#Nightmare in the dark, neo geo series
Heinlein, who holds an unexpected connection with Rock.įatal Fury and its sister series, Art of Fighting, are set in the same fictional universe, with the Art of Fighting series taking place at least five or ten years prior to the events of the first Fatal Fury. It focuses on Rock Howard: Terry's protégé and the son of Geese, who makes a shocking discovery about his own past when he enters the King of Fighters: Maximum Mayhem tournament that's being held by a ruthless crimelord named Kain R. The second installment, which is named Real Bout Fatal Fury Special, features the return of Krauser and a few other fighters from the past Fatal Fury games, although it's to be taken into account that both Real Bout Fatal Fury Special and its following sequel, Real Bout Fatal Fury 2: The Newcomers are considered to being "dream match" games which has no affect on the current Fatal Fury storyline.įinally, Garou: Mark of the Wolves takes place a generation later. In the first installment of this "new" series, the final and decisive battle between Terry and Geese takes place from within a new King of Fighters tournament, which would end up leading to the canonical death of Geese Howard in the Fatal Fury storyline. Instead, the third installment centers around Terry Bogard's attempts to stop Geese from obtaining an ancient scroll that would give him the powers of a lost and dangerous martial art form.Īfter the third game, the series is renamed to Real Bout Fatal Fury. The King of Fighters tournament is no longer a part of the storyline by the third game, having been spun off into its own series. The second installment of the series features Geese's half-brother, Wolfgang Krauser, who internationalizes the formerly South Town-only tournament in a bid to take on the world's strongest combatants. No fighter has ever managed to beat his right-hand man and appointed champion, Billy Kane, until Terry arrives on the scene. Brimming with violence and corruption, South Town forms the ideal backdrop for the annual King of Fighters fighting tournament, organized by the notorious crimelord Geese Howard. Like many other SNK titles of the time, the first installment takes place in a fictitious American city called South Town. The Fatal Fury series chronicles the rise of the "Hungry Wolf" Terry Bogard (hence the Japanese title, which translates to Legend of the Hungry Wolf), and the simultaneous fall of the criminal empire of Geese Howard. Special Illustration by Eisuke Ogura for the SNK Brand 40th Anniversary. The Just Defend was a type of protected block in which players regain lost life, did not wear down the player's guard crush meter and removed all block stuns making combo interruptions smoother. The Deadly Rave was a super combo used by several characters, where after execution, a player had to press a preset series of buttons with exact timing for the entire combo to execute. The most successful of these gimmicks were the Deadly Rave and Just Defend. "Ring-outs", where a character loses the round if the character is thrown into the edges of the fighting backdrop single- air plane backdrops, where the element of dodging ball is eliminated altogether causing moves that sent opponents to the opposite air plane to do collateral damage. Later Fatal Fury games experimented with various other gimmicks.
Characters often had moves that could attack across the two planes, attack both planes at once, or otherwise attack characters attempting to dodge. Later games dropped the two-plane system, replacing it with a complex system of dodging including everything from simple half second dodges into the background to a three plane system. Characters would fight from two different planes, and by stepping between the planes, attacks could be dodged with ease. The main fighting game feature that the original Fatal Fury was known for was the two-plane system.