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Fatal Fury: King of Fighters (1991)

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Back to where legends were born - and seeking revenge! Fatal Fury (Garou Densetsu in Japan) marks the beginning in a long running series of fighting games by SNK, and introducing characters who we'd all come to know and love in the years to come. Taking place in the early 90's, South Town is the location of a special tournament called The King of Fighters - you could say this predates The King of Fighters '94 - so this could mean in a sense, that Fatal Fury is technically The King of Fighters '91?! Probably. Maybe not.

Either way, this tells the story of Terry Bogard and Andy Bogard, adopted brothers and sons of Jeff Bogard. Jeff was killed by a man named Geese Howard - yes, the same Geese Howard who was then the police commissioner back in the 1970's (right when Art of Fighting 2 took place in 1979). Terry and Andy swore revenge against Geese, and therefore they trained hard over the coming years. Until 1991, where they entered The King of Fighters tournament while enlisting the help of their longtime friend, Joe Higashi. They will fight against a series of strong opponents, all under Geese's employ - the question is, will they be able to avenge their father once and for all?

Fatal Fury was the first game to introduce the two-plane switching system where you could hop between the foreground and background and do a leaping attack to hit your opponent. Although it wasn't necessarily a groundbreaking feature, the two-plane system continued to be a part of future Fatal Fury games. Another thing this game was notable for, and probably the ONLY game that ever featured this - was the ability for a second player to join in and fight against the CPU opponent!

So, yes, if the first player was Terry fighting against Duck King, the second player could hop in, pick Andy or Joe, and they'd both fight against Duck with separate life bars. I thought this was a pretty cool mechanic when I played FF back in the day as a kid. The only downside, this didn't last too long, because if the opponent was beaten, the two players would be forced to fight each other in the next match. No playing through the entire game together, sadly. Although, I'm not entirely sure, but I believe it's impossible to have two players cooperate against Billy Kane and Geese, but I could be wrong altogether.

There's not too much else to mention gameplay wise, as per the standard that Terry, Andy, and Joe all have their own special moves which do a good amount of damage. For every two matches you win, you go through a bonus round where you arm wrestle an opponent by furiously tapping the A button - which by the way, is borderline impossible to beat on the second and third attempts because you have to have the finger dexterity of a god to beat it. SNK prime difficulty at it's finest, and it begins to show once you fight characters like Hwa Jai, Raiden, and Billy Kane. Geese is exceedingly cheap because he can perform multiple Reppukens without delay, and can counter you out of any attack, although he doesn't do it too often.

Fatal Fury was also infamously known for the internal clock mishap - the BIOS clock didn't account for going beyond the year 1999, so let's say if you beat the game and the date and year was let's say, October 12, 2025, the game will say "On October 12, 1925, Geese Howard fell from a high-rise...", which jokingly makes it seem that the events took place so ridiculously far back to the point where its unbelievable - yeah, Terry and the gang were fighting in Prohibition Era levels of shit.

Anyway, that's about all I have to say on the first FF game. Not sure when I'm coming back, but the next game will either be Fatal Fury 2, or perhaps Art of Fighting 2. Who knows. See you next game.