Why is Fatal Fury better than Street Fighter?

joe8

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Yes I remember my local arcade had a so-called "Black Belt Edition" hack of CE in about 1993 which was stupidly fast, special moves in mid air, mutliple fireballs etc. I never really played it much to be honest, preferred the original versions.
The bootleg versions had no gameplay balance to them. You could do all the special moves in mid-air, and throw a lot of fireballs at once, or change into a different character. So, that made them a novelty to play, and you soon went back to the official Capcom SF2 games.

In SF2T, Capcom borrowed some of those ideas, but made the gameplay more balanced, and not so extreme. Personally I thought SF2T was too tame, it should have had more mid-air moves.
Mid-air fights became better in the Alpha series, where you could block in mid-air.

SSF2 Turbo, as far as I know, was the only SF2 game where it was a real challenge to beat the computer opponents (and not just the boss), especially on the higher difficulty settings.
 
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Ip Man

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The bootleg versions had no gameplay balance to them. You could do all the special moves in mid-air, and throw a lot of fireballs at once, or change into a different character. So, that made them a novelty to play, and you soon went back to the official Capcom SF2 games.

i agree street fighter 2 rainbow edition and all the other boots were unplayable. it was great to look at but wore off fast. if only they kept the concept of many and mid air fireballs but polished it up till it was at least some skill involved in it, it may of caught up with some players.
 

SouthtownKid

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I played FF1 for a time and loved the look and feel, but it didn't compare to the brilliance of SF2.
Although it hit arcades after Street Fighter 2, Fatal Fury 1 was in development before SF2's release. Which means it was made in response to Street Fighter 1, not 2. Yes, Fatal Fury 1 plays like garbage compared to SF2.

BUT

Fatal Fury 1 looks and plays like MotW compared to Street Fighter 1.

FF2 is really the game made in response to SF2, and they're much more comparable.

The ambiguities in the thread title really throw it off.

Fatal Fury Special, being the pinnacle of the series’s popularity, wasn’t as popular as SF2CE.
Even this is regional. SNK never hit as big in the US as Capcom did. But I was living in Tokyo when Fatal Fury Special came out. And when you'd go into a game center in Shibuya or wherever, you'd see rows of completely empty Super Street Fighter cabs, with all the people gathered around the FFS machines. Even right before FFS hit, it was the same way with FF2. Really, Capcom didn't start making ground back until Super Turbo.
 

BlackaneseNiNjA

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Even this is regional. SNK never hit as big in the US as Capcom did. But I was living in Tokyo when Fatal Fury Special came out. And when you'd go into a game center in Shibuya or wherever, you'd see rows of completely empty Super Street Fighter cabs, with all the people gathered around the FFS machines. Even right before FFS hit, it was the same way with FF2. Really, Capcom didn't start making ground back until Super Turbo.

Thank you for sharing that STK. Although I love both series, when it comes to mechanics, I've always preferred Fatal Fury Special over every iteration of SF2. Plane dodging and mix-ups along with the desperation supers for late round mind games (something SF4 would make popular which is funny since SF4 was done by the creator of Fatal Fury), in addition to the auto-double cancel combos and whiff-cancels, made the game something that I always come back to. Of course, everyone has their own preference so it is not hard to see the appeal of the street fighter series and the rock-solid gameplay it has always had at the debut of SF2.

With that said, I've always read that Fatal Fury 2 had overtaken Street Fighter 2 in japanese arcades. I understood that SNK was riding high on the success of Fatal Fury Special (and it's expanding multimedia franchise), which is why the failure of Fatal Fury 3 was so unfortunate. Up until that point Capcom had done an excellent job of constantly re-balancing and expanding street fighter 2, and the aesthetic and gameplay shift in Street Fighter Zero always seemed like a response to the shift that Fatal Fury 3 displayed. Both SFZ and FF3 were in development at the same time and although the developers were at rival companies, we know both camps used to get together and share what they were working on, etc (friendly dev rivalry).

Up until now I could only speculate on the success of FF2/FFS in comparison to SF2 at that time, but your account does help to substantiate claims of the big success of FF2/FFS in japan. Thank you!
 
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Lee Gray

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Although I love Fatal fury 2 and MOTW, I think Street Fighter alpha 2 and 3 are brilliant plus Street Fighter II isnt too bad either,
 

DevilRedeemed

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The different planes in ff games is ridiculous and should have never been there ever. But I love fatal fury as of 1 because they where true to their arcade pedigree.
SF2 onwards was always more restrained and technical, much closer to a sports game. it's less arcadey and hence to me a lot more bland. Depends what you va!ue in a game.
 
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Niko

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The different planes in ff games is ridiculous and should have never been there ever. But I love fatal fury as of 1 because they where true to their arcade pedigree.
SF2 onwards was always more restrained and technical, much closer to a sports game. it's less arcadey and hence to me a lot more bland. Depends what you va!ue in a game.

The multi plane system was a pretty cool idea, and while not very polished in FF1 it really adds to the game once you learn to use it to your advantage. Plus its cool as fuck to juggle your opponent between planes mid combo in RBFFS.
 

BlackaneseNiNjA

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The multi plane system was a pretty cool idea, and while not very polished in FF1 it really adds to the game once you learn to use it to your advantage. Plus its cool as fuck to juggle your opponent between planes mid combo in RBFFS.

Agreed on all points :buttrock:
 
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DevilRedeemed

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I mean it's not like I want to say you guys are wrong about the plane shifting but...
I don't like it at all as a variable in a fighting game. It's like a gimmick that mushroomed and became a decisive factor in a game where you are ment to beat your opponent with fighting skills and not bizzare techniques.
Then again I don't tend to like a lot of things in more modern fighting games where they stray from the fórmula and do stuff like endless chain combos and air juggles. In that sense, I like old School SF2\KOF
 
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joe8

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SF2 relies too much on turtling as a winning strategy, or using the same cheap moves (with certain characters) over and over, and the fireball/dragon punch/sonic boom characters tend to dominate (unless you have an expert playing as Zangief), So, those are problems that Fatal Fury and other SNK games (except maybe AOF) tend not to have.

In my opinion, Mark of the Wolves was the only Fatal Fury game that really matched it with the SFA & SFIII series. The gameplay was more like SFIII, with the Just Defend move, super moves, and T.O.P meter. SFIII is easily the best 2D fighter series, as it had the aerial blocking from the SFA series, as well as the parry deflect move, which gave the game a lot of complexity, and meant there was not as much limit on how good the really skilled players could get.
 
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LoneSage

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A much, much better thread would have been, "Why is Fatal Fury better than Samurai Shodown?"

EDIT: an equally satisfying thread would be, "Why is Fatal Fury 3 better than Special?"

EDIT: 3 is the best in the series and fuck you if you disagree
 
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SouthtownKid

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EDIT: an equally satisfying thread would be, "Why is Fatal Fury 3 better than Special?"
Well, yeah, I can see why that would be a satisfying thread for you. Get to watch me go berserk like a child. But since you already know exactly how it would go and I know exactly how it would go, we can just kind of pretend we did it without having to go through the motions.
 

Ilovejapangirls

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SFIII is easily the best 2D fighter series, as it had the aerial blocking from the SFA series, as well as the parry deflect move, which gave the game a lot of complexity, and meant there was not as much limit on how good the really skilled players could get.

Sf3 has no air blocking, you can only parry in the air not block.
 

oliverclaude

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A much, much better thread would have been, "Why is Fatal Fury better than Samurai Shodown?"

Apples & oranges? Makoto Uchida told what a big difference it was to include weapons in Golden Axe. It changes the damage balance considerably, that's probably why you have nigh one-hit deaths in Samurai Spirits. As a sign for the sophisticated sense of humor among developers.
 
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