It’s not often you get a chance to be introduced to a game by its producer- but considering I got the chance to play Fatal Fury City of the Wolves and talk to Yasuyuki Oda, you can be sure I wasn’t going to miss that chance.
I mean, ok, technically I’d played the game at EVO Japan. But unless you have one of those private media sessions where you have an hour to ponder on your thoughts and not feel the weight of the queue behind you, you’re not going to get particularly far with it.
Bringing Pop Art To Life
As with any meeting booting into Fatal Fury City of the Wolves is going to first greet you with its visuals. While SNK may have had some of the best spritework back in the 2D days their 3D entries have been hit-or-miss. But with Fatal Fury City of the Wolves, you’re greeted with this assault of pop art, from dot screens to flashy almost 2D effects on the screen.
Oda tells me that the visual identity of the game was something they heavily considered early on:
“Yeah, it was one of the first things that actually we decided on when we were making the game, like get that art style down first”, he says.
As for implementing it, surprisingly, Oda said that the biggest help came not from the more recent KOF XV, but instead Samurai Shodown. The game sports an equally bold art style, heavily inspired by ink brushstrokes and the like, making it make sense that it served as a visual foundation for Fatal Fury City of the Wolves.
“Yeah, one of the definitely the big things is just the shading and the art style that we were able to, so we learned a lot on how to get really, really deep shading, deep effects and shadows and lights from Samurai Shodown, and we were able to expand on those ideas, the know-how that we had that we learned from that game and implemented into this game”, Oda says.
It’s a process that’s really easy to see the results of. Terry has been rendered in so many different art styles in just the past decade, going from Smash Bros to KOF to Street Fighter before coming home to Fatal Fury City of the Wolves. Here, Terry has a richness of color to him, one that makes every Burning Knuckle, every Buster Wolf pop out with violent passion.
He’s not the only character looking great in the new style- from Rock Howard’s wing effects to even the newcomers like Preecha, everyone looks ready to burst out of the screen with the new visuals.
One returning character sporting a particularly dramatic new look though, is fan favorite Mai Shiranui- decvked out in all leather and finally taking care of her back, it’s hard to not ask about her new look.
“It’s the work of a lot of people involved, mostly the art . But it’s [my] order to say that “Mai’s a little older, a couple years have passe. Let’s have her clothing reflect that”, Oda says.
“It’s not a complete change, but let’s show that she’s aged. What the artists came up with is what we have today, and I think the fans are too.”
As if the internet ever said no to a woman decked in full leather.
Deciding On New Or Old Characters In Fatal Fury City of the Wolves
With the new characters, however, a lot of them are riding the legacy of other characters. Preecha, for example, is the student of Joe Higashi, while Vox Reaper follows Grant. I had to ask, what determines a legacy character returning to Fatal Fury City of the Wolves vs their role being handed off to the next generation.
“Yeah, we have like a survival of the fittest type thing going on at work, so whoever, you know”, Oda jokes.
“There’s a lot of things that goes into account, obviously popularity. For this one, a lot of it is the fact that the story was never finished in the previous game, so we want to make sure that some of the characters whose stories were left on a very big cliffhanger are finished”.
He acknowledged that these kinds of decisions are never victimless- the joy of a fighting game roster is that every character is somebody’s favorite, either visually or mechanically. Heck, YouTuber Maximillian made a running gag out of his own desperation to get Rock Howard in KOF XV.
“It’s always a process, it’s a little bit difficult because even inside the development studio, everybody’s got their own favorite characters and nobody can get their own way, obviously”, Oda adds. “So you always have to find a good balance and a neutral.
“There were people that were mad that Xanadu wasn’t in 15, so it’s like, you know”, chimed in game designer Joshua Weatherford.
Speaking of KOF XV, there was one character between Fatal Fury City of the Wolves and KOF XV that I figured I’d shoot my shot on: the red luchadors King of Dinosaurs and Tizoc. I’d jokingly asked Oda to confirm or deny that these were the same character and got the following response:
“You never say who’s under the mask, right? It’s almost like a magician telling you his secrets”, he laughs.
“You know, you’ll never know who’s under the mask. It stays a secret. You know, you’re born with a mask, you die with a mask” he adds. “So, yeah, secrets stay with us, is what I’m saying. You have to come up with your own assumptions”.
Honestly it’s hard to not have fun when it comes to Fatal Fury City of the Wolves- the game’s got style for days, containing a lot of the intricacies of the series legacy alongside some strong visual flair and an as-of-yet-revealed collaboration with Ronaldo, for some reason.
With the game launching April 24th next year, it’s easily going to be a big fighting game to look out for. The game sports an English dub and even the ability to single out certain voices in your language of choice- if, say, you preferred a certain cadence when being asked if you’re OK. Our thanks to SNK and Oda for taking the time to talk Fatal Fury City of the Wolves with us, as well as their integrity in protecting the identity of masked wrestlers everywhere.
