Fatal Fury City of the Wolves Review | All REV’ed Up

WACO, Texas (KWTX) -

*Code provided by publishers

Fatal Fury City of the Wolves is not for the faint of heart. After cooking for in the Pizza oven of Fury for 26 years, the revival comes out with an explosive new entry that will harm new players that don’t take their time and engulf veteran ones looking to recapture their Mai maining glory. Because 26 years is a lot of time. We’ve been through 4 generations of consoles, 4 Spiders-Men, wars have begun and ended, Beyonce is now a country artist, and James Gunn has made some of the most successful superhero movies ever while playing both sides of the comic isle. 26 years ago, was also the last time we had a Fatal Fury entry. Which makes this new entry especially important to a booming market of excellent fighting games that have each come close to perfecting their individual mechanics. I say that because it has been over a decade since I last played this series. So, if stepping back into last year’s Tekken 8 after 6 years away was like riding a bike, stepping back into Fatal Fury was like walking into the cockpit of a Boeing 747(fully assembled) after reading the user manual once 15 years ago. I was woefully unprepared for the difficulty I personally would have with mastering this title. Luckily, an in-depth training and tutorial mode, customizable input and difficulties and solid foundational mechanics made Fatal Fury City of the Wolves a thrill to learn. While its roster lacks the default iconic names of bigger mainstays, and it lacks many of the modern fighter features we’ve come to expect, Terry and friends bring a unique flair of classically trained arcade fighting roaring into the modern world.

Growing up, SNK games were like the megablocks to my Tekken/Street Fighter Lego. Needless to say, I wouldn’t really discover Terry Bogards dashing smirk or fists until my teens. So, I’m a relative newcomer in the SNK game space. But the basic gist of the game is the same as the other four button fighters from back in the day offering light and heavy punches and kicks which can be thrown at close or long ranges. If you’ve played a more recent fighter like Street Fighter 6 or Tekken 8 you will be surprised to learn that City of the Wolves opts to give its fighters no universal ins or outs. No shared dashes, breaks, quick steps or vanishes. Which means that each character’s move set comes with benefits and risks and means sometimes your warrior pick is as important as your skill. At first this hurdle felt like a misstep for the game. I was bewildered by how hard a time I was having with the level 3 CPU, who easily closed gaps, interrupted and responded to my combos and nearly always perfectly blocked me every time I sent my fist flying. It was after I entered the games story mode, (story being kind of the backseat of the game for me since I have absolutely no idea about the previous entry’s storyline going into this), where I began to see the game more like a punchier game of chess. Reading my opponents movement became more important than knowing the frame perfect time to do a dash or spot dodge. With this mindset, I began to feel out the way my opponent would move and really appreciated the reactionary style of the gameplay. Bolstering this read-then-react fighting was the newly introduced REV system, which is like a reverse version of the Drive Meter in Street fighter 6, building it instead of losing it. Both fighters begin the game at a baseline 0%, and you’ll increase that percentage by blocking enemy attacks or using special Rev techniques – those include EX special moves, a Rev Guard that adds substantial pushback to your guard and avoids chip damage, and armored attacks called Rev Blows. You’ll need to watch yourself, as once you hit 100% you’ll overheat and until you cool back down by the gauge depleting you’ll be unable to use REV techniques and you’ll deplete your guard gauge which can lead you to a broken guard opening you up for a pummeling from the other side. Functionally, I quite like this system, creating meter management battles and making it so you can’t just spam REV techniques, which made fights significantly more interesting. What did not make fights better though is the inclusion of REV blows. These nigh unstoppable moves are used to plow through attacks to deliver a devastating attack landing a full counter combo if it lands as a counter. This bullshit is safe on block, absorbs powerful attacks and can dramatically catch a p-player off guard if they don’t understand this mechanic. WHICH I DID NOT FOR WAY TOO LONG. Look, these moves are not unstoppable actually, you fight fire with Rev Blow fire. And luckily, they have a limited window of use, being relegated to the SELECTIVE POTENTIAL GEAR or SPG area which takes up a portion of the beginning middle or end of your health bar. The timing for a lot of the more advanced tactics in this game is so tight that most players won’t find them achievable and will instead focus on sheer damage dealing onslaughts.

Mechanically, City of the Wolves is a solid fighting game with an excellent core. At first, I didn’t feel that natural clicking that combo driven fighters have but after a few bouts of arcade mode, I found the flexibility of the combo system to be a reliable partner in combat. The roster is full of great offensive players and strong defensive types that make a fairly diverse selection of 17 characters go a long way. But uh, look I’, new here so maybe I’m not as familiar with these characters as others but almost every character here feels a little like a Temu version of a different fighting game character. Like Tenok is just a beaked up version of King, or how Dong Hwang is just bikeless Hwarang. I don’t know but the characters don’t do much to stand out from a crowded genre and with the exception of Terry, Mai, rock and Hotokamaru I didn’t find many characters I loved. Also why are both the guest characters just real dudes. You tellin me that guest characters are getting so out there that Jeff Bridges the actor has much chance of getting in this game as Jeff Bridges’ character Obidiah Stain from Iron Man does? You mean to tell me Travis Kelce might get in here before we get Akuma or like Yamcha or something that makes even a remote amount of sense? Well at least Rinaldo and Salvatore are interesting characters in terms of gameplay.

City of the Wolves offers a solid number of tutorials in its training mode to bring you up to par, but many of the more nuanced details are left out of these learning sessions. For me trial by fire has always been the best approach. So, I set my sights on the survival and arcade modes. Survival mode offers a unique challenge as you battle your way through rounds of fisticuffs for 100 opponents. It’s a great way to familiarize yourself with a character over time. You can also stop by the mission trials which will teach you some proper combos to throw out during matches. After knocking out a few dozen of the games missions I felt confident enough to head into the classic arcade mode. I ran through every character Arcade story mode until I loosely understood what was happening in this game...kind of. Lastly I ventured into the streets of the main campaign which is just a fancier longer version of arcade mode with RPG-Esque elements thrown in for flavor. The stories add more to the world building, allowing me to better flesh out the relationships between fighters but it’s told in a boring text blurb way that feels lack luster and removes any uniqueness from its stars.

I’m not sure how well City of the Wolves will stand out in a crowded scene of excellent fighting games, but I hope it finds footing. Despite it’s flaws I had a blast going one on one with a friend and learning this game was an exceptionally fun time. But it’s lack of modern fighting mechanics and its wonky often time confusing menu systems make the game suffer in the long run. If the cast can continue to grow with more unique characters that don’t feel so copy pasted perhaps this once great franchise will take flight again. In the meantime, City of the Wolves feels all REV’d up with nowhere to go, it’ll scratch that SNK itch but won’t deliver a revitalizing strike for the franchise. I give Fatal Fury City of the Wolves a 7 out of 10.

Copyright 2025 KWTX. All rights reserved.