Fatal Fury: Battle Archives Volume 1

PS2 review by Justin Boot - Sunday 16th September 2007

You couldn’t get away from it. It didn’t matter where you were; you could be in the middle of an overcrowded arcade at the theater, shutting out the thunderous roar of bowling balls clattering into the pins at the local lanes, or even staring slack-jawed at the television in your living room. Street Fighter II - and its subsequent ports and touchups – were everywhere. There stood Ryu, the stoic World Warrior that captured the hearts and minds of kids everywhere. There was Ken, his blonde and supposedly more aggressive American clone. Nor will anyone ever forget Chun Li, the femme fatale with the legendary legs. Indeed, these characters remain some of the most celebrated in gaming history. While Ryu and his pals became iconic heroes of their time, there was another icon – no, legend - arising in Japan. His name was Terry Bogard, and the Fatal Fury series chronicled his rise to fame…


Wait, what’s that? You’ve never heard of the Fatal Fury series?! For shame. Thanks to the Fatal Fury: Battle Archives Volume 1, you’ll get to relive SNK’s classic fighting game series.

There are no M. Bisons or Sagats to be beaten here; Fatal Fury introduces us to Terry Bogard and his brother Andy, two young fighters on a quest to get revenge on their father’s murderer. There’s also Muay Thai champ Joe Higashi, but he’s basically tagging along as backup. However, the guy they’re targeting is none other than Southtown’s criminal mastermind/martial arts expert, Geese Howard. Between his ridiculously overpowered attack combos and ability to counter every single one of your moves, Geese is one of those guy that you love to hate. Don’t count out our heroes, though; just like their Street Fighter rivals, these guys use the same quarter-circle + attack button controls to execute special moves. The problem is that combat is horribly laggy, shallow, and unresponsive; since your basic moves are limited to a punch, kick, and throw, you’ll rely more on the unresponsive special attacks more than anything else. The only remotely interesting feature is the ability to jump in between the background and foreground, effectively dodging your opponent’s attacks. The slow pacing and limited attack options made dodging more like a game of cat and mouse. Despite so much potential and original ideas, the original Fatal Fury leaves much to be desired.


Fatal Fury 2, on the other hand, greatly improved on what the first game established. With Geese Howard supposedly dead, his brother Wolfgang Krauser takes over and organizes a worldwide fighting tournament to get revenge on Terry and his friends. While Street Fighter II fans may balk at such a similar storyline to their beloved game, Fatal Fury 2 offers plenty of its own surprises. The playable character roster has nearly tripled, allowing you to fight as an ex-heel professional wrestler named Big Bear, a couple of generic kung fu masters, and Mai, SNK’s well-endowed answer to Chun Li. New characters aside, the first thing you’re going to notice is the speed of the gameplay; compared to Fatal Fury, this game moves fast. You’ll also notice that, unlike the previous game, there’s more emphasis on basic punch and kick combos. Now that characters can perform weak and strong punches, you can mix up your offensive strategies and get more out the gameplay. Accordingly, the game’s level of challenge has skyrocketed; don’t be surprised if you get slaughtered on the normal difficulty setting. While Fatal Fury 2 doesn’t improve the dodging mechanics of the previous game, it’s still a step in the right direction.

However, it gets overshadowed once Fatal Fury Special comes into play. As the name suggests, this is an enhanced version of Fatal Fury 2. The game maintains all of the features – both good and bad – of the previous game, but with one huge change: the inclusion of the previous game’s multiple bosses. For the first time, you’ll get to duke it out as Axel, smite your foes with Laurence’s bullfighting attire, and even dish out punishment with Krauser’s terribly unbalanced strength. Longtime fans will finely get a chance to wield Billy Kane’s signature staff and devastating attack combos. However, most people will simply skip them all over in favor of Geese –Yes, the counterattack machine himself is here too – and exacting a little payback on Terry. With so many characters, a lengthy and challenging single player mode, and an infamous series crossover hidden in the works, Fatal Fury Special is truly a force to be reckoned with.


But once you start playing Fatal Fury 3, you might forget everything else in the collection. Turns out that Geese didn’t die; he’d just been laying low for a few years. Now he’s back in Southtown in search of some ancient scrolls that’ll grant him immortality. Does this little twist to the storyline make sense? It doesn’t really matter; you’ll be too awestruck by the changes to notice. The once-massive character roster has been broken down and rebuilt, with only a handful of older fighters still remaining. Don’t hesitate to indulge in the newer faces, though; you’ll get to choose among a heavyweight boxer, a nunchuck-wielding inspector from Hong Kong, a highly lethal female detective, and couple of other guys you’ll likely ignore. What you can’t ignore is the vastly upgraded combat system. Many of the basic attacks can flow into the next, allowing for plenty of multi-hit combos and offensive strategies. Even the special attacks, which used to be so clunky and difficult to perform, can now be pulled off smoothly with minimal effort. The biggest change, however, comes with the dodging system. You can now move around three planes (as opposed to just jumping into the background), thus allowing you to sidestep and counterattack in the blink of an eye. With such vastly improved mechanics and an incredibly high difficulty level, Fatal Fury 3 is easily the greatest parts of this collection.

So, you’ve got four games. Three, if you consider Fatal Fury Special to be a minor upgrade (which it certainly isn’t) of Fatal Fury 2. Regardless, these games are faithful ports of their older versions. That’s not necessarily a good thing, however. The average gamer might find the original Fatal Fury unplayable due to its utterly slow pacing and laggy controls. When compared with Fatal Fury Special and Fatal Fury 3, there isn’t much of a reason to play the first two games (aside from the surprisingly well-crafted story and nostalgia, of course). The only other feature of the collection is a Color Edit Mode, but that doesn’t really offer anything in terms of replay value. Instead, you’ll likely just indulge in the two great games and ignore the rest.


But don’t think that Fatal Fury: Battle Archives Volume 1 is a bad title. It’s not; the series just got off to a rocky start before it finally started kicking ass. You’ll get to enjoy SNK’s triumphs and failings with this fighting game franchise; while the first couple of games were lackluster at best, the latter two provided tons of characters, innovative gameplay for their time, and an epic storyline that put other brawlers to shame. Retro fighting game fans, you know you want to pick this up. For those of you that have yet to experience the Fatal Fury series, give this collection a chance. It may not be the best out there, but it still gives you a taste of better things to come.

Thunderbolt score: seven out of ten

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