Fatal Fury: Mark of the Wolves

Although online it's almost always called Garou: Mark of the Wolves, my Dreamcast copy clearly says that the title is Fatal Fury: Mark of the Wolves. I hadn't played my Dreamcast in quite a while. I actually only have four games for it--Street Fighter III: Third Strike and Marvel vs. Capcom 2 by Capcom (neither of which I like all that much), King of Fighters '98 under its alternate title, and Fatal Fury: Mark of the Wolves. Since I don't like the Capcom titles that much and since King of Fighters '98 for the Dreamcast is completely obsolete since I also have King of Fighters '98: Ultimate Match for the PS2, I really only need it to play MOW, or occasionally dabble in the Capcom games.

In order to play, I had to be a little handy, too. The little mechanical switch that indicates that the case lid is closed doesn't work all that well, and I had to open the case up and tape it down. The tape had worn a bit loose, so I had to open it again today and re-fix it. I couldn't remember if I needed the switch up or down to work, and then I put the case on slightly wrong at one point, so the power switch wasn't registering as on. After three times opening the case, everything was working like a charm again, and I played through with Terry (of course), played around with Kevin Rian, an interesting character that I like to dabble with, and messed around just a bit with the Kim brothers.

Interestingly, several MOW characters have made it into the King of Fighters series with only minor changes. Tizoc, Gato, and MOW Terry were in 2003 and XI, Rock was in Capcom vs. SNK 2, and King of Fighters XI also picked up Hotaru, and Bonnie Jenet. One of the things I always liked about this game is it's depth. Although the character roster is a bit thin, there really aren't any losers in the entire roster. Well, except maybe that stupid monkey ninja kid. Seriously, enough with the non-translatable comic relief, guys.

What's also fun is that although the Fatal Fury series is dead (Long live Fatal Fury!) a number of the characters from that, and other could-be forgotten SNK games are still making appearances from time to time. First we had a lot of obscure characters making cameos in backgrounds (and that still happens), then King of Fighters 2000 and 2001 gave us even more obscure characters making cameos as strikers. Starting particularly with NeoGeo Battle Coliseum, King of Fighters 2003 and King of Fighters XI, a lot more were added.

Although the resolution and sprites of those old games has now been dropped for the King of Fighters XII and XIII games, SNK is still digging deep into their archives to treat us with a blast of nostalgia--Mizoguchi from Fighters History Dynamite made an appearance in the Maximum Impact games, and King of Fighters XII and XIII bring back Raiden and even Hwa Jai, of all people. I'd love to see SNK get their hands on the rights to use the old Breakers Revenge characters, just for fun, although I'm not holding my breath.

I'd hope to see a few more MOW characters show up again. Like I said, I've always kind of been fond of Kevin and the Kim boys. I don't know if the Kim boys are likely to ever show up as long as their father is still a regular in King of Fighters, though. Oh, well.