Game:

Real Bout Fatal Fury (1995)

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Real Bout Fatal Fury (Real Bout Legend of the Hungry Wolf in Japan) was released in 1995 and is the fifth release (although truly the fourth entry in terms of canon - remember, Fatal Fury Special doesn't count because it was an updated version of Fatal Fury 2) in this series. So what are our favorite wolf boys up to now? Well, after the whole sacred scrolls debacle in the previous game, it turns out that Geese Howard has gotten his grubby mitts on the scrolls! Oh no!

But apparently, he only collected them for the sake of... well, collecting them, just wanting to known as the strongest for obtaining them in the first place. He tells his trusted and loyal bodyguard, Billy Kane, to dispose of the scrolls since he has no use for them - and he doesn't want to the know the potential capability of them had they'd been in the possession of Jin Chonrei and Jin Chonshu. Given that, the scrolls can give the power of immortality, I guess Geese is already capable of surviving death on his own terms. He ain't got no time to be immortal!

Geese once again arranges yet another King of Fighters tournament, and a lot of familiar faces return to bash some heads and take some names - Blue Mary, Bob Wilson, Franco Bash and the other returning fighters are ready to take on Geese, and two veterans Duck King and Kim Kapwhan are back as well! Can Terry Bogard confront his old nemesis and finally defeat him once and for all? (I think we all know this isn't going to be last time...)

Real Bout Fatal Fury in my opinion, was an improvement over Fatal Fury 3 by a good amount of notches. It feels a bit more responsive control-wise, and this time the attack buttons have been reduced to three instead of four - the fourth button becoming the plane switch, allowing you to avoid and counter attack. You can switch planes to the background and foreground. You have three attack buttons, a punch, kick, and a strong attack which is different depending on the character you're playing.

Real Bout also introduces a power gauge system, which has three different types of special techniques the player can perform depending on the guage type (S. Power, and P. Power), but I'll admit, trying to explain it all is annoyingly cumbersome - which also can be difficult to remember during the heat of combat. Rush attacks, guard cancels, desperation moves and super desperation moves are all part of the system's repetoire.

Also, a new mechanic is the ability to ring out your opponent and causing an instant K.O. - on each stage there are obstacles that can you can knock your opponent into frequently, eventually causing them to break apart allowing you to ring-out if you can get your opponent to the edge. You can actually accidentally ring yourself out, though, which I did in this playthrough early on, so you have to be careful!

I used to own the Japanese import of RB Fatal Fury on Sega Saturn as a teen, although I played RB FF Special way more than this. It's still a solid entry overall though, and SNK looked like it was having an identity crisis due to this being the only Real Bout game that had the ring-out system and constantly changing how the three-lane plane worked. But I guess it was to keep these mechanics fresh and not same old, same old with each new game.

See you in the next video... although I do wonder if anybody reads these at all. x_X