Fatal Fury Special - The Unforgiving Arcade Edition
Fatal Fury Special - The Unforgiving Arcade Edition


I'm just going to say right now, I love SNK, and I love how the games they make can have some really challenging A.I. as you proceed through each stage, especially the bosses. However, Fatal Fury Special...is merciless from Stage 1 Round 1. However, this game was Fatal Fury's first add on type game similar to how Street Fighter II adds and tweaks characters. It's pretty fun...but pretty difficult. This is actually one of the first fighting games I ever owned, so some of my friends were wondering why I was good at fighting games at a young age. (I'm not THAT good by the way. Still an amateur I think.)

Difficulty: 8 (10-8 for beginngers, 7-5 for amateurs, anything under for pros and etc.)

My natural rating for it is based on the beginners as an 8 because I want to look at this game from a larger point of view, not a pro or amateur's view.

To start off, this game will NOT spoon feed you having the A.I. standing around or not taking much action allowing his butt to get kicked nor will the not A.I. not pull off amazing things and not punish any openings they see. From the get go, the computer enemy is looking to find all your weaknesses and answer them with the perfect attack. Even I thought I was good enough and I let an enemy (Jubei Yamada) somehow pull off a double projectile into a special throw move. You may not understand what I'm talking about now, but play the game for yourself and you'll see exactly what I mean. I won't even bother mention Geese Howard.

However, just because you can get punished easily and etc. does not mean the computer opponent is invincible. You can punish them back the same way they punish you back, but it'll take a bit of courage, practice, and understanding of your character. Unfortunately, the game does not allow you that much time to choose a character on the select screen, so I suggest not worrying about defeat, whipping up a move list faq from gamefaqs.com, and finding your cup of tea.

The few key that can help you beat this game, is persistence, focus, understanding your character's special moves, strengths and weaknesses, and learning your opponents strengths and weaknesses. There's a chance you might find a use for every single move a character has simply because you have to find ways to punish your opponent. Your character might have a move good for anti-air punishes like Andy's Heavy Kick and Shoryudan technique. Things like these can make such a huge difference between winning and losing, so keep that in mind, but it also shows how awesome the challenge can be.

The controls in the game can be a little difficult depending on the character you want to play as. If you haven't played much Street Fighter, then you may find the moves a little difficult to perform. The moves in general to require precise input though. However, there are a few crazy commands that a few particular characters have, *cough* Geese *cough*.
Luckily, before you start the game, all the general button commands are shown to you, so at least you'll now the basics.

Depth: 9

Fatal Fury Special overall is an interesting fighting game. The one feature that makes the old Fatal Fury series unique to other 2D fighting games like Street Fighter, is the ability to fight on foreground and background planes. Including Desperation moves, high difficulty, and 16 characters including the hidden cross-over character Ryo Sakazaki, Fatal Fury Special is certainly a must play for retro 2D fighting game lovers.

Fatal Fury Special is an update from Fatal Fury 2 allowing you to play as boss characters rebalanced for player use, and basically like Street Fighter, other things have been tweaked or upgraded upon. All the characters are entirely different from one another and all come with their unique set of moves to win their way to victory. However, let me warn you that this game is not just a rush in and beat your opponent down game.

Fatal Fury actually does have a strategic, technical game play aspect to its battle system. This you will learn through fighting the A.I. in the game which easily shows you that pretty much every move has some way of being punished. In other words, you throw a punch, you get kicked below, and so on. Other aspects that come into play are the use of the foreground and background planes, allowing for evade and chase combat. Also, desperation moves (super attacks) can be used as many times as you want as long as your health bar blinks red.

The foreground and background planes make battles in Fatal Fury really interesting due to the face that you could avoid an opponent's specials or even their desperation move a different way than the usual jumping or back dashing method. At the same time, you could use the evade to quickly counterattack back into your opponents plane, or lure them to yours if they try to attack. When you are on opposite planes from one another, you have the choice to roll over to the plane in your position, do a high jumping homing attack, or a quick homing attack. However, you can also knock a person onto the opposite plane if you choose to as well allowing more control over your battles. Sometimes these planes will involve damage hazards that you can use to your advantage depending on the stage.

Combos in Fatal Fury can take a little practice to pull off, but all it takes is the ability to chain a move into another move with precise timing. Every character is capable of a good amount of simple combos that you can link into a special move usually. Combos can also go as far as inflicting stun on the opponent similar to Street Fighter. Unfortunately, there is no hit count for combos so you'll just to hope your moves are connecting unless the opponent blocks in between.

Another interesting feature of Fatal Fury Special is the hidden character Ryo Sakazaki. If you are able to win every match without losing a round (yeah, now that is a very intense challenge), you'll have a chance to fight Ryo Sakazaki from Art of Fighting. The hidden boss challenge will be incredibly difficult, but with persistence, if you beat him, you'll be able to enter in a certain code to use him as a selectable character. This is the only hidden feature to accomplish in the game.

To differentiate this game from Street Fighter II, the most I could say that makes it different is the foreground and background planes feature, back dashes (with a bit of invincibility), desperation moves, unique characters, and extremely challenging difficulty. It's possible to say that Fatal Fury Special rivals Street Fighter II quite well, but the truth is, what you may like more depends on what you like about how the companies design the games. Capcom's Street Fighter II may feel a bit more fast pace especially with Street Fighter II Turbo (and plenty of fun glitches to find). SNK's Fatal Fury Special feels just a tiny bit slower but similar in a few ways in terms of combat, however, more technical and with a little more variety to the combat itself.

Addictiveness: 6

Do I come back to this game as often or play it as long as I do other fighting games? Not all the time really. The games difficulty can scare off some players, and others may absolutely love it. I like to play Fatal Fury Special when looking for a nice challenge especially. To play with friends is twice as fun on the other hand.

There are some neat things that players can pull off better than the A.I. Such as putting to good use, the invincible back dash. It's a very fun technique to use and makes some special moves whiff completely allowing for a quick counter attack. Players can also show off their combos to each other and play in a more mistake frenzy environment as compared to a punish frenzy environment against the A.I.

Graphics: 9

Fatal Fury Special does indeed have good graphics. Compared to a game like Street Fighter Alpha 2, both games have their own unique art style that makes it difficult to argue which might actually be better.

The character sprites in the game notably defined having wrinkles in their clothes with their movements for instance. Some of the movements in the game you can at times see frame by frame and other times the movements look smooth. However, the characters look great and are easily recognizable as they make appearance or cameos in other SNK games like King of Fighters.

In terms of character art, SNK did well to make trademark characters that many recognize. Terry Bogard and Mai Shiranui are easily amongst the most famous recognizable fighting game characters like Ryu, Guile, and Chun-li. However, then you have a character like Andy Bogard who many claim to have a silly design with his red boots. Even though his designs have been reworked in King of Fighters, the newest King of Fighters XIII decided to bring back his old-school red boots design showing it left a lasting memory in the hearts of Fatal Fury Fans.
The stage design in Fatal Fury Special is probably my top favorite part of the graphics in the game. I honestly remember all the stages in Fatal Fury Special more than I do other SNK games. The stages are well made with creativity and color, not to mention, movement.

A good example would be Terry Bogard's stage which is set in the U.S.A. on a train passing by Mount Rushmore and nearby mountains. It's really interesting for the start also as the train isn't already in motion but takes off from the station starting a little slow and speeding up. For me, it left many memories of how I used to play Fatal Fury Special in my childhood.

As I mentioned, there's some interesting creativity in some of the stages also, like Mai Shiranui's stage taking place on a raft upon a river of sunken statues and old Japanese architecture. Other neat looking stages would be Andy Bogard's stage in Italy, Cheng's stage in Hong Kong, Jubei's Stages in Japan, Tung's Stage in China, and Duck's stage taking place in a dance club.

Sound: 9

The music in Fatal Fury Special is pretty good and memorable like Street Fighter II's music. Being on the Neo-Geo arcade system, the sound of the instruments sound pretty good, but that's how it usually was on most arcade systems at the time. The music fits the stages very well and has a cool, energetic, or exciting feel to it. However, I do have to make the comparison to Street Fighter II's music also. Fatal Fury Special's music honestly sounds a lot better when compared to the CPS1 Arcade version of Street Fighter II's music.

The Neo-Geo can produce some nice quality sounds for the instruments that bring it the music to life. On the other hand, the CPS1 still doesn't have that exact high quality feel that Neo-Geo has, but, when compared to the CPS2 with Hyper Street Fighter II, the game music pretty on par with Fatal Fury's. Now, if you put Street Fighter Alpha 2 and Fatal Fury Special together, both sound phenomenal and have potential at equal levels.

Fatal Fury Special leaves a lasting impression on me with the composition of it's music. I've actually taken the time to play the music on an instrument, as well as examine each of the parts for the songs through midis. Surprisingly, the music is very well composed like Street Fighter Alpha 2's music. Andy's theme "Pasta" would be a great example of that (not to mention the arranged version sounds epic.)

As for the sound effects and voice acting, it's very interesting and unique to Street Fighter. There's different sounds for different strengths of hits, and an interesting echo effect with certain special moves. You might also notice a whooshing sound for certain characters whenever their maneuver might involve a flip or fast movement of some kind, which you might hear often with certain characters. The voice actors in the game have also done a good job making the characters interesting. The character voices work well for the way the characters fight and look. So, look forward to not having to be worried about annoying voices that'll never leave your memories.

One of the coolest things that I found in Fatal Fury Special is Wolfgang Krauser's theme, the main boss of the game. "Dies Irae" by Verdi and Mozart, play as the background theme while you get beaten to a pulp by Krauser. Not to mention, his stage features a symphony band playing the theme. All I say to this is, GENIUS!

Overall: 9 out of 10

For a very challenging game, I really recommend trying Fatal Fury Special. It might help better your skills at punishing your opponent and staying cautious of your own moves. However, don't expect to become a pro without plenty of game overs and continues coming your way. Overall, it's a great game!

  Graphics 9   Sound 9   Addictive 6   Depth 9   Difficulty 8

Overall 8.7    Graphics 9    Sound 9    Addictive 6    Depth 9    Difficulty 8

Fatal Fury Special - The Unforgiving Arcade Edition   Shogun Gamer
It's super challenging, but super awesome also....
  Graphics 9   Sound 9   Addictive 6   Depth 9   Difficulty 8
      Review Rating: 3/5     Submitted: 04-16-13     Updated: 04-17-13     Review Replies: 3

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Shogun Gamer 09-27-12 - 05:35 PM
 unfortunately, I can't take screenshots
Shogun Gamer 09-27-12 - 05:35 PM
 Working well and nice.