Fatal Fury Special

[Melf]

Want more fighting games? Haven't gotten enough of SNK's rowdy bunch of brawlers? Then maybe you need to try Fatal Fury Special for the Sega CD... or maybe not. It's not all it's cracked up to be, which is downright sad. You've probably seen this disappointment before, but just in case we've got you covered with our complete write up (http://www.sega-16.com/review_page.php?id=1091&title=Fatal%20Fury%20Special).

[Joe Redifer]

Both ports were handled by European development house FunCom
That's probably a big reason that this game disappoints. Would you trust anyone who calls themselves "FunCom"? No, of course not. Anyone called "FunCom" is to be hated, even if they have never done anything.

What I've noticed about CD fighting games vs cartridge fighting games is that they are disproportionate as far as memory is concerned. Fatal Fury 2 has 24 megs and it sems to work out OK. But Fatal Fury Special can use up to 6 megs per match and they still need to reduce the animation terribly. I think they use some form of compression on the cartridge versions... mostly because they have to. If only they would apply this same compression to the 6 megs being used at any given time on the CD versions. Maybe that's not someting they can do with CD since each character must be loaded separately.

[Mendicant]

Sometimes, having too much resources to work with can do more harm than good. Just look at "Batman: Revenge Of The Joker"... :D

[NeoVamp]

why is the following mentioned in the review :



As a bonus to Sega CD owners, one exclusive character has been added: Ryo Sakazaki of Art of Fighting fame is now a part of the roster.


Ryu Sakazaki was in every version of Fatal Fury Special, not just the Sega CD version. :daze:

[Aarzak]

The Sega CD port of FFS was VERY disappointing. At a standstill, it looks somewhat like the original Neo version..........except with most of everything in the backgrounds missing. As soon as those sprites start moving however.......the port has less animation than Takara's Genesis FF2 port, and that already had cut animation frames to begin with (though not as much as the SNES port, also by Takara, though the SCD port probably had less than even that one). The backgrounds have been mangled as well and are downright barren and devoid of objects and spectators. I assume that either FunCom was lazy, or that the SCD struggled with handling all of the graphics so they chopped it down (a lot) to keep it running smoothly and have short load times.

Sloppy, ugly port. The 32 MEGA POWER SNES cart port, despite its tiny sprites and tin-can music/sfx, is better. Both are a bit difficult to find.

[Curryman123]

Pc engine duo version....does what sega cdon't. :D

[Josh]

I wonder what Fatal Fury Special would have been like if it was released on the Sega Genesis or as a Sega CD 32X game (what would be removed or added compared to the Sega CD version).

[Guntz]

why is the following mentioned in the review :



Ryu Sakazaki was in every version of Fatal Fury Special, not just the Sega CD version. :daze:

I think the reviewer meant Ryo Sakazaki is part of the starter roster, which is true. In the original Neo Geo version at least, you have to unlock him.

[Josh]

I think the reviewer meant Ryo Sakazaki is part of the starter roster, which is true. In the original Neo Geo version at least, you have to unlock him.

Ryo Sakazaki is also playable with a cheat code in the SNES version of Fatal Fury Special. I'm not sure if he is a playable character in the PC Engine CD port.

[NeoVamp]

I wonder what Fatal Fury Special would have been like if it was released on the Sega Genesis or as a Sega CD 32X game (what would be removed or added compared to the Sega CD version).

Hmmm..

Well most likely it would have been an upgrade of Fatal Fury 2 on the Genesis, which was done by Takara,
while the Sega CD version was done by Funcom. (thus all the 16 color backgrounds)

ehm, Since Fatal Fury 2 is 24M it would probably be a good assumption that Fatal Fury Special would have become a 32M cart. (like the Snes version)

And since there's 12 chars in FF2, and its a 24M rom its about 2M per character with their own stage and sounds,
Now seeing how FFS has an extra 4chars that's an extra 8M. thus making the rom a perfect 32M.

then you just trim the fat by removing some intro FF2 intro stuff and you try to squeeze in as much of the FFS intro as you can.

so what would Fatal Fury Special be like on Genesis, well this :

1. Low Res Fatal Fury 2 with 4 extra chars.
2. Better backgrounds then the Sega CD version.
3. Scratchy voices.
4. Genesis music instead of CD.

And I would totally be okay with this, and it would have a nice place on my Sega shelf.

(I would hope they'd try to put in some better punch/kick/hit sound effects, the ones in FF2 Genesis are just bad)

[Aarzak]

I believe that Sega of Japan unofficially imposed a 24 MEGA POWER cap on Mega Drive games, which is why only two (SSF2 and Virtua Fighter 2) of them broke that mark at 40 Meg and 32 Meg respectively. Nintendo of Japan and Sega of America had a higher cap (32 Meg). So that Genesis port of FFS wouldn't have happened.

[NeoVamp]

It would have been awesome though, I mean.. if it had been done by real programmers, not the FF2 guys or the Funcom guys.