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If all good things must have an end, then mustn’t they all have beginnings, too? SNK’s King of Fighters series is a good thing, a great thing, and 1991’s Fatal Fury constitutes its beginnings. Fatal Fury has to be seen to be believed, being a real view into the origins of the King of Fighters series, a real display of how far SNK and 2-D fighting games have come since way back when. Fatal Fury is a piece of video game history, but should it be in a museum or in your own personal library? Is it worth digging up or seeking out this game to give it a try? You shall see.

Overview
"You dirty rat, you killed my father!" The murder of one’s father at the nefarious hands of the local crime boss (who just happens to be one of the world’s foremost martial artists) is an intolerable sin liable to send any loving son into a fury, a fatal fury no less. As if stuck in a movie from the 1930’s, South Town is a metropolis filled with goodhearted people who have neither the will nor the ability to stand up to Geese Howard, the murderous millionaire who rules the city unopposed. Just for kicks, Geese sponsors a martial arts tournament annually, one in which his main bodyguards participate. If a fighter is skilled enough to overcome the other entrants as well as Geese’s henchmen and seemingly win the tournament, he must fight in a climactic showdown with the sponsor himself. Geese is undefeated and rumored to kill all his opponents in battle. But it is time for a change. Ace street warrior Terry Bogard and his Japanese-trained kid brother Andy are the sons of Jeff Bogard, a fighting man whom Geese brutally slaughtered, and they are out for vengeance, entering the tournament with a mission. Joe Higashi, a kickboxer hungry for glory and a good friend of the Bogard brothers, also enters the tournament to help put a stop to Geese’s bloody reign of terror. . . once and for all. In typical video game fashion, play the game to learn the rest of the story. Fatal Fury’s story is on the corny side, but a riveting plot is not why it serves as a pivotal moment in SNK’s history. Fatal Fury was able to jumpstart it all, even with a story like that.

Graphics 7/10
Fatal Fury is a cardinal example of the Neo-Geo’s graphical capabilities and prowess. . . circa 1991. Fatal Fury: King of the Fighters was released in an era when the NES was just recently losing its iron grip on the video game market, and Sega Genesis and that upstart Super Nintendo represented the technological peak of contemporary home video game graphical beauty. The Neo-Geo, released to compete with those now dead and defunct 16-bit fossils, did not have to push itself to its very limits for every title released as it does today, and, as a result, 1991 Neo-Geo graphics were of roughly the same quality as Genesis and Super Nintendo games. Not surprisingly, then, Fatal Fury was ported to those two systems faithfully. For those uninitiated of you unschooled in 1991 16-bit games, they ain’t too pretty anymore, but the higher-end ones, like Fatal Fury, remain tolerable today. The characters in the game all look impressive, rudimentary versions of their current selves: Terry wears his white and red cap, Andy wears his martial arts attire, Joe wears his kickboxing shorts, and Geese wears his trademark Far East parachute pants (never mind Duck King, he wears M.C. Hammer parachute pants). Terry, Andy, Joe, and Geese have since emerged as some of SNK’s most recognizable ambassadors, and they look, move, sound, and fight in Fatal Fury much like they do in SNK’s current offerings. On the other hand, backgrounds in this game are not the most imaginative, but they show what the Neo-Geo can do, circa 1991 of course. In the first stage, a restaurant setup in which the player engages forgettable Capoeira sage Richard Meyers, there are numerous restaurant patrons and spectators modestly animated in the background. . . still better than the 1991 norm. Sound Beach recreates the simultaneously frenzied and relaxed atmosphere of a brawl at the beach, with plenty of colorful characters again looking on, with the sunlight gradually weakening as the fight wears on. Tung Fu Rue’s level layout itself is nothing memorable, and there is little worth noting about the stage and the little Chinese man harassing you until one sees them in a different light. . . literally. As you battle Tung Fu Rue from wizened geezer to ripped behemoth back to wizened geezer, the weather will fluctuate from calm to torrential downpour-- cool in 2003, probably even cooler in 1991. The best stage is the final one, Geese Howard’s. Though it is noticeably darker than the rest of the game’s venues, that eerie inkiness in Geese Howard’s highrise is meant to accentuate the badness of Fatal Fury’s ultimate bad guy and the darkness in which he thrives, being the kingpin of South Town’s underworld. About as interesting as the stages themselves are what come in between them, bits and pieces of the Fatal Fury storyline, featuring most prominently a map of South Town and a well-dressed Geese Howard lounging in a leather seat while confidently proclaiming something to the effect of "You’re good, but I’m better". There is also an arm wrestling bonus game, indubitably more of a button-mashing exercise for your hands than a feast for your eyes, but a sign of graphical variety nevertheless. An element of Fatal Fury’s graphics that truthfully were Special (anachronistic pun intended) in 1991 was the second plane to which the fighters could leap to avoid projectiles and such. The possibilities immediately thereafter were thin, as the Fatal Fury fighters have only one diving attack they use to counteract such evasive action. You and your opponent will continue to pursue one another back and forth in and out of the two planes until someone gets hurt (you knew it had to end that way), whereupon the struggle continues on the straight line where most if Fatal Fury’s action takes place. The then almost mind-boggling concept of two-plane fighting was reprised in a more refined and advanced form in later Fatal Fury games, emphasizing yet more the originality and penchant for inspiration behind this 1991 installment’s graphics. The direct comparison must be made, and the fact is that Fatal Fury’s graphics are not of the same consistent quality as Street Fighter II’s, but they are handily above average, especially, of course, by those 1991 standards that these days seem oh so low. The designers of this, the first and formative Fatal Fury, earn their stripes for taking a risk with the multiple plane fighting and time-of-day changes that perhaps one out of every ten development teams would have bothered to attempt back in 1991. And if their design of the classic SNK characters who debuted in this game and are yet to drastically change more than a decade later may be labeled a risk, then it is a risk that most definitely paid off. And hey, Raiden is huge!!! All those years ago and even in retrospect in 2003, the one truth that more than any other damns Fatal Fury’s graphics to less than "A" status is that, once again, it does not look as good as Street Fighter II-- but, believe you me, few games did back in ’91. All things considered, the characters and their moves look fine, the backgrounds range form decent to excellent, and the in-between segments are a nice segue, but Fatal Fury can only do so much. Compared to the bulk of what was being played in video game world in 1991, Fatal Fury has graphics that are better, but by no means the best. It is no Street Fighter II, but seeing Fatal Fury in action is not a joke.

Gameplay/Controls 5/10
Surely this category exists for the reviewer to express what the gamer is able to control in Fatal Fury, but I feel in this particular case that the bigger issue is what the player cannot control, no matter how much he agonizes or seethes in disgust. Bear in mind that slamming the controller will likely only worsen matters. At face value, Fatal Fury’s gameplay is a less intensive version of Street Fighter II’s, with combatants armed with regular moves, special moves, and throws duking it out. Where Fatal Fury proves itself to be an even less intensive take on the Street Fighter II is the combo system, which was already alive and swinging in Street Fighter II with two-in-one and re-dizzy combos yet nonexistent on the Fatal Fury front. I hate to drag on this reference to an entirely separate game, but the basic process by which a two-in-one combo is performed in Street Fighter II is to input a special move command instantaneously as a regular move is connecting, a process that becomes anything but basic in Fatal Fury. Special move execution in capricious in Fatal Fury, working here and there, failing to respond nearly as often. There are not too many troubles that arise in trying to do the game’s regular moves, but Fatal Fury’s special moves will simply not work when they do not want to. Even more maddening, certain special moves work with more regularity than others. Terry Bogard’s Burning Knuckle works nearly every time I try to do it and, incidentally, the repeated use of it is one of the best ways to beat the computer, but his Rising Tackle hardly ever clicks for me when I am relying on it most. The other plane, allowing the player yet one more method to avoid projectile attacks, is more of a graphical touch than it is an irreplaceable facet of Fatal Fury’s gameplay, and, though I would not rank it as one of my favorite parts of the game, it does hold the distinction of being a feature the godly Street Fighter II included in no way, shape, or form. Further subtracting from the general gameplay appeal of Fatal Fury is the inability of some of the game’s normally computer-controlled fighters to jump or duck-- it is not at all that irksome when fighting them, but in a two-player game it just does not make sense to select a character so painfully restricted in his abilities. Beyond the lack of combos, the inconsistent control, and other complaints, the operative question about Fatal Fury’s gameplay is if it remains a fun game, despite the flaws. I would say that Fatal Fury is more enjoyable than not, but that summation comes with qualifications. The game can be frustrating to no end when you find yourself fighting Geese Howard in the third round, with both of you one hit away from death, when you seamlessly perform the motion for a special move. . . and nothing happens. What you hear next is actually two screams merged into one, you venting your outrage and your on-screen extension perishing. "Fatal Fury" could in fact refer to the average gamer’s temperament after losing to Geese and his insane reversals for the seventh time. The final verdict on gameplay is that Fatal Fury is an amusing diversion with some control and difficulty hurdles that cannot be ignored. If your anger at this game ever gets a little out of hand, remember to control yourself-- Fatal Fury has problems with that at times.

Sound/Music 5/10
The sound in Fatal Fury is so often a paltry journey into tedium that I would prefer not write about it, but I have to. The sound effects are a mixed bag, mostly filled with the things you would rather put back. On the positive side, Fatal Fury includes fighters exclaiming the names of special moves and yelling out in exuberance or excruciation upon winning or losing, respectively. The best part about Fatal Fury is that it gives gamers a chance to see how some cornerstones of the King of Fighters series first saw the light of day, and character voices were indeed part of the original Fatal Fury’s sound catalog. The lion’s share of the game’s sound effects are cheesy with a capital "C," in turn meriting a grade of a capital "D". As the character flies across the screen, most usually with a special move that involves high velocity or catapulting himself into the air, the game accompanies the action with a "zoom" or a "whiz"-- whoa! The sounds of impact are not mind-numbingly creative either, a "smash" here, a "plop" somewhere else. That being said, 2-D fighting game sound effects should be, in the best case scenario, realistic and cartoony at the same time, but in the original Fatal Fury they are just sad, with a capital "S". Generally speaking, the game’s BGM selection is less annoying. I have always liked the ominous jingle that plays when Geese is shown in his chair commenting on the progress of the tournament (yet another technique recycled by SNK in the King of Fighters series: the boss of the game shown voicing his opinion behind the scenes in between fights). The first stage’s theme is some shoddy cabaret, and the Sound Beach theme is comparably worlds removed from anything amazing. Raiden fights amid some guitar rendition with tense overtones. Geese Howard’s theme, though, is very nicely done. Anybody playing Fatal Fury who has played any other game with Geese in it should recognize that he has had the same tried and true character theme for all these years, remixed and remastered but still the same song nonetheless. It is a powerful track that gradually picks up in excitement, and you will most likely be listening to it longer than any of the game’s other themes, being that Geese is quite a test for the average gamer’s hand-eye coordination and patience. Regarding most of Fatal Fury’s music, I wish I could say it sounds like a dog dying or a toilet flushing, but it is neither that extreme nor that humorous; it just sounds like incredibly mediocre video game music. Truth be told, even Fatal Fury 2 sounds like a symphony compared to this (especially Wolfgang Krauser’s stage, for some reason). All in all, Fatal Fury’s depth and sound may be its most dated properties, but from the avid fighting gamer’s standpoint, the real bout in this game is with the controls.

Replay Value 4/10
This game will not last you too long, especially in 2003. The one-player quest allows the wide-open choice of only three protagonists, the "Lone Wolves" of Terry Bogard, Andy Bogard, and Joe Higashi, the opponents you fight are always in the same order, and, if you manage to fell Geese Howard, you earn one of two endings (one if you never have to continue, the other if you do), both of which, lest I forget, are the same for all three characters. Sorry to spoil the grand finale, but Geese Howard "dies" after falling off a building (I guess the parachute pants could not save him)-- do you really have to beat this game to surmise that climax, or can you just watch Die Hard? The two-player head-to-head mode suffers from a similar fate of leaving the player with too few viable options to create a lasting experience. Therein you may play as any of the game’s enemy characters (including Geese on SNES and Genesis), but some of them are so bland and stock you might as well stick with the three you can pick in the one-player game anyway-- SNK apparently has. There are a decent number of special moves to see (good luck getting some of them to work), but there are no Hidden Super Desperation Moves or confrontation-specific victory poses to be found in this Fatal Fury game. If you already own this game, then the odds are that you have played it enough. If you do not own it, odds are the only reason you should want to play Fatal Fury is to see how SNK’s fighting pantheon first began to take shape. . . or to laugh at 1991’s technology. Whoever you are, do not plan on being captivated for too long by this dinosaur. It is what it is: the first Fatal Fury game. What it is not is a game you would want to play for very long.

Overall 6/10
Fatal Fury: King of the Fighters is worth it. In short, it is worthy of being conferred the title of first in a long line of SNK fighting masterpieces-- though it itself is in many ways far from a masterpiece. Fatal Fury (if the subtitle did not tip you off sufficiently already) set the single strongest foundation, stronger than the one set by Art of Fighting, for the SNK fighting legacy that would go on to spawn the King of Fighters series that is now SNK’s bread and butter. Fatal Fury introduces the Bogard brothers, their "blood brother" Joe Higashi, and their special moves-- the series had to start somewhere. It has graphics that are typically standard, in a few places standout, with ambience changes and the two-plane combat that were strictly ahead of their time in 1991. Like much of this game, the sound is the once-in-a-while wonderful balanced out by the predominant humdrum; Terry’s spirited shout of "OK!" and Geese Howard’s prototypic character theme are well presented, but the rest of the game’s music and sound effects are blip, blop, and bleep all the way to boredom-- that is 1991 for you. The control is the occasional breeze sullied by the constant nuisance, an area of the Fatal Fury franchise that needed work and had to wait until later entries in the series to be rectified. Control is the chief kink in Fatal Fury’s otherwise engrossing gameplay; be forewarned, SNK veterans, certain of the special move commands (e.g. Andy’s Sho Ryu Dan) are different in this game from their future incarnations, revealing in later years a combination of Street Fighter II’s influence and a desire on SNK’s end to clean up their games’ sloppy controls. Fatal Fury’s replay value is what has most decayed in the twelve years since its release, as a game with only three characters to choose in one-player mode as well having around a dozen leaner, meaner, more sophisticated sequels, there is little reason to hunker down with the first Fatal Fury. Once you have beaten the game a time or two, experimented with a bud in a couple of two-player competitions, and glanced over all the game’s characters (seeing Michael Max, obviously a lamer Balrog, once is more than enough), you may relax and move on, knowing you have seen everything that is the original Fatal Fury. But if you have the nerve to fancy yourself an SNK expert though you are yet to sample this game, I cannot think of a single reason why you should not track down Fatal Fury: King of the Fighters to see firsthand the beginning of something great, especially since it is basically the same game on Neo-Geo, Genesis, and Super Nintendo, giving you your personal pick of platform. If King of Fighters 2002 is worth hours spent writing a review, then Fatal Fury is at least worth a nostalgic trip down memory lane. Even with the pratfalls, this game ought to be respected. After all, Fatal Fury is King of Fighters ’91, and I am sure that is how it would like to be remembered by the video game community. OK?

- By Michael Collins