Real Bout Fatal Fury

Disclaimer 1: If you're new to the series, the Fatal Fury games follow this path: Fatal Fury, Fatal Fury 2, Fatal Fury Special, Fatal Fury 3, Real Bout Fatal Fury, Real Bout Special, Real Bout 2, Garou: Mark of the Wolves. Real Bout Fatal Fury is the first game in the Real Bout sub-series.

Disclaimer 2: The Fatal Fury series happens in an alternate universe than the King of Fighters games. References to the King of Fighters in regard to the storyline in Real Bout is that universe's version of the tournament.

When SNK released Fatal Fury 3 in 1995 it did not garner the sales they expected. Despite strong critical reception and initial sales, SNK ended up sitting on a plethora of unsold cartridges at distributor warehouses. Rather than call it a wash, SNK purchased back the unsold stock and the Garou team went back to the drawing board to create a bolder, bigger, and more bombastic game using the general graphical engine created for Fatal Fury 3. 

Later that same year in December, Real Bout Fatal Fury was launched on cartridges that were repurposed from the unsold Fatal Fury 3 stock. It was praised by critics and arcade goers alike for taking a courageous leap forward in innovative gameplay in a genre that was beginning to get a little stale. SNK's plan to retool the gameplay and add back in fan-favorite characters paid off - and even better - it kept the Fatal Fury series alive. It became the fourth most popular arcade game by February, 1996 and sold very well across all three Neo-Geo platforms. Fatal Fury had evolved, and what it turned into surprised everyone. 

The storyline events that take place in Real Bout mark the end of the Geese Howard saga that began with the original Fatal Fury in 1991. After obtaining the secret scrolls from the Jin brothers in Fatal Fury 3, Geese tasks his bodyguard Billy Kane with organizing a new King of Fighters tournament. Even though Geese obtained the secret scrolls of immortality at the end of Fatal Fury 3, he feared their power and sealed them away so nobody else can find them. Geese's aim in this tournament was to re-establish himself as supreme crime lord of South Town and defeat his nemesis Terry Bogard in a climactic battle. 

After defeating Geese for the last time, Terry Bogard took guardianship of Geese's son Rock Howard and began training him in mixed martial arts. Rock's story begins in 1999's Garou: Mark of the Wolves, in which storyline events take place 11 years after the events in Real Bout. The two follow-up games to Real Bout, 1997's Real Bout Special and 1998's Real Bout 2, are "dream match" style fighters with no storyline. The Playstation only release titled Real Bout Special: Dominated Mind does have a full story, but it is considered a non-cannon side-story and shouldn't be included in the series' overall timeline. 

As Real Bout's story is a continuation of Fatal Fury 3's, the entire cast (including bosses) from that game are present and three fan-favorite characters were added back in: Duck King, Kim Kaphwan, and Billy Kane. This rounds out the roster to 16 selectable fighters. Characters' move sets were generally beefed up by adding back in special moves that were omitted in Fatal Fury 3, like Terry's Rising Tackle, and adding in new moves and command normals that compliment the brand-new chain-combo system and faster gameplay. 

Some characters received generous updates to their individual mechanics making them a more viable choice when playing competitively. Fan favorite character Blue Mary is really the standout update as she was completely retooled from the ground up. All future versions of Mary in subsequent Fatal Fury and King of Fighters games are based on this version of the character.

Real Bout's game mechanics straddle the line between what was introduced in Fatal Fury 3 and the refinement of what would come later in the subsequent Real Bout games. Here's a breakdown:

• The button layout was changed to three attack buttons and a button dedicated to the line-sway mechanic. Having a dedicated line-sway button makes this mechanic even more integral to the gameplan. This control set up would remain unchanged throughout the Real Bout series.

• The line sway mechanic works largely like it does in Fatal Fury 3 with a dedicated center plane and a top and bottom temporary plane you can only dodge into for a short time before being moved back to center. From here you can do a few different attack options that will cross the line to hit the opponent. The line-sway button (D) also allows you, from the center plane, to attack across the line and pull the opponent back into your plane. If the hit is successful, you can open up a combo opportunity. You can also press the line-sway button to switch directions in the air while jumping to perform as a manual cross-up, which is an excellent tool in your arsenal.

• The combo system adopts a chain style command string that allows you to press different attack buttons in sequence (typically light to heavy) to create combos - much like Capcom's Darkstalkers. This flexible combo system speeds up the gameplay considerably and would come to define the Real Bout series.

• Characters now have two life bars as attacks do much more damage individually than in previous games. The entirety of the second life bar flashes red and allows you the ability to do your S-Power move (explained below) at any time.

• A super meter was added that has three levels: 

  • H-Power (half full) grants you the ability to do a Break Shot - do a special move on the frame after a successful block to reverse the attack and land a (usually) guaranteed hit on the opponent. 

  • S-Power (full-meter) with more than one life bar allows you to do your characters desperation move. 

  • P-Power (full-meter + Second Life Bar) activates when you have one life bar remaining and grants you the ability to do your character's super desperation move.

Rather than a single match affair, Real Bout pits you against three opponents in round-robin style that is quite similar to how World Heroes 2 Jet is set up. You still have up to 3 round bouts with each opponent, but story sequences and backgrounds only change when all three opponents in the set are defeated. 

What's more, a new ring out feature carried over from 3D fighting games was introduced. All stages have two breakable barriers, one barrier for each end of the arena. Once these barriers are broken they stay broken for all subsequent rounds. This mechanic mostly eliminates corner traps and makes the edges of the arena extremely dangerous. It forces combatants to stay in the center of the stage and use the line-sway to circle around the opponent to create openings rather than always try to corner the opponent as in most fighting games. To help lighten the mood there are some great animations that play out if you do ring out your opponent or vice versa - including some hidden Easter eggs! The ring out was a bit divisive, but was generally praised by critics and gamers of the day. While the breakable barriers would be present in the next game in the Real Bout series, this is the only game that has true ring outs.

Real Bout is a gorgeous game. Using the basic sprite and portrait sets from Fatal Fury 3, SNK added numerous touch-ups and animations to help flesh out the characters' sprites. All characters look great, and the three new characters (especially Kim Kapwhan) are very well animated. Unfortunately, due to how the game is set up there are only 5 backgrounds on rotation...and they aren't all that great. Classic SNK is known for their amazingly detailed and animated backgrounds, so the dearth of variety and lack of originally do stand out here. To help the situation, though, each of the five backgrounds has at least one variant that changes the time of day, crowd density, and other details to break up the monotony. Overall, it's not a huge leap forward from Fatal Fury 3, but Real Bout perfects that art style. The packaging art, created by classic SNK artist Shinkiro, is one of the best pieces of video game box art in history and is a fan favorite in the community.

Music is entirely reused from Fatal Fury 3, which in my opinion isn't great. Some of the tracks are fine, but compared to the bombast and energy in Fatal Fury Special, the soundtrack here doesn't have the same drive. That said, new music tracks were created for the "new" characters that return to the fray, which are mostly okay. Only three pieces of music from this game would be carried over into the next game in the series while the rest of the soundtrack would be redone from the ground up.

Overall, Real Bout Fatal Fury is a good fighter. At the same time, it's hard to recommend given we currently live in a world where Real Bout Special and Real Bout 2 exist as they are both much better games overall. While I feel Real Bout is the better game than Fatal Fury 3, it has some rough edges that would be ironed out in the sequels. The line-sway mechanic with three planes felt bloated to begin with in Fatal Fury 3, so it's a shame it was left as is in Real Bout. Additionally, the ring out mechanic feels out of place in a 2D fighting game, which was oddly a big selling point at the time. 

So, is Real Bout worth your hard-earned cash on AES? It's a tough sell, honestly. Sitting around $150 to $200 for a Japanese copy in the open market, it is the cheapest of the Real Bout games. The US edition is, of course, ridiculously priced and should be sought after by only the most ardent of collectors who want to pay big money for the US Neo-Geo logo on the spine of the game case's insert. The Neo CD and MVS versions are, as usual, quite affordable at less than $50 each. Real Bout saw a port to the Sega Saturn that uses the 1mb ram expansion to create a mostly authentic arcade experience, and you can also grab the game via the Fatal Fury Battle Archives Vol. 2 on PS2 or PS4, or Hamster's Arcade Archives release. 

At the end of the day, I'd recommend Real Bout over Fatal Fury 3 but not over Real Bout Special or Real Bout 2. Actually, just save your pennies and get Real Bout Special. You'll thank me later.