounds at all. Despite cutting a number of animation frames, it actually plays fairly well. The music is also recordings straight from the arcade version.
The PC Engine Arcade CD version was also handled by Hudson, and is probably again the best of all of the conversions, featuring fairly accurate graphics and gameplay. It also features a another completely original arrange soundtrack. In 2006, it was ported to Playstation 2 as part of the compilation Garou Densetsu/Fatal Fury
Battle Archives 1. In 2007, SNK also ported the arcade version of the Xbox 360 as a downloadable Live Arcade title. As far as ports go, it plays accurately, but it has a blurry graphical filter and is played in a window, which are concessions for playing such an old game in high-def. You can turn on command lists, which shows up as arcade-style cards on the side of the screen. It also offers online play.
The version for Game Gear lacks seven of the original characters and
has had the plane switching system removed entirely, but is otherwise
surprisingly accurate. Of course it's not graphically or musically
perfect, and the gameplay is definitely off, but it's close enough to make
it arguably the best fighter on the system.
MP3s Download here
London March - Billy Kane
Fatal Fury Special (Arcade)
Fatal Fury Special (Arcade)
Fatal Fury Special (Arcade)
Fatal Fury Special (Arcade)
Fatal Fury Special (Arcade)
Fatal Fury Special (Arcade)
Comparison Screenshots
Quotes
Fatal Fury Special basically makes Fatal Fury 2 obsolete -- it's
basically Fatal Fury 2 Champion Edition. Its gameplay is almost identical to FF2,
though a few characters have been given an extra move, it plays
slightly faster, and combos are much smoother. It's never so fast that it raises its difficulty, but just
fast enough that its pacing flows perfectly. It's a dream match game -
a title that completely disregards plot in favor of being able to bring
back any characters without regards to continuity. The character
roster has been made way bigger by making all four bosses from Fatal Fury 2
playable and bringing back three characters from the original FF (Tung
Fu Rue, Duck King, and Geese Howard). If you finish the game without
losing any rounds, then you you'll fight Ryo Sakazaki from Art of
Fighting. If you defeat him, he becomes playable, making for a total of
sixteen playable characters, or twice as much as Fatal Fury 2.
Art of Fighting Ver. 230000 - Ryo Sakazaki
Soy Sauce for Geese - Geese Howard
Soy Sauce for Geese - Geese Howard (Arrange)
