Fatal Fury: City of Wolves, the return of a legendary saga

I arcades of the Torretta club in Asti, the shoulder-to-shoulder struggle and slap-for-slap fight to grab the player one position on Street Fighter and the desire to compete with the best players in the neighborhood. Then the coin-op technician arrives with a new cabinet, installs it next to Capcom’s beat ’em up, and as soon as he turns it on, there appears the SNK logo waving with the pride of a challenger who knows his stuff: and that’s how I met Fatal Fury, my world was never the same after that day in 1991.

Twenty-six years after the last installment of the “hungry wolves” series, as the original title goes, next-generation consoles are preparing to host the grand return of SNK’s fighting game: the official sequel to the beautiful and stylish Garou: Mark of the Wolves, a title best known for proving that even video game heroes can change outfits, as Terry Bogard shows. Fatal Fury: City of Wolves is heading to the starting blocks, ready to challenge once again the latest Street Fighter and the various imitators produced in recent years.

Ecco, now I can go back to writing.

Come I was saying, the story picks up right where we left off (no spoilers!) and we’ll see old acquaintances and new entries destined to leave their mark. The Fatal Fury saga has handed down to history innovative gameplay, multi-level arenas (just as happens in King of Fighters, a series that, together with Art of Fighting, we could define as a twin and quite famous both in the East and here) and characters with iconic characterization, who have entered legend: Terry Bogard with his cap, namely, or Joe Higashi, creator of tornadoes in bonsai format, not to mention Andy Bogard, Terry’s flashy brother and above all the most hated (I know, jealousy is a nasty thing) official boyfriend of the pixel-era Samantha Fox of those years, that is, the lady of the fans Mai Shiranui.

Come is right that they should be, times change and even the gameplay mechanics in a title that makes spectacular battles its hallmark must evolve, embracing not only the tastes of today’s gamers but also the different technologies, gaming peripherals and a series of innovations impossible to relegate to a corner.

Besides a free-roaming RPG mode for the city of South Town, which I admit really appeals to me, and the introduction in the DLC of guest star characters like Ken and Chun Li from the “rival” Street Fighter, an original combat system has already been announced, called Rev System. A concentration of meter-filling and combos that will allow fighters to take advantage of special moves and extremely high destructive potential from the very first seconds of battle.

Va da sé che this can only make duels frenetic from the outset, focusing on intensity and a powerful adrenaline boost for players.

At the expense of strategy and studying the opponent, a prerogative that was always respected in the golden years of arcade cabinets? Perhaps.

Crescendo on a diet of Ryu’s hadokens and Terry Bogard’s dizzying Power Waves, I learned to appreciate the value of counters (today it sounds cool to say counter) and parries triggered with the right timing (today it sounds even cooler to say parry), so I’m really curious how the fireworks of the Rev system will be integrated into the next chapter of a decades-old saga, which even today still counts millions of fans, new players who learned to love Fatal Fury through word of mouth from their parents, those who some thirty years ago spent two hundred lire as if there were no tomorrow, and who, when they defeated their opponent, raised their arm high, took off their cap and hurled it against the Lethal Weapon pinball machine mounted on the wall!