Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves is so close to being one of the best fighting games ever made. While the genre is dominated by offense-focused games, CoTW’s focus on defense is a breath of fresh air. But, a few hitches keep it from greatness.
It’s clear that Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves is SNK Corporation’s best shot at competing with Street Fighter and Tekken.
For the most part, it succeeds. This is certainly one of the best fighting games on the market. However, there is one shortcoming that holds City of the Wolves back.
Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves Screenshots
What is Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves about?
If you didn’t play the first game, Garou: Mark of the Wolves – and no one would blame you if you haven’t, as it released a quarter of a century ago – don’t worry. Though knowing about the story of these fighters and their past is nice, the main storyline goes over these main points in enough detail to get you up to speed.
The story is just set dressing. It’s delivered in short interactions between characters or text box conversations in the Episodes of South Town mode. You grind through a series of monotonous battles, most of which are against characters who aren’t even on the main cast, to get XP and level up.
While it can be a bit grindy, it introduces some of CotW’s main mechanics, like the S.P.G. gauge as you level up.
Every character has their motivations for fighting, all of which are pretty surface-level, though they do set up some fun interactions. There were some grammar issues in the localization for story content in some spots, and it feels like it had much less effort put into it than other parts of the game.
But, as someone here mostly to fight other players, I don’t mind one bit. Progressing the main story while playing online gives you some treats to work toward story-wise, if you care to, but it’s not the priority.
That said, Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves has an incredible sense of style. It doesn’t feel as big and ‘AAA’ as Street Fighter 6 or Tekken 8, but the cell-shaded art style and distinct character designs give it heart. Blended with amazing music, crunchy hit effects, and easily readable animations, it’s a winning formula.
The best offense is a good defense
For most modern fighting games, the main focus is offense. Whether it’s new ways to attack like Street Fighter 6’s Drive Rush and Drive Impact systems, Tekken 8’s Heat system, or the simple offense seen in Dragon Ball FighterZ and Guilty Gear: Strive, making big flashy moves and combos more accessible and effective is the direction fighting games have been going.
However, this approach has a downside. If attacking is the best decision in any given situation, defense falls by the wayside. Why focus on a more defensive playstyle if you’re just going to get wrapped up in a 50/50 situation that results in getting combo’d for half your health? Looking at you, Tekken 8.
Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves has identified this issue and provided more points of interaction than any of its contemporaries. Not only is good defense rewarded, but it also requires skill.
Skill in fighting games often comes down to starting combos or setting up an offense. In CotW, the best players will be those who learn how to counter their opponent’s game plan. In the current landscape of the FGC, it’s incredibly refreshing. An intelligent and patient player will likely beat someone with great mechanics but lacking game sense.
As for the cast, every character feels unique, with their strengths and weaknesses. Beta testing has done a good job of bringing busted characters like Tizoc back into line, and no one character’s strengths feel OP. Even poke-based fighters like Billy Kane and Kain don’t feel frustrating to fight.
For fast combos and strong movement, there are Hotaru, Dong Hwan, and Hokutomaru. For big meaty hits that reward players who know how to find the perfect window, there are Kevin, Vox Reaper, and Marco. Most archetypes you can think of are represented here.
Guest characters Salvatore Ganacci and Cristiano Ronaldo feel unique and rewarding. Ronaldo is, for some reason, the hardest character in the game and requires good knowledge of setplay with his unique ball-based poke game.
Meanwhile, Salvatore Ganacci is a triumph. The way he plays and the amount of personality packed into his character is incredible. He poses on the competition at every turn, swimming through the sky, and doing the splits to attack. He isn’t that strong power-level-wise, but he’s so fun that it’s hard to care.
When it comes to gameplay, Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves is best-in-class. But creating a defense-focused game with complex mechanics brings with it a decades-long problem in fighting games: Helping new players learn.
A game made with the FGC in mind – for better and worse
SNKThe biggest problem with Fatal Fury is that it is pretty unwelcoming to new players. It lacks tools to help people new to the genre, or even those familiar with similar games.
Many of the bread-and-butter combos in CotW require precise motion inputs on tight timings with a small window.
Training modes don’t offer anything outside of a preview of what the combo’s supposed to look like when performed. There’s a lack of training tools across the board for people struggling with combo timings and other core game mechanics.
There is a “Smart” input style, but it simplifies the controls to the point of frustration and restricts many of the moves you can use. It’s less like training wheels and more like day care.
Additionally, the controller matters a lot more in CotW than in most other games. I can get away with Street Fighter 6’s motion inputs on a particularly stiff Korean bat top lever, but not with Fatal Fury. Out of all the controllers I tested (PS5 pad, Haute 42 B16, Razer Kitsune, arcade stick with a Knee lever), leverless controllers felt the best by far.
So, yes, while Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves feels like it’s built for FGC old heads who miss the days of slower, more methodical fighting games with a higher barrier of execution, it doesn’t do enough to help new players get over that barrier..
Verdict
If you were hoping that Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves would be a journey back to what made fighting games great, this isn’t the game you were expecting: It’s even better. It’s a love letter to the genre.
However, that comes at a cost. It takes too long to learn how to do the cool stuff, and a lot of players won’t have the patience.
If you’re looking to pick up your very first fighting game, CotW probably isn’t top of the list. But for more experienced players, it looks great, feels great, and the skill ceiling is very high. Pure fighting game excellence, but it won’t hold any new players’ hands.
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