Fatal Fury 3

While an annual Fatal Fury release was expected in 1994, SNK skipped that year to focus on re-working the entire Fatal Fury engine into something more bold. After the success and critical acclaim of Fatal Fury Special, SNK didn't want to just reprise the same game with flashier graphics, they wanted to evolve the series into something familiar but more complex. 

The popular story goes that Fatal Fury 3 didn't sell well upon launch which made SNK sit on a plethora of unused AES stock. That's not entirely the case. Fatal Fury 3 was the second most popular arcade game in Japan at the time of its release. Further, it sold over 35,000 copies on the AES in its first week on the market (which is a huge number considering the AES market was and is highly niche). SNK's folly here wasn't so much critical reception, sales, or popularity - they just produced too much stock as they thought it would sell better than it did. Make no mistake, though, Fatal Fury 3 is not a rare AES or MVS game, and is one of the cheapest titles in the Neo-Geo library in the modern retro game market no matter the platform. There are plenty of copies out there. It also sold well enough to warrant a decent port to the Sega Saturn and PC in Japan. 

Rather than let a bunch of unsold stock sit in warehouse purgatory, SNK recalled unsold carts from distributors and immediately went back to the drawing board. Recycling the PCBs and materials from the unsold cartridges, along with new print runs, SNK released the 5th installment of the series, Real Bout Fatal Fury, just 7 months later. This brand new game used the basic graphics engine of Fatal Fury 3, but again retooled the gameplay mechanics into an even better game. That said, don't write Fatal Fury 3 off just yet - this is still a unique game that is very playable today.

Picking up where Fatal Fury 2 left off, the storyline here shows that Geese Howard is not dead and is searching for a set of hidden arts called the Secret Scrolls. The entire Fatal Fury gang gets embroiled in this search for the scrolls all across South Town, and they encounter new faces like the insane Yamazaki and the Jin brothers who have a strong connection to the ancient relics. Other new characters were fleshed out through story sequences before and after a match, with the storyline elements in Fatal Fury 3 being more prominent than in prior games. 

The cast is smaller than Fatal Fury Special at just 13 characters - 10 immediately selectable and three additional by code. Out of the 13, only Terry, Andy, Joe, Geese, and Mai return from Special. The new characters include Franco Bash, Sokaku, Hon Fu, Bob Wilson, Blue Mary, Ryuji Yamazaki, Jin Chonshu, and Jin Chonrei (Yamazaki and the Jin brothers are accessible via code). While not their best versions, it is fun to see their roots in this game and how these new characters would evolve in subsequent Fatal Fury and King of Fighters games. Blue Mary and Yamazaki eventually became staples in the King of Fighters series as well, appearing in just about every main line entry since KOF 97.

Gameplay is familiar and new at the same time with the now standard 4 button set-up of two punch and two kick buttons. Rather than using two fighting planes like prior games in the series, Fatal Fury 3 opens it up to three planes you can duck and bob into/out of in order to dodge attacks and set up your own offense. Rather than being able to fight in each plane, you can only temporarily sway into either the foreground or background line for a limited time before your character automatically moves back to the center line if you do not perform an action. While in the fore or background line you can do a quick dash to right or left, or use one of your 4 attack buttons to come back to center on offense. Light attacks hit the opponent and open up a short combo opportunity, and hard attacks will knock the opponent into one of the other lines leaving them to have to quickly figure out how to defend or attack while being on a different plane. This system has a lot more depth than the 2 line system, but is not as intuitive as its implementation in Fatal Fury Special. 

All characters also have an auto combo of sorts, but these attack strings usually do not lead into any 2-in-ones or other combo opportunities. As far as I'm aware, this was the first game to include the short "hop" in addition to a normal jump that would become an SNK fighting game staple. To compliment the already implemented back dash, forward dashes were also added to the mix to further speed up gameplay. New defensive options were added to the game, with the most prominent addition being the ability to air block. Characters can also "dodge-sway" into the foreground temporarily by a quick tap on down+forward. This defensive mechanic is in addition to the dodge-parry from the prior game performed by pressing forward+light punch while blocking. 

There were other mechanics changes and additions that came along side the overhaul of the line-sway mechanic. For example, throws now have a hit box, can be blocked, and have a unique input per character. According to the development team, this was to de-emphasize throws overall and make them less of a crutch. 

Super moves, called desperation moves, are carried over from the prior game. Similar to their implementation in Fatal Fury Special, desperation moves involve complex inputs and can be accessed only when your character's life bar is flashing red (close to being KO'ed). All characters also have a hidden super desperation move that is nigh-impossible to pull off. Terry's Triple Geyser, as opposed to his single Power Geyser, is one of these. Franco Bash is the only character that does not have a hidden super move.

All characters' move sets have been updated, with some old moves replaced by new ones. Terry Bogard, for example, lost his Rising Tackle and in its place is Power Dunk. Developer interviews at the time claimed that this change was due to Rising Tackle and Power Dunk serving the same purpose - but that's not at all true. Rising Tackle is a true anti-air maneuver while Power Dunk has no way to hit underneath a jumping opponent. 

Another oddity is how some special move commands were changed. Mai Shiranui is a prime example. Despite her being very good overall, she has one glaring design flaw; she has a quarter-circle-forward (QCF) and half-circle-forward (HCF) move mapped to the same button. Essentially, you cannot go from block to throwing a fan (QCF+C) without first letting the stick go to a neutral position - if you don't go to neutral you will do her HCF+C deadly ninja bees which will fling Mai at the opponent and leave you at a disadvantage if the opponent blocks - which they will. In prior Fatal Fury games, the entire King of Fighters series, and even the Real Bout series, these moves are mapped to an entirely different button. Further, Mai has no special moves mapped to kick buttons in this game. Why this particular moved was mapped to punch - and overlaps her zoning projectile - the world may never know. 

For all the changes Team Garou made to Fatal Fury 3 in order try to keep it fresh, most of these update were changed or omitted entirely in the sequel Real Bout Fatal Fury. The auto-combos were changed into a fully fleshed out chain combo system that includes unique combo strings for each character, special move inputs now make sense, omitted special moves make a marked return, regular desperation moves and super (hidden) desperations moves are now much easier to pull off, and throws now act as normal option selects. In essence, what made Fatal Fury 3 so unique at the time wasn't how innovative the mechanics were for the day - rather, its how SNK's innovative approach to fighting games made the game less approachable to new comers and slightly alienating to series stalwarts. Still, SNK deserves credit for trying to keep things fresh with Fatal Fury 3 and we wouldn't have the generally well loved Real Bout sub-series if the team didn't build this strong foundation. 

If you've played Fatal Fury 2 or Special, but haven't ever played Fatal Fury 3, you'll be gob-smacked that the game is even running on the same hardware. By 1995 SNK had a much better grasp of the power of the Neo-Geo and they took this knowledge as far as they could within the confines of the cartridge's memory. All returning characters were entirely redrawn with bigger sprites, loads more animation, and even more personality. Color use went from the oddly sheen pallet that was popular in the early 90's to more subdued hues that give the game a slightly more mature vibe. Backgrounds are also all entirely new. While beautiful in typical SNK fashion, they are not quite as interesting as the ones in Fatal Fury Special or King of Fighters 95 (which released the same year).

All sound and music is entirely new as well. Meatier sound effects accompany the stylish new animation sets, and every single piece of music was created brand new for this game. While some music is just okay (Franco's theme) others are absolutely stellar (Andy's theme). Characters have many more voice samples, and even speak their post-fight quotes when in two-player mode. These additional voice samples add extra layers of personality to the characters, and help to further ground them in the universe they inhabit.

Fatal Fury 3 is a good game with numerous design flaws that end up making it feel undercooked and a little too experimental for many fighting game fans. It is still a lot of fun, and is quite playable, but pales in comparison to Real Bout. I wouldn't write the game off, but unless you have particular nostalgia with this game, or are a huge Fatal Fury fan, your time would better be spent learning the ins and outs of the Real Bout series.

Given the large quantity of carts that are still in circulation, the Japanese version of Fatal Fury 3 sits right around the $100 mark in 2022. The US version is typically around $1500 or so because people like boring grey box art I guess? Fatal Fury 3 saw a release on the Neo CD with an arranged soundtrack and a decent port to the Sega Saturn and PC a year later in Japan. In the modern age, you can grab the game on the Arcade Archives series on most modern platforms or the Fatal Fury Battle Archives Vol 1 on Playstation platforms digitally. It's also included on some of SNK's mini console solutions.

If you're an aspiring Neo-Geo AES collector, you can do one better and save up a bit more for Real Bout - it's around $150. Real Bout is an overall much better game in this writer's opinion and is right around the same price. Fatal Fury 3 is still a great game to have in your collection regardless, but there are better fighters that don't cost that much more money you should focus on first.