Fatal Fury 3: Road to the Final Victory: WII

Ah, Fatal Fury. First and foremost of the famous fighting franchises found at SNK, it's a somehow soothing series in its simplicity – well, compared to the company's other choices. It doesn't bother with the swords and spears of Samurai Shodown. It doesn't try to cross-over tons of different games' characters like The King of Fighters.. It's always just been straightforward, simple, bare-knuckle brawling in Southtown. Until Fatal Fury 3 tried to make things more complicated. The FF series' one key quirk up until 1995 had been its double-plane battling system – it was basically a standard head-to-head fighting design, except that you could roll and dodge back and forth into either the background or foreground of the current stage. OK, still easy enough to grasp. Until Fatal Fury 3 added a third.

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Now you've got a background plane, a foreground plane and a middle-ground plane placed between the two. The progression is understandable, I suppose. But like Schick and Gillette adding more and more blades to their straight razors, you've got to wonder at what point "more" stops being a good thing and starts being, well, unnecessarily complicated.

It's a tough adjustment to make, as the "Oversway System" (as the game names it), makes you have to chase down your foe through three times as much on-screen territory to try to land a single hit. You can use the multiple planes to your own advantage too, of course, but it takes some time to learn the tactics and proper timing of when to do so – there are specific maneuvers included here to help your character dodge into a different plane defensively, force your opponent to re-enter the space you're occupying, cross from one to another with a direct strike and more. It can be a lot to manage.

And playing it on Wii adds another, extra layer of complexity on top of the entire process, as the Virtual Console's button reassignments conflict with the instructions the game gives you on-screen for how to activate the plane-traveling techniques. Trial, error and plenty of patience will be needed to get comfortable enough to start really having fun here, and not just be mashing buttons hoping to get something right.

Beyond the three-plane gimmick, Fatal Fury 3 offers just what you'd expect from the series. A decently varied roster of characters to choose from with series standards Terry Bogard, Andy Bogard and Joe Higashi forming the foundation. A handful of tweaks and modifications made to the special moves, including a secret set of Hidden Moves that you have to be really dedicated (or lucky) to access and activate. And that signature SNK style of excellent spritework and killer tunes, pumping up your blood pressure and getting you going as you step into battle.

 

Closing Comments
That's all solid, and it all makes Fatal Fury 3 another perfectly fine choice for VC fans looking for a fighting fix. I'm just not sold on why the series' simple fighting system needed that complicated third plane.

by: Lucas M. Thomas

Posted in: Fighting