What is the best Fatal Fury game?

[Ip Man]

rival schools.

 

[BerryTogart]

^ Just because the conversation is getting interesting what 2.5d games are your favorites? Street Fighter EX?

If you are asking "in general" and not fighers: Bionic Commando rearmed.
If you ask 2.5D... hard question I'm not a big fan of that - MvC3 disappointed me big time.

 

[Mr Bakaboy]

Technically fighters, but all together might be interesting as well. MvC3 is a classic problem with just listening to the tourney crowd. Since Tatsunoko vs Capcom wasn't nearly as broken, I doubt it was an issue with testers (besides the sequel coming out 6 months later and still broke as hell is even crazier).

I know it's not a popular opinion, but I just couldn't get into Bionic Commando Rearmed like I did the NES game.

rival schools.

Rival Schools over Project Justice?

 

[Ip Man]

Rival Schools over Project Justice?

i like them both, but rival schools does get more playtime. maybe because i'm more familiar with rival schools. and sakura is one of my favourite characters to play with, who was missing in project justice.

 

[Snakealpha]

The problem with Project Justice was the exclusive Dreamcast release.

The game was excellent but it was exclusie and, honestly, Dreamcast have big bosses like SF Third Strike, Soul Calibur, Marvel vs Capcom 2...

 

[DaveGeorge]

RB2 will always be my favourite. Although, the first Fatal Fury still holds a special place in my heart. Stiff as a board, but the nostalgia makes more up for it more than enough.

 

[Ip Man]

The problem with Project Justice was the exclusive Dreamcast release.

The game was excellent but it was exclusie and, honestly, Dreamcast have big bosses like SF Third Strike, Soul Calibur, Marvel vs Capcom 2...

i'm sorry, i don't understand. rival schools was a ps1 exclusive. and i think it's a good thing that project justice was exclusive only to the dreamcast. the game fits the dreamcast library pretty well.

 

[Mr Bakaboy]

The problem with Project Justice was the exclusive Dreamcast release.

The game was excellent but it was exclusie and, honestly, Dreamcast have big bosses like SF Third Strike, Soul Calibur, Marvel vs Capcom 2...

The dreamcast had a lot of niche fighting game titles. It's one reason why I consider it my favorite system.

 

[SNKNostalgia]

I have to say that Real Bout 1 is just a gem. RBS is my favorite, but both are so unique from each other that you gotta have both. Too bad my RBS MVS cart is having sound issues which keeps me from playing more.

You know, it might just be a cracked solder joint on one of the pins with the V type sound chips. You should open it up and scan it with a bright LED light. Also, a good dish soap and hot water scrubbing of the PCBs is a good idea. Just make sure to completely dry the boards before playing. The solder pin problem happened to my Last Blade 1 US AES cart day 1 from when I bought it off Ebay back in 2001. i told the guy I fixed it and he acted shady about not knowing it was not working right, lol. It had all kinds of sound issues. Every time at the vs demo screen right before a fight would start you would hear a character's scream, lol. I opened the cart carefully and soldered the one pin that had almost no solder on it.

Anyways, Real Bout Special is my favorite. Real Bout 2 is great also, but some of the move changes along with the backgrounds just wasn't as good to me. Fatal Fury 3 is amazing as well for just what it was. The fighting engine needed some work I felt, but man did it have some of the best use of colors (Hon-Fu stage, dayum) and the new art style was just nice to see after FF Special.

 

[oliverclaude]

^ Just because the conversation is getting interesting what 2.5d games are your favorites? Street Fighter EX?

Well, I did not have fighters in mind, when I said this. My love with blocky 2.5D goes first of all to STGs like R-Type Delta, G-Darius, Thunder Force V, Radiant Silvergun & Einhander (Xevious 3DG, RayStorm & RayCrisis could be also considered as 2.5D, since it's still two planes only, despite the polygon structure).

Also such little games like Dragon Valor, Klonoa, both Umiharas & Tomba! are always welcome in my 20 years old Japanese tray.

The 6th & 7th generations had also very interesting titles, most notably Border Down, R-Type Final (unfortunately interlaced) and/or Zero Gunner 2, Thunder Force VI, Shattered Soldier -- but that's another story and a less "blocky" one for sure.

But since you asked, my favorite 2.5D fighters would be Goiken Muyou: Anarchy in the Nippon (Saturn) and, clearly, Virtua Fighter 2 (XLBA). 1 on 1 (PS1) is a funny take on the genre, the Kamen Rider series (PS1) is trashy enough to satisfy and there's also Savaki on the Saturn, which lately caught my interest.


P.S. 2.5D still lives by the way...

Castlevania Remake: https://dejawolf.itch.io/castlevania-1-remake

Shadowrun Reboot: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=166810095

 

[BlackaneseNiNjA]

FFWA plays a lot like Real Bout Special but it also adds to it, the unblockables, overheads, fake supers, and a sorta soulcalibur combo system where you can link highs and lows in a string, it just works real well. My favorite feature is the side stepping, just like most Namco 3D fighting games side stepping is nothing new but it works very well with the FF premise of a different plane, the game can get real hectic if both parties abuse the system, it really is that intuitive. The arcade board runs a lot more fluid than the PSX version, the backgrounds are way more lucid and the characters just look way more defined. Still the gameplay is basically the same and the PSX has that awesome Intro plus a couple extra characters. This is just my personal opinion, I know FFWA isn't a favorite, I just happened to like a it a whole lot. Geese specially is amazing in this game, could be the best Geese ever, so cheap! I wish there was a sequel with the usual Krauser follow up.

I totally agree with you on this. It's hard to to find other people who actually enjoyed the psx version, but it really was a lot of fun. This and Dominated Mind are fun variations of the RBS formula that are a blast to play from time to time.

 

[Electric Grave]

Man this thread delivers even while changing subjects, I wanna address a bunch of things in just a bit. First thing I'd like to talk about is the fact that we need a dedicated thread for 2.5 gaming, lots of good titles there.

Dominated Mind is an awesome alternative to RBS, it's cool to have no planes for a change of pace. First Contact for NGPC is also very good, it feels like a midget extension of RB2, lol.

Edit:

fatal fury 3 has a special place in my heart. it was the only game in the main fatal fury series that got a port outside of a neo console, which was the saturn port. and i played and cherished it soo much back in the day.

there was actually a time when i was trying to convince people that ff3 should be acknowledged more. but the entire series is soo good that when one has to make a choice of only one to play, ff3 does get pushed back. but it will never be forgotten.

Ilove FF3 as well, I personally did not like the Saturn port a whole lot, the PC port was great though, same team that handled the Samsho 2 port which was also very good. I think it was interplay.

Fatal Fury 3 wasn't the only FF game to get a port outside of the neo console, both previous FF games have ports for Genesis and SNES. (I dunno if I'm reading that right, as in a port of a Neo MVS/AES release on other than a Neo CD or Pocket release?)

Does it run with 60fps? I couldn't ever verify it, because there's no decent working emulation. Would like to know that about Shodown 64 as well. I myself am a sucker for blocky polygons, that's the kind of abstraction that suits me. Early 2.5D games are among my favorites, but they're so much better with 60.

I'd say it is simply 'cause the game moves way too smooth. Are Fighting Vipers and VF2 arcade 60fps? If so then it's a definite yes. I dunno if Souledge is, that's another 2.5 fighting game I truly enjoy and played a lot in the arcade back in the day. That's another PSX port that plays well and has an awesome intro.

If you are asking "in general" and not fighers: Bionic Commando rearmed.
If you ask 2.5D... hard question I'm not a big fan of that - MvC3 disappointed me big time.

I loved the Bionic Rearmed training stages, reminded me a lot of the Metal Gear Solid V. R. Missionss. If you play those missions enough and get good at it, you play the main game ina whole different light. Talking about the BC series, I love the futuristic retelling on GB, that was awesome.

I'm a fan of MVC3, my least favorite in the series but I enjoyed it nonetheless.

Edit #2: Back to the beginning of my post, I really like a lot of 2.5 games, some of the already mentioned titles are awesome, like Einhander and TFV, the range weapon is amazing, I love playing with a stick with all 7 buttons, I know it sounds crazy but set them up in a way that makes sense to me. Tough game, I did beat it using all continues, never aimed for a 1cc then, just played the games, now I'd like to try but I remember the game being really hard, then again I don't know where the game lies in terms of difficulty for more seasoned shmup players.

Bloody Roar series was amazing for me, each game better than the next until BR4 showed up, I'm not sure what happened but I just wasn't feeling it and never got back to it again, I should try to revisit that, sometimes you end up missing out. Primal Fury for Gamecube was awesome, but all 3 versions of BR3 were a lot of fun, zany combos! BR2 was really good on the PS2, never had the chance to play it in the arcade, but I did play the first a lot, which I love, the Mole is my jam in the series. The PSX port of BR1 is great, the PCB is awesome, more vibrant but I still the PSX did a great job, I should go back to the PSX port someday as I haven't played it in a long ass time ever since I got the PCB.

Strider 2 was also awesome, it prolly could have been even more amazing if it was 2D backgrounds as the Strider sprite and some of the enemies look to have a real nice resolution, and the zooming wasn't bad either, the game plays super fluid. I'm a huge fan of the series and I wish I was better at it, I dedicate myself mostly to Osman/Cannon Dancer exclusively to MAME 'cause I'm poor, I really love the gravity of that game, even more so than Strider. The new game in XBL Moon Diver, I loved the demo and I thought it was good but it has never been on sale and I feel the game is a bit floaty, hard to be precise at least for me, so I figured is worth the purchase when is cheap, lol.

I play a lot of Lode Runner on XBL, I suck at it still, I only get to the 4th Level, it plays so smooth, it's my mindless game I play to relax the most.

Bomberman DS, another 2.5 game that plays awesome and the second screen is used very well, played the bejesus out of it, my to go title for long nights after some hot food that I shouldn't have eaten but couldn't resist.

Shattered Soldier PS2, oh man, game is brutal. Couldn't get passed the stage running on them running velociraptors or ostrages? I dunno, some crazy shit, just got destroyed and gave up, should get back to it, game is awesome. I am one of the few that loved Neo Contra and always wish it was a dual stick game, it could have been amazing and so advent-guard to the games of today. However after playing so many of those type of games the magic of dual stick has worn some so it could be cool to just revisit for the hell of it 'cause the button set up is pretty cool.

On that aspect Hardcore Spirits is also 2.5 like Strider 2 is. Amazing and hard as balls game, so much freedom too, you can do everything in that game, the ability to speed run that game s a sight to behold, slides, shooting zany.

Megaman X8, never played it, wonder if it's any god, most reviews are favorable but is it tight like the previous X series, X4, 5 and 6 are pretty solid in terms of gravity and what speed. A lot of 2.5 games suffer from gravity problems when compared to 2-D games, I know it sounds weird but it's just like jumping in Ninja Gaiden NES and Mario, you know how high and where you gonna land as you jump, I couldn't say the same about many of a lot of 3D games. Then again Sonic jumping isn't that easy either...

PS: All Real Bout games are worth having, awesome series, all Fatal Fury games are good, even the first one, plays way better than the 1st Street Fighter. FF2 was a milestone IMHO, Special is the absolute best Neo Geo fighting game ever and then of course FF3 was a game changer in the FF continuity, like AOF3 it felt gorgeous beyond reproach, not necessarily a large roster but FF games are known for having a small roster that makes the game tight, and the field/plane game is pretty intense so you have a lot to work with, like said before it's definitely a fun single player fighter, lots to learn.

I know this is crazy but I actually enjoyed Guilty Gear Isuka a whole lot and it reminded me a lot of this game with the plane switching, attacks and movement. Back to FF all the games are solid.

On a very personal note I feel KOF XII was an extent of FFS, AOF2 and KOF 94/95, it has that peculiar style that was familiar during those years, XIII is good but it diluted the graphics a tad which were amazing, the zooming effects in XII were really good, although I wasn't a huge fan of the zoomed out look 'cause it was filtered to avoid pixel distortion? the XIII sprites are always filtered, kinda of a bummer.

 

[oliverclaude]

I'd say it is simply 'cause the game moves way too smooth. Are Fighting Vipers and VF2 arcade 60fps? If so then it's a definite yes. I dunno if Souledge is, that's another 2.5 fighting game I truly enjoy and played a lot in the arcade back in the day. That's another PSX port that plays well and has an awesome intro.

Thanks for the info ElectricGrave, Fighting Vipers and Virtua Fighter 2 run definitely with 60fps in the arcades and on the Saturn. Souledge is 30 though, at least on the PS1, but since Soulcalibur every other title in the series was 60. Strider 2 is unfortunately also "blessed" with the dirty thirty, on both the PS1 port and, what a shame, the arcade original, too.