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Review: Fatal Fury: Wild Ambition |
Jump a bit into the past, now’August 1999, Piccadilly Circus, London. I’m on the third floor of Sega World and I’m stoked. Picture a 4-story arcade; dark, loud and active. I’d been backpacking through southern England with my wife for two weeks, and I needed a videogame fix. What I got was a double whammy of SNK goodness.
Two giant-screen cabinets side by side. First, a game I would come to love at a later time, Last Blade 2. Next, Fatal Fury: Wild Ambition. Much to my wife’s chagrin, I spent about 45 minutes soaking these games in, from the attract modes to the gameplay. Needless to say, I didn’t get very far in either game, but I was particularly jazzed about FF: WA.
See, I dig Fatal Fury; the whole ball of wax, from the games, to the anime, to the characters backstories. Everything about it just rubs me right. Even KOF, a series that many consider superior, is, to me, simply the logical extension of FF. In fact, what bothers me about KOF is the lack of story progression for the FF teams. I mean, the Bogards were in the King of Fighters Tourney first, man! (Orochi wha’? Geese!) So when I first heard about the PSOne port of the first (and only) Hyper Neo-Geo 64 game in the venerable series, I looked forward to playing the SNK institution in new, 3D glory.
Well, I played it in London about a month before the US domestic release, and the taste was enough to make me eager to buy the game. Now, years later and with a little more objectivity towards the whole subject, I can honestly say that this game is, sadly, disappointing. Poop.
Before I cream the game for its faults, let me tell you what I enjoy about it. First is style. To me, SNK games are what they are because of this; style in all things, from art to story to the little quirks in a simple win screen that make you say, ‘Take that, Billy Kane, you Ass!’ One of the bits I really like is the ‘Press Start to Try Again’ screen. Your character kneels or sits, defeated, until you comply, at which point they stand up in triumph and the announcer says (into a dishrag, apparently. More on that’), ‘Never give up!’ Which you can’t if you ever hope to beat this game.
I like the characters you get to choose from in FF:WA, too. While not all encompassing like KOF, you do get some classics, as well as a couple new faces to play around with; Tsugumi Sendo and Toji Sakata. If these two are in any other SNK brawler, I am not aware of it. Toji is a little old turd with a stick and a bad eye, while Tsugumi is, to put it bluntly, a cheap bastard. She is a judo practitioner whose high priority and extremely fast recover times would make her boss-worthy if she wasn’t so cutesy. I hate playing against her. Hate. Playing as her isn’t that great either.
See, the back of the Playstation case touts ‘Legendary SNK fighting controls’ as one of the games ‘features’. If by ‘Legendary’, they mean ‘crap’, I would have to agree with them. FF:WA controls like a stoned turtle trying to walk through mud with two of its legs pulled into its shell. I have never been so frustrated by the PSOne thumb-pad as I have with this game. No intuition whatsoever. You’d best input every move PERFECTLY to expect anything in return. I can not tell you how aggravating it is to try and pull off a Ground Wave three times before something happens. We’re talking blisters, baby. And the thing is, I know the PSOne controller can do better. I had endless hours on SF Alpha 2 without so much as a whiff of problem, so I know it’s possible. Hell, I still play KOF 95 on my PS, and I love it. But this game has issues.
I won’t take long on the button configuration: You’ve got punch, kick and heavy attack. The fourth button is for dodging in and out, ala Toshinden. Sadly, painfully useless. The early FFs, with their two and sometimes three planes were more 3D than this game. At least you could actually avoid an attack. In FF:WA, dodging is akin to bending over and saying, ‘Take your best shot.’ Pathetic.
Which leads to the graphics. The 3D models are also right out of the Toshinden handbook. This game looks second gen at best. Now, I know there wasn’t as much block-happy cheese on the Hyper Neo-Geo I saw in London’was there? Maybe I was just playing it through primrose glasses or something. It’s just that there’s a ‘blur’ that makes the game look foggy and cheap, even by yesterdays standards.
And speaking of cheap’Lets just say that the voice acting might have been better left out altogether than to make us put up with the muddy mess that is left. Why oh why didn’t they get the voices clear? Everything sounds like it’s coming through on an old 8-track that you found in Gramma’s blistering hot attic under a pile of moist towels. Sad, really. Sound can sometimes redeem crap-tastic graphics, but not this time. Now, the music comes through loud and clear, and some of the tunes are a little better than forgettable, but overall it’s a mix that proves to be weak-sauce.
So, bad controls, bad graphics, bad sound? How’s the gameplay? As you might expect, not up to par. The theories are fine, but the execution is faulty. Not only is it frustrating to input any commands, but the collision seems off as does the AI. I guess it’s just that I really suck, but I can’t understand how the computer can anticipate every move I (try) to make, counter it, then block PERFECTLY when I attempt to reverse the successful tactic. Some call it ‘challenging’. I call it ‘cheating’
People, I really wanted to like this game. But there’s so much to hate, especially after playing the other AMAZING games in the series, specifically Real Bout Special and Mark of the Wolves. The only reason you should purchase this game is to own the amazing cinema’s that constitute the attract mode and the game start introduction. Some sweet rendering and nice martial arts mayhem illustrating Geese’s brutality. Suh-weet! However, If you can find the movies elsewhere, I’d pick those up and avoid the travesty that is Wild Ambition. Let me put it this way: In my den, I’ve got a Genesis and a PSOne set up. The Genesis has FF2 in it right now and the PSOne has Wild Ambition. To quote Swingers, ‘Genesis is the big winner! Genesis wins’!’
