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Review: Garou: Mark of the Wolves |
SNK’s MVS hardware is a bit like Freddy Krueger. Every time we think it’s finally dead, that there’s nothing more to do with it…up it comes again. Fortunately, unlike that increasingly crappy series of films; every time the Neo-Geo hardware shows up again, it just gets better and better.
Case in point, SNKs’ Garou: Mark of the Wolves. Another one of those games that never made it to arcades where I live.
I’ll be honest, although I always claim to be an SNK fan, outside of the King of Fighters games….I’m not really that interested. I’ve bought one or two, I’ve played a few in arcades, and downloaded some ROMs…but they never manage to hold my interest and create rabid fandom in the same way the KOF games always do.
And whether I’ll play this for months on end like I did KOF’99, I just can’t say at this time, but rest assured, the sheer overall quality of this product cannot be denied.
The sumptuous feast kicks off with not one, but two spectacular intros. The first, is a brooding sepia-toned sequence which shows Geese’s death and Terry’s attempt to save him, set to a ominous music track while some guy talks about winners and losers.
The second cycle shows your more traditional “characters pose while images scroll about” sequence, but it’s bookended by some astounding animation of Terry and Rock.
SNK have really worked hard to make MOTW as involving and atmospheric as possible. Every single element has had tonnes of effort lavished onto it. The in-game animation far surpasses KOF’99, and the artwork is of consistent high quality. The backgrounds are beautiful, the presentation is crisp, clear and detailed. The voice acting, as usual, is excellent, some of the shouts and yells really make it sound like the character is *seriously* exerting themselves (check out Terry and Rock…) It’s just damn good.
Although it is essentially a Fatal Fury game, (the ninth one in fact, if you count “Wild Ambition” You don’t? Go write your own review. You did? Lemme see that…) it no longer shares the title of it’s ancestors. Yup “Garou” is it’s universal name. You know how The “Friday 13th” movies stopped numbering themselves after #8? Same deal…
It’s a breakaway tendencies aren’t limited to the name either. Aside from Terry - all of the characters are brand new (though a couple do have relation to the more familiar people.)
Some of the Fatal Fury mainstays, like the two life bars per round are gone, as are the Break shots, and the “line sway” multi-tier fight system. The attack buttons are the KOF-like two-punch, two-kick, instead of the punch/kick/heavy of old. I miss none of these things. And am actually glad some of them are gone.
The totally-revamped game engine means it feels a lot more solid than previous games, as the player I feel more in control. It’s a lot more precise than previous FF games.
The biggest new feature is the “T.O.P” gauge. Which stands for “Tactical Offensive Position.” It sounds needlessly complicated, because it’s basically a small bar, one-third of the whole life bar in length which can be placed on the energy bar, either at the start, the middle, or the end.
Now when your life gauge decreases to a point where the yellow bar enters the T.O.P bar (unless you put it at the start, in which case it activates at the start of the round)…your character will flash, and will have access to a new special move (the T.O.P attack), a slow life recovery, and increased offence. This really adds a lot to the combat, and even placing the gauge requires thought. Will you use it as a last-gasp offence? Or will it go at the start, hopefully allowing you an early lead? Tactical thinking of this nature is a feature I rightly applaud in fighting games.
Another new feature is the “Just Defend” system. At first glance, it looks just like parrying in SF3 and is even activated in a similar way (a tap back instead of towards). But it serves a different function. By blocking at the moment of impact, your character will flash blue, and gain a small amount of health. There’s also no guard crush danger, and it can be done in mid air. It’s pretty tricky to do at first, but it’s a good risk/reward situation - if you can pull it off successfully, it can be highly beneficial, and mean the difference between life and death.
I’m really glad that the tired old duo of “innovations” — super cancelling and chaining don’t show up here — there has actually been some thought put into the design of this game, and it really benefits from it.
It’s a very good single-player experience too, something a lot of fighters these days neglect (*cough* Em-Vee-See-Too) The large variety of moves and tactics, plus the overall balance of characters lends itself well to competitive play. But for the single (loser) player, the game is still very rewarding. Why? Because it’s challenging and it’s got a good story. There are plenty of cutscenes and tonnes of inter-character dialogue, and even….my god!….decent endings!
The story tells of how, although Geese fell to his death from the rooftop of Geese Tower (the ending to Real Bout Fatal Fury) - his legacy lives on, through a son. Into the limelight steps the young Rock Howard…raised by Terry Bogard as his own son.
Now, I don’t know about you, but given the amount of misery and suffering Geese caused the Lonely Wolves — if I were Terry, the last thing you’d find me doing would be raising his son. Hell no, I’d throw the little bastard into a river long before he did his first Reppu-Ken.
But I guess Terry’s too much of a good guy for infanticide to feature heavily in his itinerary. Oh well.
I love this idea of having Rock and Terry together — this scenario creates automatic tension, even before anything’s happened. Will Rock take after his true father? Will he break the family curse? Will he kill Terry?
Add in Geese’s crazy brother-in-law Kain, and a whole load of people with grudges and quests…it’s like Sunset Beach. With fighting.
Getting rid of your entire cast except one character is a risky thing to do, especially when they were as well-designed and charismatic as Yamazaki or Joe…or as ….appealing as Mai or Mary. But they’ve done it, and it’s been done well. The star of the show is undoubtedly Rock Howard, a slender, youth, reminiscent of K’ who fights like a combination of Terry and Geese, and acts like a sulky brat.
Honourable mention goes to a redesigned Terry Bogard, and, one of my personal favourites, Khushnood Butt. He’s a Kyokyugen master, in a traditional gi, but he looks like a 70’s pimp, complete with afro, huge sideburns and chest wig. He’s excellent!
Not all of them are a complete success. Kevin Rian is dull (looking very much like a blonde Ralf), and Bonne Jenet….the original female pirate fighter is a bit lame, despite her impressive chest.
There’s also the standard cliches, like the big grappler, the weird guy, the cute girl etc.
But in general they have enough attitude and personality to make choosing them an entertaining experience.
I suppose it’s here I make my obligatory SF3 comparison. Actually, I’ll let my 5-year old cousin do it. Come on, type here….
garoo mark of the wolfs is a bit like streetfigher 3
Thanks guy.
Special mention goes to the supers. In this game, you’ll see some of the most well-animated, powerful-looking and just plain awesome super moves ever devised for a fighting game.
Not only are they superbly animated…but they’ve all been made to look like they actually really hurt. Take Tizoc’s 720� throw. He grabs the other character, flies upwards in slow motion, pauses, smashes them against the top of the screen, pauses again…then falls to the ground using them as a shield. It’s just so dramatically and powerfully executed…I constantly find myself going “ouch!” after their activation.
When you activate the P-Power super (think: SDM) the action pauses while the screen glows gold, and sunlight glints off the characters’ raised fist or foot. They then launch into their attack — some of which, such as Rock’s “Rising Storm”, or Terry’s new “Buster Wolf” hit with the force of a small nuclear bomb.
Despite all the new features and available tactics…one thing that struck me was a sense that the game engine feels like it’s been “dumbed down” slightly. For example, nearly everyone has a normal fierce attack, that hits twice and is extra easy to combo into a super. It’s good for lame players like myself, but it just seems rather…well…dumb. Practically anyone can take off 70% life just by landing a standing fierce punch. Another example — supers are now just QCF, QCF+P for the first, and QCF, QCF+K for the second. There are a few characters with three or even four…but everyone else just uses those two motions. While I don’t exactly mourn the passing of stupid commands like “DB, HCB, DF+P” — it’s gone from being a test of dexterity, to a dull generic motion.
Other faults? Well…if you want me to be picky (Fighting Vipers fans: insert your own joke here) — the quality of the music dips sometimes, it’s often excellent (Grant’s Killer Instinct-style military doom theme, or the childish, tinkling insanity that accompanies the final fight against Kain) but it’s sometimes just mediocre.
And as I said earlier, some of the character designs don’t quite hit the mark. The sprites are a little small too.
Heh, but so what? Mark of the Wolves is the best non-Fatal Fury Fatal Fury game I’ve ever played, and also one of the best fighters on this planet. Every aspect of the game has been done almost perfectly. You owe it to yourself to play this.
