ACA NEOGEO FATAL FURY 3 - (Franco Bash, Level 1 Difficulty, English Version)
0The lone wolves are back again for the third... um, well, technically fourth time! Introducing Fatal Fury 3: Road to the Final Victory (Garou Densetsu 3: The Distant Battle in the Japanese region). Looks like the fury is still fatal, because Geese Howard is back and badder than ever - and let's be honest here, road to the final victory? We all damned well know by now this ain't the final fight involving the Bogard boys and Geese, not by a long shot. Anyone who knows their SNK history would scoff at such a suggestion!
So what's the story this time? It's been three years (what a coincidence with the game's title) after Terry kicked Krauser's ass back in the previous King of Fighters tourney (this pretty much confirms FF1 and FF2/Special were KOF tournaments in the early 90s, so FF1 was truly the first KOF in the series). Terry returns back to South Town after knocking some heads across the world and making some new friends along the way, because how a Bogard rolls.
Terry meets up Andy, Joe, and Mai at the grand opening of the Pao Pao Cafe 2, as you've guessed, is owned by Richard Meyer, and what?! He has an apprentice named Bob Wilson who practices capoeira. Joe mentions to Terry that he's gotten word of a rumor from Cheng Sinzan that Geese is alive and well - apparently surviving his fall from his tower four years ago! Geese faked his death and afterwards, hid in secret to recover and eke out plan for revenge against Terry!
GREAT SCOTT! How the hell did Geese fake a death falling an odd forty or fifty floors and hitting the concrete? You tell me, because I sure as hell don't know. It's been fan theorized he threw a Shippuken in mid-air just before hitting the ground to soften his fall. Hey, I support that idea... That's totally plausible in my book. (This also means that Geese's appearance in FF Special wasn't canon, more like a non-official guest appearance if anything but.)
Terry and the others head out to the streets to get some answers to confirm or deny about Geese's status whether he's alive or still buried six feet under - but what they don't know is this plot involves some bigger fish floating in the fighting pond. Who is this newcomer and deranged criminal Ryuji Yamazaki? We also have two young Chinese brothers named Jin Chonrei and Jin Chonshu coming into the fray, and to top it all off, apparently everyone is looking for three sacred scrolls that might prove to be a gigantic threat to South Town and beyond.
Fatal Fury 3 brings in a few new characters to the roster, including veterans Terry, Andy, Joe, Mai, and Geese. For the new entries we have Franco Bash, a former heavy kickboxer who searching for his kidnapped son, Hon-Fu, a nunchaku wielding detective from Hong Kong (who reminds me of Jackie Chan somewhat), Bob Wilson, a capoeira fighter and apprentice of Richard Meyer, Blue Mary, a secret agent whose boyfriend was killed and has strong friendship with Terry, and Sokaku Mochizuki, heir of a clan of Buddhist monks who have a rivalry with the Shiranui clan.
You fight through a series of opponents and end up fighting Yamazaki as a mid-boss, then eventually as a penultimate boss - however, if you beat him without meeting the special requirement, you'll get the bad ending. You have to get to the end of the game and not lose a single match (or maybe round?) and get a specfiic amount of ranks after each round of a fight. You are graded on your fighting level, and the higher the rank the better.
During this playthrough, unfortunately due to the insane difficulty of the AI I was not able to make it through the game to fight the Jin Brothers, even though that's what I intended originally, it would've been difficult to do this without constant save states. By the time I got further in the game I didn't want to spend more time than needed to beat the game, so I had no choice to keep reloading save states because it can be very mentally exhausting losing to the CPU due to a series of cheap instant counterattacks repeatedly.
FF3 introduces a new three-plane system (that as you notice the CPU loves to abuse with frame perfect dodges), and desperation moves make their return, and even have alternate versions depending on what character you're using. Improved graphics and soundtrack are also a given. Honestly, I was never exactly too crazy about FF3 in a way, only because this game personally feels a bit "stiffer" - and again I apologize for picking Franco Bash because he's also somewhat low tier in this game. He's one of the few characters with the least amount special moves and less annoying inputs, probably one the few that doesn't require charging motions.
I swear if I didn't know it any better, almost everyone feels like their moves lack any kind of reach. I had to resort to using quick jabs and rushes just to beat the CPU most of the time, because if I tried to do anything else, I'd get countered immediately.
That's the end here - see you next game. throws hat OK!