Fatal Fury was once a household name in the fighting game community in the 90s. I personally put in so so so many hours into Fatal Fury 2 back in the day. Therefore it was great to see SNK announce a brand new title in the franchise for release in 2025. Enter Fatal Fury City of the Wolves!
Does this new entry live up to the high expectations of the franchise’s iconic fighting mechanics ? Is it worth picking up ? Let’s throw hands and find out.
Fatal Fury City of the Wolves
Fatal Fury City of the Wolves kicks off with an introductory anime opening video that made me wish we could have a full-fledged Fatal Fury anime in the same art style and tone. The game throws you straight into the deep end and let’s you play either online or offline. If you opt for the single player Story mode you’re going to be in for a bit of disappointment though. The story mode is quite barebones and basically involves a lot of grinding out fights for experience to level up.
Levelling up increases how much HP you have and this is important in fights because some enemies have been tweaked to withstand a lot more punishment than normal. There is an overarching story for each character here but it’s very standard stuff and nothing that will really grip you. There’s also a distinct lack of cinematics and it being predominantly text-based is a big letdown when other fighting games have opted for much more expanded single-player story campaigns in recent years.
The fighting system is extremely straightforward in Fatal Fury City of Wolves. Old school fans of straightforward fighting games without additional fluff and insane button smashing combos will love this game. It knows exactly what it’s doing and is all about the new REV system and how you can use it to your advantage in battle. How this works involves “Revving” up your character with specific moves which charges an overheat gauge.
Fill the gauge and you’ll Overheat which alters the way your attacks play out. You can also allocated an “S.P.G” meter to your health bar in specific segments which again, alters the way your attacks can play out.
Fighting isn’t about combo-ing multi-hit attacks into flashy intense chains that can’t be stopped. It’s about pure skill and strategy here with smart gameplay, positioning and precise button inputs being required to achieve victory. Of course, as with all fighting games I suspect players that have already sunk in hundreds of hours into the game will have an opinion that’s completely different to my lowly bottom-dweller skill level take on this.
Some characters may be completely broken but only time will tell based on what the game’s current ‘Meta’ is. The game features rollback netcode and playing online will definitely be a challenge if you face off against tough opponents who know what they are doing.
The current roster of fighters in the game is a tad lacking with 5 more DLC characters coming in Season 1 but I suspect a lot more will be added over time as the game’s life goes on. Playing as Mai Shiranui however was super fun and I highly recommend newcomers try her out first since she’s very simple to get to grips with. Terry Bogard is also another solid choice and thankfully each and every single character in this game is distinct enough from each other for players to quickly find a favourite and latch on to them should they be so inclined.
A certain footballer also shows up in the roster and surprisingly, he is fun to play but I’ll be lying if I said I didn’t find it weird to have him in this game. Why is a famous soccer player beating down beloved Fatal Fury legacy characters? It makes zero sense from a lore perspective but I guess collaborations are all the rage these days…
Graphically, Fatal Fury: City of Wolves is downright gorgeous with its cel-shaded looks and flashy effects. My only real gripe lies with the user interface which looks very dated and text heavy. It needs a bit of sprucing up to make it seem more modern and less like you’re reading a manual filled with text. SNK have however included a colour edit option which is amazing considering the options and customization at your disposal.
Other companies have charged money for doing something as simple as changing your character’s colours so it’s great to see this already included in the game without any additional money needing to be dropped. If only more fighting games could do this for free, I would be so happy! Want a green haired Mai Shiranui? Go right on ahead and do it!
The soundtrack of the game is fantastic with banger rock, jazz, hip-hop and electro fused into its themes. Unfortunately, there isn’t a lot of voice acting in the game and it does get a tad annoying hearing a character repeat the exact same voice line all the time at the end of a battle without a lot of variation. And on that same note, some more variation in the victory poses would also have been appreciated.
Amazingly and completely unexpectedly, SNK have opted to include the soundtracks of all the previous Fatal Fury games in this game! Now _THAT_ is something I love to see. Again, this could have been a paid DLC option but we got it for free here. Thank you so much SNK!
Final Verdict
Fatal Fury City of the Wolves is a plain and straightforward fighting game with simple, clean, uncomplicated fighting game mechanics. Newcomers will have a blast and fans of the original games will love the tiny bits of lore dropped throughout the game’s Episodes of South Town story mode. Yes the line up characters might be a bit lacking right now but this will change over time.
The only major gripe that I can’t shake off is how dated the UI looks. If you can look past that though, you’ll most likely have a blast here. Just be warned that if you try to play online, chances are you going to get destroyed by the hardcore playerbase.
Fatal Fury City of the Wolves Official Trailer
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The code was provided by the distributor.
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