news

한어Русский языкEnglishFrançaisIndonesianSanskrit日本語DeutschPortuguêsΕλληνικάespañolItalianoSuomalainenLatina

The hungry wolf finally sharpened his fangs

A long time ago, in the fighting game circle, at least in the domestic and Latin American fighting game circles, SNK had an absolute "boss" status. For a period of time, at least half of the machines in the arcades were monopolized by "The King of Fighters 97", and the other half were mostly running the sequel of "97", "The King of Fighters 98". In Latin America, SNK's game "Fatal Fury" is the eternal white moonlight in the hearts of fighting game players - just look at the carnival of the Latin American player community when Terry Bogard joined "Rento" as a season ticket character.

This popularity has never faded. At this year's ChinaJoy, the SNK booth unsurprisingly attracted a large number of new and old players to visit and check in. The vitality of "unifying the world" in the past is still before our eyes - the trial area was full, the water friend competition viewing area was crowded, and even the quality of the Coser was the highest in the venue... Sorry, the last one is my subjective opinion.

My photography skills are limited, please forgive me.

Unfortunately, since 2D fighting games entered the 3D era, SNK has been in a dilemma of not selling well for several consecutive games. Terry, the protagonist of "Fatal Fury", and the popular character Mai Shiranui are often linked in other manufacturers' games.

Fortunately, SNK did not give up in the face of adversity. In August last year, "Fatal Fury Legend City of the Wolves" was officially announced, and Terry and Mai Shiranui, who had been working everywhere, finally welcomed their own home new work. At the SNK booth at ChinaJoy this year, players were finally able to try out this work in advance, which was poured into SNK's ambition to revive.

After entering the game, the first impression of "Fatal Fury Legend City of the Wolves" is the leaps and bounds in the visual expression - although the modeling level is still a little hard to describe, the highly stylized American comic rendering and excellent art design completely make up for the slight shortcomings in the modeling. The fire effects, waves and afterimages on the characters have also reached the level of next-generation games.

The most exciting thing is that this game has made great progress in terms of striking and smoothness of action. Whether it is the connection between punches and kicks, the change of posture when charging, or the closing action of the forward and backward commands, and the transition from the receiving animation to the standing up animation, they have all made great progress compared to "The King of Fighters 15". The "stuttering feeling" that SNK games have always been criticized by players has been greatly reduced - of course, the cancellation of frame extraction and action is the essence of fighting games. This game only reduces the sense of disharmony caused by these frame extractions, and does not sacrifice this in pursuit of smoothness.

This game has put a lot of effort into motion blur, which greatly improves the smoothness of action connection.

But the progress in industrial strength alone is not enough to make "City of the Wolves" a so-called "revival work". You know, fighting games are a game category with extremely high barriers to entry and high average player rolls. Those who can fight their way through this red ocean all have unique skills - whether it is the "fighting spirit system" of "Street Fighter 6" or the "romantic cancellation" of "Guilty Gear", they have made traditional resource management a thing of the past.

"Fatal Fury" is of course no exception. They have even reached new heights in terms of how to make fighting games faster-paced and more entertaining.

In addition to the traditional "kill energy bar", this game also adds a core system called "REV system", which appears in the form of a meter at the bottom of both sides of the screen. Players can increase the overload degree of the REV meter to use EX moves with wider cancel windows, better power and performance. They can also consume resources to forcefully cancel the backswing of certain special skills like the "Romantic Cancel" in "Guilty Gear", creating more possibilities for combos.

In addition, by holding down the R1 button and consuming the REV meter, players can also perform a "REV Block". This resource-consuming block can not only prevent the opponent from using special skills to drain blood, but also push the opponent away a certain distance when the block is successful, helping the player to break free from suppression and reset the stand.

Similar to the "yellow blood", "explosion" or "backwater" modes in traditional fighting games, the REV system has another core mechanism - "SPG" (selective potential equipment). When the player's health reaches a certain stage, the SPG will be automatically activated. At this time, the player can use super-killing skills with higher damage, the attack power will be improved to a certain extent, the health will slowly recover, and the accumulation of the REV meter will also slow down.

The different colored part is the SPG area

Not only that, when SPG is activated, players can also use "REV Blow" similar to "Fighting Spirit Burst" by consuming REV meter, which has invincibility judgment and can only be countered by the same move. The judgment and damage of this move are quite powerful, and it is almost irresponsible to use it, and it can even be used in the air-this also means that once the battle enters the state of "one party's SPG is activated and the other party's SPG ends", the latter will be in a great disadvantage.

The most essential point of this system is that players can freely choose to set the trigger threshold of SPG in the first third, middle or end of the health bar. Activating SPG at the beginning of the battle can give players an advantage at the beginning of the battle, while placing it in the second half of the health bar will give you the opportunity to accumulate energy and release super kills - of course, it will also bring the risk of being killed at half health and not being able to use resources at all. It is conceivable that after the game is officially released, both the attacker and the defender will put the game related to SPG as the first priority.

Locke's Aerial REV Blow

Perhaps in order to comply with the current trend of "encouraging offense" in fighting games, the REV system delivers all resources to the players at the very beginning of the battle, allowing players to use most of their moves except for super special moves at the beginning, eliminating the lengthy "foreplay of accumulating energy" and greatly speeding up the pace of battle.

However, if you consume too much resources and the REV meter is filled, the character will fall into an "overheated" state similar to the "exhaustion of fighting spirit" in "Street Fighter 6". Not only will you be unable to use EX skills, REV Blow and Cancel, but your opponent will also gain advantageous frames when attacking, and even accumulate stun points due to being hit. In short, you must try to avoid excessive consumption of resources, which will lead to an overheated state early, otherwise you will lose most of the game at the beginning.

However, nothing is absolute. One of the charms of fighting games is that players can always stage a miraculous reversal in desperate situations. In "Fatal Fury City of the Wolves", SNK also provides players with the possibility of a "Let's Go Justin" reversal - if you pull back to defend in the first five frames of the attack, you may trigger "Precision Defense", and the player will gain a slight recovery of health and REV resources, and can cancel the defense stiffness to perform a special move.

This five-frame window sounds long, but since it does not have the time-stop effect of "Street Fighter" when it is triggered, it is still quite difficult to make use of it. Since this game has a high requirement for clean commands, and I personally prefer to brush keys, I often find myself in a situation where I cannot get a special move after careful defense and end up getting hit instead.

By the way, according to the staff on site, the old tradition of the "Fatal Fury" series, "brake" and "feint attack" are also present in this game. However, due to my poor hand skills, I was unable to convert these two features into usable combos, and the trial version did not provide players with a training ground mode for practicing combo moves. The specific usage may only be explored after the game is released.

Finally, let’s talk about the difficulty of getting started. The operating threshold of fighting games has always been high, but in recent years, with the great success of several games that have simplified the operating instructions or added "modern operating modes", how to lower the threshold to allow new players to smoothly enter the pit has also become a topic that fighting game manufacturers have to study.

In response to this, City of the Wolves simplified the operating instructions while adding a "refined operating method" (Smart Style) that includes automatic combos and one-click special skills. New players can focus on standing back and leave the process of combos and bringing in resources to the system.

Of course, these automatic combos are usually not the best combos for maximizing damage, and they will not automatically bring in special moves. There is also the risk of missing moves and mixing moves in certain positions. The specific trade-offs still depend on the player's own level.

But no matter what, with the weapon of "Refined Operation Method", even new players who knew little about fighting games before can use it to compete with old players and enjoy the fun of fighting games. In fact, in the water friend match held at the SNK booth, a player used the "Refined Operation Method" to fight against the professional player Milk King and almost took down a lamp.

It is not difficult to see that, whether in terms of industrial level or system design, this sequel to "Fatal Fury" 26 years later has shown the ambition to re-compete for the crown of fighting games - at this moment when fighting games have rekindled their vitality and influence, "Fatal Fury" may be the clarion call for SNK's revival.

This is undoubtedly great news for fighting game fans.