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It’s not slated to come out till early next year, but there’s already a ton of buzz for FATAL FURY: City of the Wolves. It’s really not surprising. Garou: Mark of the Wolves (the previous entry in the series) came out in 1999!
That’s a damn long time for fans to be waiting. It’s even worse when you consider that all the Fatal Fury (or Real Bout) titles came out in the 90s!
We went two damn decades without a real entry in the series. It’s a travesty!
A travesty that thankfully SNK will soon correct.
That’s evident right off the bat as we got to hands-on with the game (in the swanky VIP section of SNK’s booth) at the Tokyo Game Show late last week. Set up to look like an upscale bar, the VIP section had special seating just for guests.
Elevated above the show floor, it afforded a view of the general demo area where you can see other players trying out the demo. The VIP area also had some awesome snacks; a FATAL FURY: City of the Wolves themed Red Bull and Happy Turn chips!
VIP area aside, we were there to take FATAL FURY: City of the Wolves for a spin…which was exactly what we did!
There were a couple of fighters playable; Preecha and Vox Reaper are the new guys, with Mai Shiranui, Terry Bogard and Rock Howard rounding out the list in the demo build.
Being a Terry main, he was of course my first pick when I went up against Sky.
The first thing you’re asked to do after you pick a character is to pick which section of your gauge you want to bind the new S.P.G. system too. The name might sound new, but if you’ve played Garou, you’ll know exactly what it is. It’s the T.O.P. system from that game.
One you choose where to slot in the gauge (1/3, 2/3 or the final 1/3 of your life bar), you can get to work kicking the crap out of your opponent.
That’s exactly what I did with Sky.
Terry Bogard plays exactly as you’d expect him to. Power Waves everywhere, with the odd Burn Knuckle and Crack Shoot thrown in to keep opponents guessing. I forgot that Rising Tackle was a charge move (I kept doing a Shoryuken motion to do it) so I never saw that in action or implemented it into my rotation.
Unfortunately, (and I’m not going to mince words here) Sky sucked. He’s not a fighting games aficionado (dude only gets a Hadoken off right like 10% of the time). To be fair, I’m not familiar with the new characters either but Vox Reaper does look pretty cool.
Weirdly, I’m not sold on Preecha.
I don’t mind the Muay Thai style fighting but Preecha looks…meh. Like somebody if you asked a non-Thai native to come up with a DEI Muay Thai fighter. Maybe it’s just me though but I really didn’t care for Preecha’s look.
Which is the exact opposite for how I felt about Mai.
I’ve always felt that Mai’s old school outfit was a bit tasteless (especially with her fighting pose). Now that she’s more covered up, I found that it made her look much better. Cool and sexy, instead of a hooker cosplaying as a kunoichi.
Like Terry, Mai was familiar to use too. Throwing fans left and right, with flames twirling everywhere in her attacks. It’s classic Mai, but with a classic look! Two thumbs up!
I also tried using Vox Reaper but that was pretty much a button mashing affair.
Sky and I didn’t really have time to look in the move list menu (hell, I’m not even sure if there was a move list menu) since we had to go to the Bandai Namco booth to try out Dragon Ball: Sparking! ZERO (read my preview of it!).
Still, we managed to fight 5 different matches in a 20 minute time span. Not that bad right? More than enough experience to give a good accounting of the game.
That is to say, FATAL FURY: City of the Wolves is going to be an insanely good fighting game. Will it be as legendary as Garou or Real Bout 2? I don’t know but I’m sure as hell not betting against it!
FATAL FURY: City of the Wolves hits April 24 2025.
Salehuddin Husin, EIC
Sal's been in the industry since the early 2000s. He's written for a ton of gaming and tech publications including Playworks, Hardwarezone, HWM and GameAxis. Recently, Sal served as a juror for the Indie Game Awards at Taipei Game Show 2020. A geek and hardcore gamer, Sal will play everything, on any platform.
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