Fatal Fury: King of Fighters

Game Review

Fatal Fury was SNK's first foray into the fighting game genre and it came out swinging (sort of).

The Graphics in Fatal Fury are colourful while the characters move fluidly across the screen. The frame rate is solid and there aren't many jagged edges on the character models.

SNK's legacy of good music started with this game. The music was great and still is compared to some games. There are some memorable themes especially the Pao Pao Café theme. The sound effects are somewhat nicely done, but the character voices have a weird echo sound to them, and the sound effects sound weird at times.

The controls are where this game falls flat on it's face. The controls are very stiff and most of the attacks have to be done exactly right (especially Terry's rising tackle using a game pad). The most annoying thing is the lag between entering a command and having it executed (for example entering in a quarter circle forward attack and the move coming out a second later. It's annoying though to be in a tight situation and not be able to pull off the move in time).

The gameplay is simple and straightforward and the action never gets hectic. There is some slowdown when the action starts to heat up, so the matches may go slower than intended.

Overall this is an average game that has some glaring flaws like slowdown, command lag, and only 3 selectable fighters. Only purchase this if you're looking for a game that started the SNK fighting game trend.

Graphics	70%	The graphics are good, but some of the sprites are pixellated. The characters move smoothly, though there is some slowdown.
Sound	50%	The sounds are terrible. The voices sound like they are coming through an echoing walkie-talkie. The sound effects sound horrible at some times and good at others.
Music	80%	This game started SNK's great legacy of music. The songs are memorable and sound nice.
Playability	75%	Good Playability, especially with the team up feature. It can be boring though if you don’t like the horribly small selection of characters.
Lastability	60%	A very short game that many can blow by in an hour. It has replay value if you enjoy a fighting game with three characters.
Difficulty	50%	The difficulty mostly comes from beating Geese who is impossibly cheap. Also Billy Kane and Raiden can be annoying sometimes.
Overall	64%	Overall this is an ok game, with some decent graphics with good music. I'd only pick this one up if you want to play an old school fighter, but even then there are better choices.

Reviewed by Daniel Schoen

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Fatal Fury: King of Fighters

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