By the late 90's, the fighting game boom that categoized the decade was nearing its end. And while some series' stood the test of time, many others sort of faded away.
While 3D fighters were still relatively new fare, 2D fighters had become so common it would make your head spin. Since the success of Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat early in the decade, developers everywhere were out to get a piece of the pie. And no company took as many pieces of that pie as SNK. This is far from the first time I've talked about SNK, or even an SNK fighting game. But it is the first time in many year's I've revisited a title from one of their most famous franchises: Fatal Fury.
If the title was a little confusing, don't worry, it was to me too. Garou is the Japanese title of Fatal Fury. You know, kind of like how Resident Evil is called Biohazard, or Mega Man is called Rockman. But the confusion goes even further here, because the game was released under both titles in North America. It came out on the Neo Geo under the Garou name, but was also ported to the Dreamcast with its Americanized title. Yet despite having different primary monickers, both versions retained the "Mark of the Wolves" sub title. Both versions were essentially identical in terms of graphics, gameplay and sound. That's great because it gives me yet another chance to sing the praises of the Neo Geo and talk about how great it was. Remember, the Neo Geo was a 4th generation console that came out in 1990. By contrast, the Dreamcast was a shiny new machine, one that kicked off the 6th generation on 9/9/99. Yet the nearly 10 year old Neo Geo, a console that came out a few months before the Super Nintendo, was able to match it blow for blow. It really is a shame it wasn't more popular.
At any rate, MOTW was a major departure from the rest of the Fatal Fury series. The official story is that designer Yasuyuki Oda had become disheartened with the series, believing it was lagging far behind it's sister series King of Fighters. KOF had started to become very popular in the fighting game community while FF had become somewhat of an afterthought, so I guess I can see why he thought that way. In response, SNK decided to completely overhaul both the story and gameplay that FF was known for, and this was the result.
I guess we should start with the game's story, something Fatal Fury/Garou typically puts more emphasis on than other fighting games. MOTW takes place 10 years after the events of Real Bout: Fatal Fury, which saw series stalwart Terry Bogard win the King of Fighters competition, leading to the death of longtime series big bad Geese Howard in the process. It's been a quiet 10 years for Terry, who has adopted Geese's young son Rock as his own. That quiet abruptly ends when both Terry and Rock, now a young man and a strong fighter in his own right, are invited to attend the newly revivived KOF tournament, which had been dormant since Geese's death. Dubbed "Maximum Mayhem," the tournament is organized by a mysterious benefactor offering something far more valuable than money. Upon learning this benefactor has information about Rock's late mother Marie, they set out for Southtown to once again join the fight. They will join a roster of 12 other combatants, all new characters to the series, all seeking to once again be called the best of the best.
Again, Garou/Fatal Fury has lore that goes extremely deep, so there is a lot more to it than that. It doesn't necessarily come out in the gameplay, as it doesn't for most titles of the genre. As a 2D fighter from 1999, from a long running franchise but featuring an almost entirely new roster, on the Sega Dreamcast, the comparisons to Street Fighter III were absolutely inevitable. Being compared to the SF series could be a major challenge, there were so many fighting games in the 90's and many of them were viewed as cheap ripoffs of Capcom's genre defining titles. In some circles, FF is looked at as one of those hangers on, though those in the know understand that it most certainly untrue. And I can tell you now, there is absolutely no universe in which I would consider MOTW a cheap copy of anything.
Let's start with the graphics, which are some of the absolute best of the era, at least when it comes to 2D games. The pixel art is colorful, expressive and detailed. The characters are incredibly well animated, there is so much detail in every movement without bogging down the action, which isn't always the case. It looks nice, but this kind of stuff is also very important for gameplay in fighting games. Too many, or too few animations can drastically impact gameplay, but it's just about perfect here. The sound isn't objectively amazing, it's closer to good than great, but it just seems to fit perfectly here. Presentation is definitely one way in which MOTW surpasses not only SFIII, but most of the fighting games of the era. Rather than just bring you to a map screen, you get a transitional cutscene between each fight. These look awesome and they establish a level of atmosphere that even better games in the genre lack. Fatal Fury has always been known for it's beautiful and dynamic stages, and MOTW is no exception. The whole package here is just exceptional and you can really tell there was great care taken to take the series to the next level.
Of course, top notch presentation can only take you so far. All the graphics in the world don't matter if the gameplay isn't up to par. Fortunately, MOTW plays about as good as it looks. It may be a departure from the rest of the series, but that was kind of the point. I will say, I kind of wish they kept the multi-plane fighting that Fatal Fury was known for, it really did make the series stand out. But even though it was a little more in line with more popular fighting games, MOTW played about as well as you could ask. Everything feels clean and responsive, and everything from the movement to the hit detection was extremely precise. Consistency is key in fighting games and MOTW was about as consitent as it gets. There's no weird glitches or obnoxious exploits and everything feels very fair. Special moves require pretty exact inputs, but the controls are so tight that it doesn't feel like a chore to do them. Combos require just enough precision to actually be challenging, but not so much they feel impossible and the high powered super moves make you feel like your are never truly out of a round.
While it no longer has the two-plane mechanics of its predecessor, MOTW does introduce a few new mechanics of its own. The first is the Tactical Offense Position, or T.O.P., system. Basically, you choose a section of your life bar, beginning, middle or end, and you receive an offensive boost when the bar is in that section. It doesn't always come into play and it isn't something that completely alters gameplay, but the bonus is significant and it is a nice feature. On the defensive side you have the Just Block system, that provides a slight health bonus and frame advantage for precise blocking. This is a little bit more impactful, it can really turn a round in your favor and allow you to stop extreme pressure from your opponents. I kind of like that these new features aren't so extreme, sometimes its nice to play a fighting game that relies more on precise gameplay than on gimmick.
Having such an excellent cast of characters also helps MOTW stand out amongst the competition. Fans of the Fatal Fury/Garou series will recognize a grand total of none of these people, because the cast is entirely new. Terry is the lone returning character and he has been so drastically redesigned that you would hardly recognize him. There's no Andy Bogard, no Joe Higashi, no Mai Shiranui, it's an entirely new roster. Many of them do have some level of relationship with previous characters though. Kim Dong Hwan and Kim Jae Hoon are brothers, trained by their father and series stalwart Kim Kaphwan. Young ninja Hokutomaru was trained by Andy and Mai, while Kevin Rian is a distant relative of Blue Mary. Some characters are completely new, like the perky pirate B Jenet, maniaclly evil Freeman and mysterious kung fu practitioner Gato. Also, there's a guy named Butt. Yeah, his full name is Kushnarod Butt and they eventually retcon his name to Marco Rodriques, but that doesn't change the fact that when you scroll over his picture on the character select screen it just says "Butt." Goofy names aside, I think the characters here are extremely well balanced and every single one feels viable. There is a great variety of fighting styles and it definitely feels like there is something for everyone. There was no way I wasn't picking Butt, so I spent most of my time getting his fighting style down, but I had fun playing as most of these people and the ones I didn't felt more like they just weren't my style. I don't think there was a bad character in the bunch.
As for issues with the game? Well, they are kind of hard to find. I do kind of wish they would have stuck with the two plane fighting the series was known for. I get that they were trying something different, but completely discarding the primary factor that differenetiates your series from its more welll known competitiors is usually not a good idea. I mean, at least it's near perfect in it's execution of more standard 2D fighting, but that still means it's more standard than any of its contemporaries. The final boss in unbelievably cheap, but would this be a proper 90's arcade fighter if he wasn't? Sometimes comebacks can feel a little ridiculous, the super moves here are powerful and if you get hit with one when your opponent is in his T.O.P. section it is going to erase most of your health bar. There is a grading system here, but it never truly felt like I understood how exactly it worked. Most of those are minor gripes, honestly the biggest issue MOTW probably faced was that it wasn't Street Fighter III. Look, SF III is incredible, it's one of the best 2D fighters ever. But MOTW is right up there and I think it even does some things better than it's more famous competition. I would have to look deeper, but off hand I will say MOTW definitely has a more balanced character roster. Anyone who's played SF III knows the top tier is extremely small, and even outside of serious competition the characters in it are definitely stronger than the others. MOTW had no such balance issues.
Unlike a lot of the "Off the Beaten Path" games I cover, the story of Fatal Fury actually has a happy ending. When I started playing MOTW, It was the most recent Fatal Fury/Garou game to have come out despite being released 26 years ago. But as you read this, that's no longer the case. Because summer 2025 saw the release of a brand new game in the series, Fata Fury: City of Wolves. I'm not going to lie, I haven't played it yet, but I am certainly excited to pick it up. Seeing that gives you hope that all these sereis' that I have covered that just stalled out will one day start again. Maybe 2026 will bring us a new Legacy of Kain, or Jak and Daxter, or F-Zero. I guess it's not quite the same, as the characters from the FF/Garou series have been appearing in King of Fighters games, but that doesn't change the fact that SNK was willing to take the risk on dusting off a dormant franchise after a quarter of a century. It's great that they did, but MOTW would have been an outstanding way to go out. It looks, plays and sounds like a pixel art game that would release today and it's up there with SF III as one of the best titles from the dying days of the 2D fighter boom. This is one to pick up and play any way you can, it's an exceptional title from a company that knows fighting games better than maybe anyone else.
9.5/10
While 3D fighters were still relatively new fare, 2D fighters had become so common it would make your head spin. Since the success of Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat early in the decade, developers everywhere were out to get a piece of the pie. And no company took as many pieces of that pie as SNK. This is far from the first time I've talked about SNK, or even an SNK fighting game. But it is the first time in many year's I've revisited a title from one of their most famous franchises: Fatal Fury.
If the title was a little confusing, don't worry, it was to me too. Garou is the Japanese title of Fatal Fury. You know, kind of like how Resident Evil is called Biohazard, or Mega Man is called Rockman. But the confusion goes even further here, because the game was released under both titles in North America. It came out on the Neo Geo under the Garou name, but was also ported to the Dreamcast with its Americanized title. Yet despite having different primary monickers, both versions retained the "Mark of the Wolves" sub title. Both versions were essentially identical in terms of graphics, gameplay and sound. That's great because it gives me yet another chance to sing the praises of the Neo Geo and talk about how great it was. Remember, the Neo Geo was a 4th generation console that came out in 1990. By contrast, the Dreamcast was a shiny new machine, one that kicked off the 6th generation on 9/9/99. Yet the nearly 10 year old Neo Geo, a console that came out a few months before the Super Nintendo, was able to match it blow for blow. It really is a shame it wasn't more popular.
At any rate, MOTW was a major departure from the rest of the Fatal Fury series. The official story is that designer Yasuyuki Oda had become disheartened with the series, believing it was lagging far behind it's sister series King of Fighters. KOF had started to become very popular in the fighting game community while FF had become somewhat of an afterthought, so I guess I can see why he thought that way. In response, SNK decided to completely overhaul both the story and gameplay that FF was known for, and this was the result.
I guess we should start with the game's story, something Fatal Fury/Garou typically puts more emphasis on than other fighting games. MOTW takes place 10 years after the events of Real Bout: Fatal Fury, which saw series stalwart Terry Bogard win the King of Fighters competition, leading to the death of longtime series big bad Geese Howard in the process. It's been a quiet 10 years for Terry, who has adopted Geese's young son Rock as his own. That quiet abruptly ends when both Terry and Rock, now a young man and a strong fighter in his own right, are invited to attend the newly revivived KOF tournament, which had been dormant since Geese's death. Dubbed "Maximum Mayhem," the tournament is organized by a mysterious benefactor offering something far more valuable than money. Upon learning this benefactor has information about Rock's late mother Marie, they set out for Southtown to once again join the fight. They will join a roster of 12 other combatants, all new characters to the series, all seeking to once again be called the best of the best.
Again, Garou/Fatal Fury has lore that goes extremely deep, so there is a lot more to it than that. It doesn't necessarily come out in the gameplay, as it doesn't for most titles of the genre. As a 2D fighter from 1999, from a long running franchise but featuring an almost entirely new roster, on the Sega Dreamcast, the comparisons to Street Fighter III were absolutely inevitable. Being compared to the SF series could be a major challenge, there were so many fighting games in the 90's and many of them were viewed as cheap ripoffs of Capcom's genre defining titles. In some circles, FF is looked at as one of those hangers on, though those in the know understand that it most certainly untrue. And I can tell you now, there is absolutely no universe in which I would consider MOTW a cheap copy of anything.
Let's start with the graphics, which are some of the absolute best of the era, at least when it comes to 2D games. The pixel art is colorful, expressive and detailed. The characters are incredibly well animated, there is so much detail in every movement without bogging down the action, which isn't always the case. It looks nice, but this kind of stuff is also very important for gameplay in fighting games. Too many, or too few animations can drastically impact gameplay, but it's just about perfect here. The sound isn't objectively amazing, it's closer to good than great, but it just seems to fit perfectly here. Presentation is definitely one way in which MOTW surpasses not only SFIII, but most of the fighting games of the era. Rather than just bring you to a map screen, you get a transitional cutscene between each fight. These look awesome and they establish a level of atmosphere that even better games in the genre lack. Fatal Fury has always been known for it's beautiful and dynamic stages, and MOTW is no exception. The whole package here is just exceptional and you can really tell there was great care taken to take the series to the next level.
Of course, top notch presentation can only take you so far. All the graphics in the world don't matter if the gameplay isn't up to par. Fortunately, MOTW plays about as good as it looks. It may be a departure from the rest of the series, but that was kind of the point. I will say, I kind of wish they kept the multi-plane fighting that Fatal Fury was known for, it really did make the series stand out. But even though it was a little more in line with more popular fighting games, MOTW played about as well as you could ask. Everything feels clean and responsive, and everything from the movement to the hit detection was extremely precise. Consistency is key in fighting games and MOTW was about as consitent as it gets. There's no weird glitches or obnoxious exploits and everything feels very fair. Special moves require pretty exact inputs, but the controls are so tight that it doesn't feel like a chore to do them. Combos require just enough precision to actually be challenging, but not so much they feel impossible and the high powered super moves make you feel like your are never truly out of a round.
While it no longer has the two-plane mechanics of its predecessor, MOTW does introduce a few new mechanics of its own. The first is the Tactical Offense Position, or T.O.P., system. Basically, you choose a section of your life bar, beginning, middle or end, and you receive an offensive boost when the bar is in that section. It doesn't always come into play and it isn't something that completely alters gameplay, but the bonus is significant and it is a nice feature. On the defensive side you have the Just Block system, that provides a slight health bonus and frame advantage for precise blocking. This is a little bit more impactful, it can really turn a round in your favor and allow you to stop extreme pressure from your opponents. I kind of like that these new features aren't so extreme, sometimes its nice to play a fighting game that relies more on precise gameplay than on gimmick.
Having such an excellent cast of characters also helps MOTW stand out amongst the competition. Fans of the Fatal Fury/Garou series will recognize a grand total of none of these people, because the cast is entirely new. Terry is the lone returning character and he has been so drastically redesigned that you would hardly recognize him. There's no Andy Bogard, no Joe Higashi, no Mai Shiranui, it's an entirely new roster. Many of them do have some level of relationship with previous characters though. Kim Dong Hwan and Kim Jae Hoon are brothers, trained by their father and series stalwart Kim Kaphwan. Young ninja Hokutomaru was trained by Andy and Mai, while Kevin Rian is a distant relative of Blue Mary. Some characters are completely new, like the perky pirate B Jenet, maniaclly evil Freeman and mysterious kung fu practitioner Gato. Also, there's a guy named Butt. Yeah, his full name is Kushnarod Butt and they eventually retcon his name to Marco Rodriques, but that doesn't change the fact that when you scroll over his picture on the character select screen it just says "Butt." Goofy names aside, I think the characters here are extremely well balanced and every single one feels viable. There is a great variety of fighting styles and it definitely feels like there is something for everyone. There was no way I wasn't picking Butt, so I spent most of my time getting his fighting style down, but I had fun playing as most of these people and the ones I didn't felt more like they just weren't my style. I don't think there was a bad character in the bunch.
As for issues with the game? Well, they are kind of hard to find. I do kind of wish they would have stuck with the two plane fighting the series was known for. I get that they were trying something different, but completely discarding the primary factor that differenetiates your series from its more welll known competitiors is usually not a good idea. I mean, at least it's near perfect in it's execution of more standard 2D fighting, but that still means it's more standard than any of its contemporaries. The final boss in unbelievably cheap, but would this be a proper 90's arcade fighter if he wasn't? Sometimes comebacks can feel a little ridiculous, the super moves here are powerful and if you get hit with one when your opponent is in his T.O.P. section it is going to erase most of your health bar. There is a grading system here, but it never truly felt like I understood how exactly it worked. Most of those are minor gripes, honestly the biggest issue MOTW probably faced was that it wasn't Street Fighter III. Look, SF III is incredible, it's one of the best 2D fighters ever. But MOTW is right up there and I think it even does some things better than it's more famous competition. I would have to look deeper, but off hand I will say MOTW definitely has a more balanced character roster. Anyone who's played SF III knows the top tier is extremely small, and even outside of serious competition the characters in it are definitely stronger than the others. MOTW had no such balance issues.
Unlike a lot of the "Off the Beaten Path" games I cover, the story of Fatal Fury actually has a happy ending. When I started playing MOTW, It was the most recent Fatal Fury/Garou game to have come out despite being released 26 years ago. But as you read this, that's no longer the case. Because summer 2025 saw the release of a brand new game in the series, Fata Fury: City of Wolves. I'm not going to lie, I haven't played it yet, but I am certainly excited to pick it up. Seeing that gives you hope that all these sereis' that I have covered that just stalled out will one day start again. Maybe 2026 will bring us a new Legacy of Kain, or Jak and Daxter, or F-Zero. I guess it's not quite the same, as the characters from the FF/Garou series have been appearing in King of Fighters games, but that doesn't change the fact that SNK was willing to take the risk on dusting off a dormant franchise after a quarter of a century. It's great that they did, but MOTW would have been an outstanding way to go out. It looks, plays and sounds like a pixel art game that would release today and it's up there with SF III as one of the best titles from the dying days of the 2D fighter boom. This is one to pick up and play any way you can, it's an exceptional title from a company that knows fighting games better than maybe anyone else.
9.5/10
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