Fatal Fury / Garō Densetsu Shukumei no Tatakai 餓狼伝説 ～宿命の闘い～ Hungry Wolf Legend The Battle of Destiny

Fatal Fury, known as Garō Densetsu (餓狼伝説, Legend of the Hungry Wolf) in Japan, is a fighting game series developed by SNK for the Neo Geo system.

Gameplay
The original Fatal Fury is known for the two-plane system. Characters fight from two different planes. By stepping between the planes, attacks can be dodged with ease. Later games have dropped the two-plane system, replacing it with a complex system of dodging, including simple half second dodges into the background and a three plane system. Characters have moves that can attack across the two planes, attack both planes at once, or otherwise attack dodge characters.

Later Fatal Fury games have experimented with various mechanical changes. "Ring-outs" allow a character to lose the round if the character is thrown into the edges of the fighting backdrop; single-plane backdrops, where dodging is eliminated altogether, causing moves that send opponents to the opposite plane to do collateral damage. The "Deadly Rave" is a super combo used by several characters, where after execution, a player had to press a preset series of buttons with exact timing for the entire combo to execute. The "Just Defend" is a type of protected block in which players regained lost life, did not wear down the player's guard crush meter and removed all block stuns making combo interruptions smoother.

Characters
Main article: List of Fatal Fury characters
As with most fighting games, the Fatal Fury series has an extensive cast of characters that increased with each installment. The three main heroes from the original game, Terry Bogard, Andy Bogard and Joe Higashi, appeared in each installment, along with female ninja Mai Shiranui. Some characters made appearances outside the series, particularly in The King of Fighters series and in Art of Fighting 2 (where a young Geese Howard appears as a hidden opponent). Likewise, characters from outside the series have appeared in the Fatal Fury games. Ryo Sakazaki from the Art of Fighting series makes an appearance in a hidden "dream match" in Fatal Fury Special, while his older self from Buriki One appears in Fatal Fury: Wild Ambition. Garou: Mark of the Wolves is the only Fatal Fury game not to feature any returning character with the exception of Terry Bogard himself, who was completely redesigned for the game.

Story
The Fatal Fury series chronicles the rise of "Lone Wolf" Terry Bogard (hence the Japanese title, which translates to Legend of the Hungry Wolf), and the simultaneous fall of the criminal empire of Geese Howard. Like many other SNK titles of the time, the first installment takes place in a fictitious American city called South Town. Brimming with violence and corruption, South Town forms the ideal backdrop for the annual The King of Fighters fighting tournament, organized by notorious crime lord Geese Howard. No fighter has ever managed to beat his right-hand man and appointed champion, Billy Kane, until Terry arrives.

The second installment of the series features Geese's half-brother, Wolfgang Krauser, who internationalizes the formerly local tournament in a bid to take on the world's strongest combatants. The tournament disappears from the storyline by the third game, having spun off into its own series. Instead, the third installment centers around Terry Bogard's attempts to stop Geese from obtaining an ancient scroll that would give him the powers of a lost and dangerous martial art form.

After the third game, the series was renamed to Real Bout Fatal Fury. In its first installment, the final and decisive battle is set between Terry and Geese. The King of Fighters tournament appears in this game. The second installment, which is named Real Bout Fatal Fury Special, features Wolfgang's return.

Garou: Mark of the Wolves takes place a generation later. It focuses on Rock Howard, Terry's protégé and son of Geese, who makes a shocking discovery about his past when he enters the tournament.

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Developer(s)
SNK
Publisher(s)
SNK
Director(s) Takashi Nishiyama
Producer(s) Eikichi Kawasaki
Designer(s) Seigo Ito
Takashi Tsukamoto
Composer(s) Hiroshi Matsumoto
Kazuhiro Nishida
Toshikazu Tanaka
Series Fatal Fury
Platform(s)
Arcade
Release
25 November 1991
Genre(s) Fighting
Mode(s) Single-player, co-op, multiplayer (up to two players)
Arcade system Neo Geo MVS

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