izigame.me

This looks tight and I'm new to fighting games! Should I get into this?

Yes! Just know that it won't be easy!!
Personally, I would highly encourage anyone to go for a fighting game that speaks to them. Fighting games get much easier to learn when you're having fun. However, the game does not offer much in the way of teaching you how to play. Just a simple tutorial, some short combo trials, and a bonus little story mission. You will not have an easy time getting into the game like SF6 or Strive. Know that the FGC is SUPER approachable when it comes to giving you advice, and will be very glad to help if you ask on places like Bluesky or Discord. Your mileage may vary on the hellhole that is the Steam forums.
Just like any fighting game, you can find matchmaking with opponents of equal skill via Ranked play.
The game will ask you what your experience is before you hop in Ranked. I would highly recommend jumping in at Beginner regardless of skill level. The game's playerbase is much smaller compared to SF6, so Intermediate players will end up fighting like Diamond players. You're better off getting a feel for opponents at a lower rank rather than a higher one and risk losing over and over as I have.

Modern controls?

Smart Style controls is extremely similar to Modern in SF6, allowing you to do single-button specials and autocombos at the cost of damage. The main difference is these controls are more simplified compared to SF6: I would not suggest playing them in Ranked. However, you can still use Smart Style if you want to just hop in and have fun or give to a player who simply wants to check the game out without the pressure of knowing commands. Smart Style may be overhauled in a patch, but until then, it's best to not use it if you truly want to learn to get better at the game.

Mark of the wolves? Where did it come from? Where did it go?

Fatal Fury's history has been hyped by the FGC and many legacy players. It's a series that closely shares its history with Street Fighter in Japan, all the way back to Street Fighter 1 when legendary SF1 devs Nishiyama and Matsumoto were headhunted by SNK to create an original fighting game with Street Fighter as both the competition and groundwork. This is the series that spawns Terry and Mai, as well as the huge 3on3 King of Fighters series.
The last of the series was Mark of the Wolves in 1999. Seen by many as SNK's 3rd Strike, this game offers a very offensive-heavy playstyle, Just Defends for blocking at the perfect moment, and TOP to strategize dishing out damage early or later in a round. With the NeoGeo almost 10 years old at that point, the art team nailed the aesthetic with a 90s underground urban look and beautiful hand-drawn sprites. Taking another hint from 3rd Strike, the story has aged accordingly too, with 10 years following crimelord Geese Howard's death, and showcasing a new character Rock Howard, Geese's son.
Despite seeing success in Japan, SNK is not a huge company and had constantly taken huge financial risks. It's for this reason that the series had met an unfortunate end as SNK saw bankruptcy. In 2001, SNK and its assets were bought by Playmore, and many of the original team had left. While King of Fighters had seen some resurgences over the years, we had not seen anything involving Fatal Fury for over 20 years. That was until last year when the announcement trailer dropped.
It's worth noting that with SNK's rocky choices from KoF and the company being sold to MiSK (owned by a literal Saudi prince), the game's announcements following release was both exciting and concerning. With more funds to work with, SNK had stated that MiSK would not interfere with the games they develop. That monkey's paw started to curl when Cristiano Ronaldo, an honest to god soccer player, and Salvatore Ganacci, a Swedish EDM DJ, were both featured as playable characters in the game. While people have lightened up and have even praised Salvatore for being a fun joke character, Cristiano is seen as a stand-out sellout character who had been rushed in at the last minute.
Whether you choose to play this game or not due to the nature of MiSK is entirely up to you. Your purchases have power, even if you are one person. Just know that you shouldn't let others dictate how you should feel regarding your decision of your own purchases.


How's the Game?

Overall, there are some minor issues outside of the game itself that could use some polish. However, if you're a big fan of fighting games, this is some of the most satisfying and in-depth mechanics that only go deeper the more patient you are to learn them.
The controls are your basic ABCD fighter (4 buttons) with the exception of the REV button. Along with this is the new REV meter, which essentially acts as an EX/Drive meter to all of your special moves. It starts at 0% and allows you to make EX variants of your special moves until you overheat. The meter recovers over time and recovers quicker the better you do. REV and Drive are created in this way to allow you to instantly come in guns ablazing by comboing with EX specials right off the bat. You can also use REV to gain a better block at the cost of meter.
Returning from MotW, SPG is by far the biggest standout mechanic. When your health reaches SPG, your attack power goes up and you can dish out more damage with REV Blows and supers. What's interesting is you can choose where on your health bar your SPG activates. This means you'll have to plan when you maximize your potential damage based on what your opponent could do. Some can finish their opponents without taking much damage. Others can only do it during a comeback. It's such a simple idea that changes how the entire game is played. It adds a new dimension to fights and forces you to act on your feet if your plan starts to go awry.
There's also some single player content that add some backstory to the game. Main one being Episodes of South Town, which adds an RPG-like element to fighting by leveling your character up as you play. It's fun, but it's nothing to write home about as it's essentially a more level-centric variant of Arcade Mode. You do get some exclusive story, which is fun. And Cristiano isn't in it either, which is always a plus. You can also play Arcade Mode to get some exclusive cutscenes as well.
Online is fairly solid and smooth. After some complaints in the Beta, they've since made quickplay much quicker. No need to wait minutes at a time for a match, you'll be in one in mere seconds. There is also smooth rollback netcode as well as a pretty good ranked system. My biggest complaint so far is that rather than have 10-match preliminary fights and then match you accordingly, you choose what skill you're at (beginner, intermediate, expert) and then start from there. Since the game does not have very many players fighting, the ranked where intermediate players would be is also where experts would be fighting. I made the mistake of choosing a rank that was way too high and ended up losing most matches. It would be great if next patch SNK fixes this and adds preliminary fights before putting you in a rank.


Verict

A few days ago, an announcement was made that Phase 1 for Ranked will add a patch to make a separate ranking per character just like SF6 rather than per account. This is very useful, especially if you hop between characters. This is very much in response to players asking for a mode like this in CotW. If we get more decisions like this, I'm fairly optimistic of this game's future. While SNK probably will make some more weird oddball choices (due to MiSK or otherwise), I am ultimately happy as long as the entire game doesn't suffer. The lessons learned from KoF seems to be sticking to SNK, and frankly it's a nice surprise. It's tough being an SNK fan, but with this game coming out, there's more than enough reason to celebrate.

COME AHN! ARE YOU OKHAY??