By: Daniel Kendle

Hey guys, welcome back to JOYSTiCK Reviews, the leading choice in video game serials for those seeking writing comparable to the Infinite Monkey Theorem’s. It’s been a long summer away, but at last we’ve returned to my boiling vat of video games (yay!) and opinions (boo!).

‘Fatal Fury’ is an arcade fighting game released by SNK in 1991, later being brought to home consoles like the SNES and Sega Genesis by Tamara LTD. W!WALOZA!(‘Wow! What A Load Of Zany Acronyms!’) The game is the first in the franchise of the same name, one cemented alongside ‘Street Fighter,’ ‘Mortal Kombat,’ ‘Tekken,’ and ‘Super Smash Bros.’ as a cornerstone part of its genre.  

Overall, a legacy title whose influence on future generations of games is prevalent all these years later. It’s a shame it was released the same year as ‘Street Fighter 2,’ arguably the most predominant fighting game out there for its introduction of genre staples. It’s ALSO a shame that ‘Fatal Fury’ kinda sucks!

Yeah, I didn’t really love this game, despite its importance. But why is that, and what could’ve been improved? As always, let’s find out.

‘Fatal Fury’ is a 2D fighting game, like I said before. Upon booting it up you get the choice of 3 playable characters: Terry Bogard, Andy Bogard, and Joe Higashi. The story remains mostly similar for all 3, as each character instead gets completely different movesets. I solely used Terry for my playthrough, so he’s the only one I can really speak on.

To begin, the game’s combat is similar to other fighting games from its time: 1v1 matches with health bars to denote hits taken. Combos and multi-button inputs are here in spades as well, along with a unique feature to the series: unlike its contemporaries, ‘Fatal Fury’ lets fighters switch between the foreground and background, or as I’ll call them: planes. The 2 planes act the same, but switching between them lets you attack, opening up new opportunities for combos and the like.

This distinction is neat, and I think is a lot cooler in a PVP setting. For the campaign mode it becomes less of a core facet of combat, however. From my playthrough the lane-switching mechanic acted more like a rudimentary parry. By mashing the attack button you’re able to attack as you switch lanes, so as you and the opponent hop back and forth, it culminates in the 2 of you waiting to see who’d eventually mistime an input and be hit first. An alright addition in theory, but the AI on display here doesn’t make the most of it.

On the topic of AI, here comes the primary issue with the game: its difficulty. Critiquing a game’s level of challenge is always a risky venture, but I think public scrutiny has to step aside for a second because yeah, this game is disturbingly-annoying to play.

It’s common knowledge that older games often made up for their short runtime by amping up their difficulty, thus making them artificially-longer. ‘Fatal Fury’ is a prime example of this: the story can be beaten in about an hour if you know what you’re doing. If not? Well, welcome to the trenches, kiddo!

For the few fights there are in this game, each’s respective challenge fluctuates wildly. Raiden, this luchador guy, sucks! Every move in his kit combos into one another flawlessly, so even poking him is enough for him to play ‘Operation’ with your dead, flailing body. Meanwhile, the subsequent fight against Billy Kane features a brain-dead easy infinite combo you can perform against him. By repeatedly breaking his staff, you turn what should be a tricky fight into a cakewalk.

Then there’s Geese Howard, the final boss. Going in, I knew he was notoriously-tough, but brushed any trepidation aside. So how did the fight against him go? Well, let me put this lightly:

I would rather rip my fingers apart than rematch Geese Howard.

I would rather eat a bag of nickels than rematch Geese Howard.

I would rather hot-glue rusty nails into my leg than rematch Geese Howard.

I would rather guzzle gasoline than rematch Geese Howard.

I would rather coat myself in tar and feathers, tie myself to a log, and plummet over the Niagara Falls 11 TIMES than fight Geese Howard.

This fight is horrible, truly. He spams a ground-based projectile the size of a small island nation, making blocking a constant. Couple that with his various close-range grabs and pummels, and I can confidently say that this is the only boss fight in any video game where I think the programmer responsible genuinely had some sort of malice for the player. I’m joking, of course…kinda.

Geese Howard is the worst of this rollercoaster of difficulty, though make no mistake: playing through ‘Fatal Fury’ in 2025 isn’t a walk in the park. I’ll die on this hill – though hopefully not with my credibility.

The pixel art is pretty good, albeit a bit “shiny.” The backgrounds are lavishly-decorated, and while animations for moves rely on key poses a lot, said poses look really nice in motion! Any indoor spaces especially look nice; I’m a big sucker for pixel art of rooms with interesting perspective-points.

The music’s also nice. Nothing stand-out, except for maybe, er… (inhales) ‘Haremar Faith Capoeira School – Song of the Fight [Believers Will Be Saved] (Richard Meyer’s Theme).’ It’s kinda catchy, which surprised me. Richard Meyers’ fight in-game blew, but hey-what a nice song!

Anyways, I think that’s about it. ‘Fatal Fury’ is a short arcade title that strives for combat depth almost as much as it strives for your quarters. The result? A tough-as-nails fighting game that will do 1 of 2 things: make you a lifelong fan of the franchise, or make you want to jump off a cliff. Fortunately for me, it did both!

While the various challenges presented to me irked my opinion of the game, I can’t say I don’t look back with pride on my accomplishment of finishing. It’s not for everyone and doesn’t hold up the best, but there’s an eternal charm here that some will love. I’m giving it a 5/10.

That concludes today’s JOYSTiCK Review. Thanks for reading, and have a good day!