After being dormant for 26 years, the Fatal Fury series has finally got a brand new entry. Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves has been released and is set to become the best fighting game of the year. But how good is it?
The Good
City of the Wolves has a lot going for it. For starters, I’m a big fan of the art style. The comic book aesthetic in the menus and arcade mode helps this game stand out from other fighting games.
City of the Wolves has a great plethora of modes. From training mode to arcade mode to a dedicated story mode, City of the Wolves has a lot of content for players to enjoy. There’s the regular versus modes, ranked and casual online matches, a jukebox, a gallery, and even a versus battle where players can set special rules. My favorite addition to the game is the ability to customize each character’s colors. This gives players a lot of agency over how their preferred character looks. It’s a minor feature, but it’s one I greatly appreciate.
The last mode the game has to offer is Episodes of Southtown. Acting as City of the Wolves’ story mode, Episodes of Southtown gives us a neat follow-up story to Garou. While not the most in-depth story mode, I appreciated that each character has their own story to tell, and with each character’s story not being that long, it doesn’t make each one feel like a drag to play through. There’s also plenty of extras contained in EOST. Numerous collectibles, scenes that can be viewed in the gallery, along with an extra minigame you can play while taking a break from the fighting.
The online in this game is also great. City of the Wolves has rollback netcode and crossplay straight out of the box, which is fantastic, and I wish more games would follow in their footsteps. Besides having ranked and casual matches, the game also features room matches, which work well. Players can also create an online profile to help customize their online experience. This profile features rankings used in the ranked mode, and arbitrary as it is, it’s nice that it’s in the game. Nothing groundbreaking, just a nice, well-rounded online mode.
The gameplay is also excellent for the most part. There’s very little input lag, and the overall flow of the gameplay is good. The game feels nice to play, but not as great as games like Street Fighter 6 or Dragon Ball FighterZ. The game features plenty of returning systems from Garou, such as Just Defend and T.O.P., which has now been renamed to S.P.G. Along with all these systems, the game has two distinct styles of gameplay, those being Arcade style and Smart style. Having both in the game is great for new players and veterans alike, giving both different control schemes to fit their different playstyles.
On top of this, several new mechanics have been added to the game to really flesh out the gameplay. The main new mechanic is the Rev system, a more defensive oriented system that allows players to guard and counter their opponents, if timed correctly. While I do have my hang-ups with this system, of which I will discuss later, I think the Rev system, in combination with S.P.G., really helps this game stand out gameplay-wise. Having so many complex systems requires the player to plan more than in most fighting games. This means having a good strategy is all the more important.
The Bad
City of the Wolves doesn’t have the best graphics at times. Sometimes, the game can look a little blurry and grainy. It doesn’t hinder the experience too much, but it can be quite noticeable at times. Optimizing the game a little more, along with settings already present in the game, would really help in making the game look as crisp and clean as it can be.
On top of the graphical issues, on the Steam Deck, the game has a problem displaying correctly, a problem it shares with The King of Fighters XV. If SNK can help to remedy the display issues found on the handheld, City of the Wolves could become a great fighting game to play on the road.
As much as I like the gameplay, I’m not the biggest fan of its more defensive nature. I like that they tried something different, but I prefer fighting games with more offensive gameplay. This game is the definition of easy to pick up but hard to master with all of its new mechanics along with those returning from Garou. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it can be overwhelming to learn and understand all the systems this game has to offer.
This game’s biggest problem, however, is its roster — it’s not very good.
The roster only has 17 playable characters, two of which are guest characters. There are plenty of Fatal Fury staples missing from the base roster, including Andy and Joe, and while they’re included in the first season pass, the fact that they aren’t featured in the base roster is a strange decision. Instead, we get a limited number of original Fatal Fury characters and two random guest characters, Salvatore Ganacci and Cristiano Ronaldo, who feel extremely out of place. I wish the roster had more to offer, or at least had more interesting guest characters. Having such a small roster with two spots being taken up by random guest characters that many players have likely never heard of really hurts the game in comparison to games like Street Fighter 6 and King of Fighters XV.
Summary
Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves is a superb game. It’s got great gameplay, a plethora of content, and a unique art style that ties the game together. It does have its issues, most notably its roster, which really holds the game back. That being said, the game does a great job of bringing Fatal Fury into the modern day and is a great evolution of the franchise. If you’re a big fan of the Fatal Fury series or fighting games in general, this game is definitely recommended.
Take the fight to Southtown in Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves, launching April 24 on PC (Steam), Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 4, and PlayStation 5.
The Review
Superb
