Fatal Fury: City Of The Wolves Review (PS5) – Fatal-y Addictive

If you’ve kept up with Finger Guns over the years: firstly thank you, and secondly, you’ll know of my love for Street Fighter and Tekken. But whilst those two are the mainstays in my game, I do like to dabble with other fighters too. Yet through all the Bloody Roar’s and Rival Schools over the years (yes that’s irony as they’re dead franchises), Fatal Fury has never been on my radar.

But now, twenty six years after the last main entry, one of SNK’s beloved series’ is back. Retaining that 2D smoothness from the Neo Geo days, Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves is set to be a return to glory, to remember that SNK can still hold their own against Capcom and Bandai Namco.

Is it a welcome, long-awaited return or should it be accurately named Thrown to the Wolves instead? Prepare yourselves as this rookie dips his toes once again into SNK territories.

Baring Teeth

As much as I’d like to consider myself pretty good at fighting games, I am at a slight loss when it comes to the King of Fighters/Fatal Fury series. Besides reviewing KOF XV a few years back, and a couple of Neo Geo ports, it’s not been one I’ve cut my teeth on. So, what I’m getting at, is see this as a review from an outside perspective more than a series regular.

That being said, Fatal Fury is quite accessible in terms of fighting. We’ll get onto the fancier mechanics further on, but to pick up and fight it’s easy enough. It’s a four button/light-and-heavy system. Combos are short and sweet, rather than elaborate Killer Instinct double digits affairs. Special moves, at least with the characters I dabbled with, were more grounded than screen-filling fireballs.

Together, it gave the impression that Fatal Fury is a fighter that favours getting stuck in. Fights seemed to flow better with rushdowns, a few quick hits then usually some fancy uppercut to finish a sequence off. That’s not to say you can’t use projectiles, but they don’t seem to be something players can just spam at each other from across the screen. I may be wrong, and I’m sure someone will be happy to correct me in the comments, but it’s how I played it, at least.

Old Wolves, New Tricks

So, when I said about it being easy enough to pick up, but there’s some extra mechanics? Well, let’s have a look at them. It seems that every new fighter has to have some kind of USP to stay relevant. Street Fighter 6 changed up its Super and Critical move conditions, Tekken brought in Mortal Kombat-style Rage Arts, and Fatal Fury has its new REV and S.P.G systems.

Let’s have a look at the former, the REV system, first. Much like in most fighting games, attacking with special moves usually fills a special meter of sorts. In CotW, it’s no different, as you can see from the two bars under that percentage gauge above. What the REV system does, however, is add a new element. Using a special move with, say, both punches enhances it and adds to the REV gauge. Once full, that fighter will start their Overheat state, causing them to literally burn. This means more attack at the expense of chip damage when blocking. But that’s not all: there’s REV dodging, REV guarding… and more. If I had to generalise, I’d say it was similar to SFIV’s Focus attacks, but you’re better off playing it to find out the specifics.

The Selective Potential Gear system, or S.P.G, is a little different. It’s a sort-of hyper state, but has a little twist to it: players can decide when they want to use it. It can be selected in thirds: start of the health bar, middle, or towards the end. Personally, I have it at the end as a little Hail Mary boost, but I’m sure there are pros and cons to each.

And of course there’s flashy Gear super attacks with full bars, even more elaborate REV Gear attacks and even Hidden Gear moves too. Yes, I am being glib about them but if you’ve played any fighter in recent years, you can probably work out their uses. Like any fighter, there’s different types of activation requirements, which is to be expected with a varied roster of characters. Speaking of which…

A Right Pack

Whilst I am normally quite critical of games, specifically fighters, adding a meagre roster to pad out with Season Passes, Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves has pleasantly surprised me. As one can see above, there’s a healthy starting amount, from mainstays like Terry Bogard, Billy Kane and a more conversatively dressed Mai Shiranui. I was expecting Geese Howard, as I remembered that one, but apparently he died a while ago. But then, given the logic of these games, he’ll probably get resurrected with Magical Paywall Revival Powers or something.

The two newbies this time around are the ones highlighted up there: Vox Reaper and Preecha. Vox is a former assassin who failed to assassinate Kain R. Heinlein, instead becoming his bodyguard (because that makes you feel safe, doesn’t it?). Preecha is, putting it politely as possible, essentially the gender-swap of series’ Muay Thai mainstay Joe Higashi. A student of his, Preecha is this game’s version of SF6’s Kimberley: quick, nimble and adding a splash of colour.

Now, as much as I’d like to delve into the backstories of the rest of them, your interest boils down to two categories: if you know the series, you’ll know the fighters. If you don’t, then personally the best way to play is to spend time with each of them and see who floats your boat. There’s grapplers, little pesky ninjas, burly SWAT types, the lot. Oh, and *checks notes* world famous real-world footballer Cristiano Ronaldo and eccentric DJ Salvatore Ganacci. Now, I don’t mind some of Ganacci’s music (particularly the video for Horse), but Ronaldo can, as far as I’m concerned, go and [REDACTED FOR LEGAL REASONS].

The Wolves Like To Roam

Moving on, the next burning question is normally, “Okay, so what is there to do besides fighting?”. Well, to some that want more bang for their buck, at least. Like most recent titles, City of the Wolves does have a story mode, of sorts, as well as a wealth of other features.

The story mode, of sorts, is under the guise of Episodes of South Town. But unlike Tekken’s or Mortal Kombat’s, which has players swapping between fighters at set moments, this is a character-based affair. What this means is that whomever a player picks has their own little adventure, rather than a set narrative. It plays out in text-based scenarios, more often than not always ending in a fight.

There’s scraps with both main and generic template fighters, experience to be gained and levels to rise. Also, because why not crib from every other game, there are various buffs and boons to boost stats along the way. It’s all… okay, but as somewhat of an outsider, it didn’t really grip me like an actual fleshed out narrative would.

Besides that, there’s your usual gamut of modes. Arcade for the individual little fighter stories, versus in both on and offline, with the latter offering ranked, casual and private lobbies. Practice and tutorials to cut your teeth on, with the later being actually quite extensive and breaks down each mechanic.

All Filler, No Thriller

Again, if it seems like this review is a bit lacking, I’ll remind you that it’s from an outsider’s POV, not a long-time fan. Whilst I’ve mostly had a good time with it, there are a few little issues that makes Fatal Fury a little bumpy as a launch.

The biggest elephant being Ronaldo and Ganacci. Ganacci is more tolerable if you accept that he is a joke character, a Dan Hibiki or F.A.N.G, if you will. His moveset is all exaggerated and hard to predict, but fun can be had. Ronaldo, conversely, feels so out of place. Nevermind the terrible voice acting doing a bad Ronaldo impression, he just feels so massively out of place. So… token, likely due to real-world elements that have caused issue since his announcement. I won’t be listing them here, though. This is a review of the game, remember.

In regards to actual gameplay issues, I didn’t have any. Little bit of a delay with trying to find matches online, but that’s to be expected when you get review code pre-release. Otherwise, nothing to grumble about.

There will be additional characters under season passes, but that’s par for the course now. What is weird is that City of the Wolves can only be purchased as a special edition. This means it comes with the first season pass as standard, which begs the question: why call it a season pass? Anyway, that’s semantics for another soapbox.

Lead That Pack

I’d be lying if I said I’d played fighters with the amount of time I used to. Yet there are some I keep installed, and Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves will be one of those. In short, it’s a gorgeous looking game with a very easy pick-up-and-play attitude that I can get behind.

I don’t realistically see me entering any EVO’s with the amount I play, but with the added bonus of crossplay, it’ll be nice to play some friends again. Will I go through every characters EoST and Arcade mode stories? Probably not, but I may dabble.

But then, this is from an outsider. If one is a fan, chances are you’ve been wanting to see this through since Garou: Mark of the Wolves. In that case, the twenty six year wait will have paid off for you.

In layman’s terms, it’s a very competent fighter. Some new tweaks to its special moves and gimmicks will be fun to get to grips with, as will the host of multiplayer options. It won’t knock Tekken 8 off of my top spot, but it’s a nice palette cleanser from being bossed by Kings online repeatedly.

Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves is available from the 24th April on PlayStation 4 & 5 (reviewed on latter), Xbox Series S|X and PC via Steam.

Developer: SNK
Publisher: SNK

Disclaimer: In order to complete this review, we were provided with a promotional copy of the game. For our full review policy, please go here.

If you enjoyed this article or any more of our content, please consider our Patreon.

Make sure to follow Finger Guns on our social channels. Twitter, Facebook, Twitch, Spotify or Apple Podcasts – to keep up to date on our news, reviews and features