I feel like I can't vote just yet, as I only just discovered the Fatal Fury games via the PS2 collections and I haven't even played the Real Bout games or Mark of the Wolves yet.
I noticed Mark of the Wolves isn't a poll choice, nor is Dominated Mind, Wild Ambition or F Contact.
I really love Fatal Fury 1. As of this moment, I consider it and Fatal Fury 3 the best games in the series (keep in mind my relative lack of experience though). What I like about 1 is that it doesn't play like a typical fighting game: each enemy is unique and a part of his stage. the way Richard Meyer grabs the ceiling and kicks, the way Hwa Jai will grab a beer mid-battle, all that stuff is a really nice touch that really gives the game more personality and character than you usually see in fighting games, both back then and now. I also like that there's actually a storyline when most fighters are just "win the tournament." It really gives you incentive to play with all three characters to see the different progressions for each of them.
That being said, my only problem is that the special moves are near-impossible to do... except for the Burn Knuckle, Zan'ei Ken and Slash Kick, and of course those are the only three you actually need to win. That's my other problem: Once you learn about the knockdown glitch, the game becomes a joke. I nearly 1cced this game on MVS mode with Andy, and I'm not even good at fighting games.
It's all worth it though, to have the Pao Pao Cafe theme music stuck in your head.
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I'll be honest, I didn't really like Fatal Fury 2 or Special much the first time I played them. They felt kind of like a letdown. Sure, they fixed some of the problems I had with the original, but now its a standard tournament concept with minimal and its lost a lot of the charm the original had. That being said, the more I play them, the more attached I get.
But Fatal Fury 3 now, that one has my heart and soul. By completely changing up the gameplay, SNK managed to once again make a game that stands on its own and serves as a unique specimen among fighters. Admittedly, it took me awhile to get used to it, and according to the manual each character has a "Super Mode" that allows you to do "Hidden" moves that are basically impossible to pull off (and I've never gotten the Super Mode Enable to work... I think the manual has a misprint), and some of the SDM commands now just do feints (this got me killed once when I was trying to do the Power Geyser. I still don't know what the actual command for it is) But even so...
This is pretty much Fatal Fury perfection. If you can get past the rough start, then the (otherwise) flawless inputs, the fast action, the side-stepping and circling and judging and timing and comboing, hitting them into ponds, being hit toward the screen... you feel like you're there, like you're actually in a bare-fisted brawl for supremacy. This is a man's fighting game!
My only regret is I'll probably never be good enough to face the Jin brothers. But then, as Andy Bogard once said : "If you want to be the best, its practice everyday." Time to pull out my arcade stick and go for it...
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Oh yeah, F Contact (for the NGPC) is also decent. And so far Wild Ambition isn't bad, but it feels kind of generic.