$20 GOTW & Lost Classics Special: Neo Geo Fighters!

This week marks the second anniversary of our popular $20 Game of the week column. We’ve certainly come a long way, yet it seems like only yesterday I started this thing off by raving about Outlaw Tennis. Now it’s two years later, and we’re still here. So what better way to commemorate my second anniversary than with one of gaming’s most prolific companies? Read on after the jump to learn about one of the great masters of 2-d fighting, SNK. Or rather, SNK Playmore as they are known as these days.

$20 Game of the Week: Fatal Fury and Art of Fighting

After producing a number of NES games including Chrystalis and Baseball Stars, SNK developed the Multi Video System, or MVS for short. It allowed multiple games to be stored on one arcade unit, making it affordable to arcade owners. All they had to do to switch games was simply change the cartridge. Tapping into the desire of gamers to play the arcade games at home, SNK developed the Neo Geo home console. At first, there were several side-scrolling shooters and beat-em-ups, but before long, SNK would get into it’s real bread-and-butter, fighting games.

From the early 90s forward, Capcom was the leader in 2-D fighing action. Fighters came at a dime a dozen, but besides with the exception of Midway’s Mortal Kombat, few of them could compete with Capcom’s games, and even fewer would be recognizable today. However, if there is one company that can be mentioned in the same breath as Capcom, it was SNK. Fatal Fury was their second fighting game (a game called Street Smart being the first), and it would set itself apart from other games of the period with it’s story based gameplay. You picked one of three characters: Terry Bogard, his brother Andy, and their friend Joe Higashi, as you fought to avenge the death of your father at the hands of Geese Howard, a major crime boss. Although you fought against all sorts of characters, you were only able to pick from the three, even in two player games. This made the character selection limited, although this would be corrected in the next installment. Fatal Fury 2 gave the series the Street Fighter 2 treatment, in which players can now choose from one of several fighters, each with their background and abilities, including the lovely Ms Shirunai, shown in the image above. You even battled three bosses before meeting the game’s big villain. The Fatal Fury series featured innovations such as desperation moves, background dodging, and a two-plane fighting system. Sadly the two-plane system would be removed from later games in the series, but the games still managed to add their twists to combat, such as the “Just Defend” countering system in Mark of the Wolves.

The Art of Fighting series further expanded upon SNK’s formula. Set a decade before the Fatal Fury series, Art of Fighting told the tale of Ryo Sakazaki as he attempted to rescue his sister from a crime organization. Even though it took place in the same universe as the Fatal Fury series, Art of Fighting had it’s own special innovations as well. Not the least among them was a a super meter which allowed players to pull off super moves. In fact, this was the first game that featured super attacks, a feature that would later show up in the dozens of fighters that have been released since. As many fans know, characters from both games would show up in the King of Fighters series. (By the way, it should be noted that the KOF continuity is separate from Fatal Fury. This is so characters from the two games can interact with each other without the AOF characters having to look older.)

Now the big issue with a lot of these games, as well as the Neo Geo period, was the price. At the time of its release the system carried a price tag of $649. This wouldn’t be that much of a bad thing, but the games themselves carried a price tag of around $200 each. This meant that only a select few could afford it. The rest of us had to rely on port-downs or the games to systems such as Super Nintendo, Genesis, Playstation, and others. This is where the $20 GOTW part comes into play. SNK/Playmore recently released two Playstation 2 compilations of these games: Fatal Fury Battle Archives Volume 1 (which contains Fatal Fury, Fatal Fury 2, Fatal Fury Special, and Fatal Fury 3) and Art of Fighting Anthology, which contains the three Art of Fighting games. Beside remixed soundtracks, a color edit, and a smoothed graphics option, the games don’t contain much in the way of extras. Even so, fans will be happy to get the games. Some fans may be dismayed that there is no Mark of the Molves or Real Bout on the Fatal Fury comp, but remember, this is volume 1, and volume 2 is already out in Japan. Also, Fatal Fury Special hit Xbox Live Arcade this past week, and will also be among the many Neo Geo games hitting the Wii Virtual Console later this year. Whichever way you choose, fighting game fans owe it to themselves to check out these classics.

Lost Classics: World Heroes (Neo Geo, Sega Genesis, Super Nintendo)
World Heroes was one of the other fighting game franchises on Neo Geo. Although it was created by ADK instead of SNK, Wrold Heroes stood among other classic games on Neo Geo. After all, ADK was one one of the few major third party developers that made games for SNK’s system. The plot wasn’t very deep. A scientist uses a time machine to gather some of history’s greatest warriors, including Hanzo Hattori, Joan of Arc (named Janne D’Arc), Kotaro Fuma, and Rasputin in order to combat an alien invasion. This game didn’t have any major gimmick, it was just a solid fighting game. However, one fun thing it had (at least the first 2 games in the series did) was the deathmatch mode. Inspired by the extreme deathmatches in Japanese Pro Wrestling, these matches contained electrified ropes, spikes, and other hazards. The deathmatches in WH2 contained even more variety, such as an enclosed arena, and a jungle-combat arena with land mines. The sheer fun of this mode kinds of makes you wonder why similar features weren’t included in other fighting games. Even the ‘interactive’ environments in today’s 3-d fighters can’t compete with the all out action of a barbed-wire deathmatch with land mines and bombs.

Sadly, this series died with ADK. Thankfully, SNK/Playmore snatched up their intellectual properties and is making use of them. Characters from World Heroes have shown up in the recently released Capcom vs SNK Card Fighters DS. Moreover, characters from the series will make an appearance in Neo Geo Battle Colosseum, due to be released stateside later this year. As for the game itself, ports of the game have shown up on Super Nintendo, Genesis, Game Boy, and Saturn, courtesy of companies such as Takara and Sunsoft. Even so, there is a slim chance of the game showing up again on Virtual Console. However, with Neo Geo games hitting the service soon, you’ll never know. Of interest to importers is the World Heroes Gorgeous compilation for PS2. It’s scheduled to be released in Japan this October. Hopefully a US Release will be announced soon. World Heroes is one of those games didn’t didn’t do a whole lot that was new. However what it did do, it did it quite well.