"Certainly, they existed. Those blinded by ambition. Those consumed by vengence. But here, they do not exist. Only winners and losers here. For here,THE MIGHTY RULE!"
Overview
The line above, which plays in the wonderfully conceived intro, alludes to a promising experience. Garou: Mark of the Wolves is a psuedo-sequel of sorts to one of SNK's charished series, Fatal Fury. If you're not too familiar with the Fatal Fury series (like myself), no worries, the story to this game is fresh and original and needs no major backtracking to keep up. Hardcore fans will already recognize many of references to past games though.
The year is 2008, since the recent King of Fighters tournaments, the legendary "lone wolf", Terry Bogard, has "adopted" and trained a young boy, Rock Howard, who is the son of Terry's nemesis, Geese Howard, whom Terry defeated and presumebly killed earlier in the Fatal Fury series. Now Rock has come of age and decides to enter the new King of Fighters torunament being held in Southtown (now called Second Southtown) in hopes to find the truth in his lineage.
Graphics 10/10
Many fighting game fans consider Garou to be one of the finest games, graphically, on the MVS. It's no exaggeration. This was SNK's answer to the acclaimed Street Fighter 3. While the limitations of the Neo are apparent with rough color textures and pixelated edges, the sprites for characters are wonderfully animated in fluid detail on the same level (if not beyond) as Street Fighter 3 and even Guilty Gear X. The stages also have as much work put into them with great background detail. One stage, which features fighting at the bottom of a waterfall, shows excellent detail with water effects and even "splashes" when a character is knocked down. Another stage has you fighting in a clocktower with a large bell chiming and birds being startled as you fight. Before each match in Arcade mode, a nice little "cutscene" displays an overview of the stage (in a very similar manner to The Last Blade 2) usually showing the character, whom you are about to face, occupying themselves before you fight them. A minor and annoying flaw is the text during the "semifinal" match when your character is conversing with another, the font is incredibly hard to read and there's no kind of "window" to bring out the white text like in most games. I don't see how SNK could've overlooked that. Nonetheless, this is truely one of the few games where the old Neo Geo system is pushed to its very limit.
Gameplay/Controls 7/10
Now, first off, I'm a casual fighting game fan, not too hardcore or much of an expert. Just rather "average". At first glance, Garou seems to use a system not much different than King of Fighters. 4 attack buttons, Punch and Kick. seperated by Weak and Strong. However many new "sub-systems" have been introduced and are hit and miss. First up is feinting. Which allows you to fake the start up of moves and let you cancel it with another move or combo instead. A really neat concept, but I find it near useless when facing the computer in arcade mode. Second is Just Defend, which was later adapted by Capcom for Capcom vs SNK 2. Its a defense manuever that calls for blocking to be timed right, JUST before a character actually hits. It's surprisingly easy to master, especially compared to the Parry of Street Fighter 3, being as how the worse that can happen with Just Defend is just normally block while with Parry, you might not time it right and take a hit. A successful Just Defend also gives you a small ounce of life back, and gives you a nice advantage to counter. There's also TOP (which I'm not quite aware of what it stands for) which lets you select a part of your life (seperated in thirds) that activate when you're down to that specific third. Once activated you'll begin to recover (provided you're not hit) and also gain access to a special "TOP Attack" that usually serves as a counter manuever and varies from character to character. This feature allows for some great strategizing and can make fights much more intense.
Where Garou falls short though, is the combo system and A.I. Most characters are rather slow and sluggish when it comes to combos. SNK's idea of a combo system in this mostly involves "breaking" which involves you to press the A and B buttons at the EXACT frame of certain special moves. I found this insanely difficult (along the lines of CvS2's "Roll Canceling"), and thought it was better to play without it. However, the A.I. in Arcade mode, can be rather annoying and unforgiving. Even in the very first match, the computer seems to predict very well what your move is, as well as Just Defend and block many of your moves. Making the arcade experience (even at the very lowest level of difficulty) very frustrating. Though it is somewhat remedied with the Service system, just like later King of Fighters games where you can continue a match with a certain advantage over the computer. The controls aren't necessarily "broken", but it will in fact take newcomers hours of practice just to get used to efficiently.
Sound/Music 9/10
Much like the graphics, Garou's soundtrack is nicely done. There's a nice variety of tunes here that's sure to please everybody. The upbeat Jazz in the alternate intro really seems to set the mood for the game. Not to mention the vast array of character themes. Terry has a nice, gritty rock theme that starts with some nice guitar riffs that suits him. The kid ninja, Hokutomaru has a nice, bouncy, and playful theme that really gives you the impression you're fighting a free spirited young boy who thinks he's the best ninja ever. And on the other hand, Freeman's theme is very dark to match both the gothic look and dark personality of the very character and stage you're fighting in.
The voice acting is also nicely done. Satoshi Hashimoto, the voice of Terry Bogard here and in King of Fighters, has never sounded so good. Though sometimes the Japanese accent is still apparent in some cases like when "Rock you!" sounds like "Raichu!" and "Stand up!" sounds like "Standard!". The other voice actors also fit their characters' roles with nice precision on top of the nicely crisp sound effects. If it wasn't for the limitations of the MVS, this would be pure ear candy if done with a more modern sound system. But, this by no means, is hard on the ears.
Replay Value 6/10
Like most fighting games, there isn't a lot of difference when beating the game with different characters. There is plenty of exclusive story and dialog to each character. SNK USA also managed to actually translate all the winning quotes a character has with certain other characters. There's also the fact that a character's true ending has to be met by certain requirements which may or may not inspire you to play the game more (as I said above the boss A.I. especially, is very cheap and ruthless even on the lowest difficulty setting). The desire to play this game solely depends on how dedicated you are to fighting games, you'll either try it and want to practice and play more, or try it and most likely never play again.
Overall 8/10
Garou: Mark of the Wolves certainly deserves the praise that most fighing game fans give it. However some may find the game too complex and difficult for their tastes. Although, the difficult arcade mode doesn't negate how fun this game can be with a friend, it's much better and more fun this way which gives this game a degree of enjoyment for everyone. Overall though, if you play King of Fighters and expect to jump straight into this game, be wary. Just be sure to ask yourself, "Do I want a complex fighting game that I want to devote my time to, or do I want just a simple fighting game that will be fun and easy to pick up?" If you're the former, Garou is right up your alley, if you're the latter, you just may want to try the game once or twice.
- By Cain Highwind
