retronauts
patreon
Episode 665: Fatal Fury
🕑 Added 2025-01-13 11:00:10 +0000 UTCKevin: You’re Weak, Get Hungry! A conversation about SNK’s storied Fatal Fury fighting game series (or Garou Densetsu in Japan) is howling its way onto your podcast player of choice. The company is finally publishing a new Fatal Fury after 26 years this April, and that absence is surprising given Fatal Fury’s place in the company’s library during its golden age. This was SNK’s flagship series in the 1990s, when their developers pumped out nine Fatal Fury arcade titles in 8 years, popularized a new approach to fighting game storytelling, introduced some of the most popular characters the company has ever designed such as Terry Bogard, Mai Shiranui and Geese Howard, and featured a fairly well-regarded trilogy of anime productions. Joining me to talk about the series are fellow hungry wolves Diamond Feit, Brian Clark and Will Cuevas, and unsurprisingly we really only made it through the first half of the 1990s, when Fatal Fury was arguably at its peak of popularity. Look for a part two covering the back half of the decade and beyond at another time – hopefully without a 25 year wait!
Edits by Greg Leahy, art by John Pading
14:02 - Fatal Fury (NG): A Kiss for Geese
23:45 - Fatal Fury Image Album: Haremar Faith Capoeira School
32:23 - Fatal Fury (NG): Three Heads Are Better than One
41:50 - Fatal Fury (NG): The Hero Raiden
51:06 - Fatal Fury (NG): Just a Little Smart Fighting Fellow | Name Entry
1:01:06 - Fatal Fury (NG): Hit by a Stick If You Walk Along the Bridge
1:15:41 - Fatal Fury 2 (NG): Requiem in D minor K.626 Dies Irae
1:25:26 - Fatal Fury 2 (MD): Mai | Fatal Fury Special (NG): Soy Sauce for Geese
1:37:36 - Fatal Fury Special Arranged Soundtrack Album: Duck Dub Dub
1:44:20 - Fatal Fury Special Image Album: Flame Dragon God
1:53:30 - Sleepy Hollow (1999 Film OST): Masbath's Terrible Death
Closing - Fatal Fury Special (NG): More Mission
Comments
Michael Castleberry
A liquor store by my elementary school had a Neo Geo cabinet .. I remember them getting Fatal Fury, and then putting a piece if paper over the title card on the cabinet that said "Street Fighter 3" lol Not sure who they thought they were fooling there.
RyoGeo
I can't express with enough excitement how happy I was to see the title of this podcast. Diamond, I know you are a huge Neo Geo fan, but we don't get to see/hear as much about my favorite platform on Retronauts. This was a GREAT episode, and I loved hearing the different perspectives on the first three releases. Fatal Fury (original) is one of the games that is in my big red four slot nearly 100% of the time (close, but not 100%!). With all its quirkiness, to this day, I find it a blast to play. Hot Take: I like Raiden's music better than Big Bear's. I think the guitars sound better in the first one. 🫣 I was quite surprised to hear FF2 relegated to the role of an "also ran" against FF Special, but I certainly understand the perspective. They play so drastically different, that I really think of them as two completely separate games, and worthy in their own right, but hey, not everybody has to agree on everything. FF Special certainly is the more dynamic play, I'll give you that! I'm SO looking forward to the subsequent coverage of FF3 and the amazing Real Bout series of games. The RBs are SO good and SO fun to play; huge sprites, speaker blowing audio, and supers to blind you. Awesome. Please...more Neo Geo. There's SO much to mine there; the history of the team that did Gun Force and how they became the Metal Slug company for SNK, the eras and long term story telling in the KoF series, the crazy history of SNK itself. I'd love to hear you cover it. Thanks for such an amazing episode.
PosiVibez4evr
Great dynamic in this episode, Diamond is on fire with the jokes. 😂 Wonderful episode loving the SNK coverage!
Craig
You wanna talk sickos. I own the Japanese Mega Drive Mini 2. :boots up King Colossus: hahahahaha
pimento
I can't help but say 'Garou' the same way Billy West does Nixon saying 'arooo' on Futurama.
Kakuei Tanaka
Diamond, whom I don’t think of as the funny guy on any given episode, was hilarious on this one.
Patrick McClafferty
Of course it doesn't exist and Terry wasn't played by the co-creator of John Wick.
Diamond Feit
Does not exist. Does not exist. Does not exist. Does not exist.
Jackie G
Geese and Jin Saotome having a “well ONE of us has to change” fundoshi moment, I can see it.
Patrick McClafferty
Could have sworn there was a Fatal Fury live action mov...oh right it was King of Fighters...
Jason Williams
This one showed up on the RSS. 👍
Craig
Southtown to me just seemed like the Bay Area. I wonder if the Athletics got relocated to Sacramento in this universe.
