2014 Summer Vacation DLC costume pack

Hard to image I'll find myself shelling out cash for DLC costumes going forward, but flush with excitement over the acquisition of USF4 in the first place, I sprung for the Summer Vacation costume pack.  For $20, you could get the entire set.  (The game itself costs $30 and includes all of the previous DLC costume packs.  The only costumes I'm missing are for the Ultra challengers if you have a Street Fighter x Tekken save game file.)

As is always the case, there are some pretty cool costumes, some that are kinda... "meh" and some that I can't stand.  All come in many colorful varieties, of course.  Here's what we've got, including some commentary.  Check out this link to see the actual images.

Cool costumes: Ryu, Ken, Abel, Honda, Zangief, Balrog, Sagat, Vega, Dhalsim, Guile (Doctrine Dark cosplay!!!), DeeJay, Dudley, Guy, Adon, Cody, Yun, Yang, Decapre, Poison, Rolento.  In fact, I think the Ryu, Guy, Dudley, Decapre, Yun, Yang, and possibly Rolento are my favorite costumes among those that they have available.

Meh costumes: Dan, Gouken (King Triton?  Weird enough to be too weird, but I admire their boldness), El Fuerte, Rufus, Abel, Bison, Gen, Blanka, Fei Long, Sakura, Rose, Chun-Li, Cammy, T. Hawk, Elena and Evil Ryu, Hakan, Hugo.

Dislike: Akuma, Seth, Crimson Viper, Makoto, Ibuki, Juri, Oni.

Some of them are just too Japanese, and globally, they just seem stupid (that's been the case for most of the DLC costume options, though--there are a few that are just two weird, too traditionally Japanese, for me to ever think that they look good.

Charge characters

I suppose I've forgotten how much time I spent practicing the fireball and dragon punch motions on a control pad when I first got Street Fighter 2 for the SNES.  It can't have been intuitive or automatic that I was able to transfer intellectual knowledge of the motion into actual implementation without some practice on an unfamiliar controller.

However, I have forgotten.  I have a vague memory of finding the motion difficult and doing it in Training Mode and elsewhere for quite a while before I got it down.  And then, once I had it down, I greatly preferred playing characters with Command style moves--as opposed to the other major alternative; charging characters, a la Guile.

Now, I liked Guile well enough in SF2.  Charge motions weren't that bad when it was merely Sonic Boom and Flash Kick.  Once super combos were added, however, charging characters became much more frustrating to me, if they had weird charging style super combo motions.  Realistically, of course, what I'd prefer is that the sonic boom were performed like a fireball, and the flash kick like a dragon punch with the kick instead of punch button.  The super and ultra combos could similarly be harmonized with a command style motion.  Or at least I'd be able to toggle to such a system.  Since Capcom is unlikely to offer customizeable commands for any characters, I've decided that I should probably try to learn the odd charge/delta motion of the Double Flash kick and Flash Explosion, and make Guile a part of my personal roster again.  This would also enable me to use other charge characters (like Chun-Li, for instance--or Vega, Honda, Blanka, etc.) instead of avoiding them, although the Sonic Hurricane is still an annoying motion to do on a control pad, and I'll probably most ignore it.

Part of the reason I continue to like this genre of games, long after foregoing most other video games, is the fact that I don't have to put much work into it, though.  I can sit down and play for an hour or so after months of not touching it, and have a reasonably good time.  So, the idea of learning a complicated and difficult move to expand my character roster may seem to be anathema, but I'm willing to give it a try and practice it for a while, largely because it will open up several new characters to me.  Plus, SF4 Guile, with some of his alternate "swat team" costumes, is just too cool to continue to ignore.

Target acquired...

Very belatedly, at least compared to the rest of the world, I just acquired some new titles.  Specifically, with the announcement of Ultra Street Fighter IV and its release on Steam, I realized that I 1) already have a Steam account, and 2) quite handily meet the system specs, now that I put my new graphics card in last year, and 3) could get King of Fighters XIII on Steam too.

So, with mere hours left until the pre-order expired (so I could get the extra 2014 Challengers costume pack--the rest of the DLC packs were already included) I got Ultra Street Fighter IV on Steam.  I got to play it for a few hours before promptly going out of town for nearly two weeks and just got back late last night.  So really... just today I've been playing it.  It cost $30.  I also, for $30 got King of Fighters XIII, although my first impression is that I can't figure out how to play any kind of decent Single character play, which is a major disappointment, since I pretty much always play all of the KOF games that way.  And I talked myself into buying the Summer Vacation complete costume pack for USF4, which will probably be the very last DLC that I'll be tempted to buy (unless they come up with one that actually adds characters to the game.)  By coincidence, while out of town, I got to also spend several hours playing Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 with my brother-in-law for a while too.  Given the short time that I've had to play all of these titles, I'm giving only very early first impressions at this point.

Given that the game has been out in various slightly less evolved forms for a few years now, these first impressions are probably way too late to be of any interest to anyone but me.  But hey, it's my blog, and I'll talk about old news if I want to.

My initial impressions of the KOF title, the one I've played the least, is that it looks and feels pretty darn smooth.  If I can find a single player mode, it'll almost certainly be my favorite in the franchise, but if I can't, I'm not sure.  I do also appreciate the "back to basics" approach that the game sports.  The franchise is sometimes notorious for going off the rails into odd, overly technical gameplay that isn't likely to appeal to more casual fans like me (casual in the sense that I'm not really a very good technical player, that is.)

UMvC3, of course, also doesn't offer a single player mode (one of the several reasons that I've only been casual about this franchise... even relative to others in the genre.)  That said, the number of characters has been pared down, and most of the really silly ones have been eliminated (a few exceptions remain.)  I find myself especially happy to play the Marvel characters, whereas in its predecessor, I played a fair mix of Marvel and Capcom characters.  I also find that that makes the game feel just a tad more serious, when you're much less likely to see an awful lot of a "fighting attorney" or weird Megaman characters.  Some of the new additions, such as Thor, Hawkeye and others are a delightful addition to the game, and most of the costume colors end up being interesting Easter eggs, for those interested in exploring them.  I largely found that I was good with many of the same characters I had been good at in MvC2, although it wasn't as simple as picking up right where I left off.

One odd note: Mike Haggar makes his triumphant return to a Capcom game (and his first that I know of in a fighting game) here as well.  Although he'd be a better fit for a Street Fighter title, and because the character models already obviously exist, I'm a little bit surprised and disappointed that he wasn't added to the Ultra expansion to SF4.  Maybe the developers thought he treaded too much on Zangief's toes?

I've spent most of my time, however, with Ultra Street Fighter IV, and probably will continue to do so.  This game almost certainly will have a place at the very top of my list of best games in the genre.  Not only does it look and sound absolutely great, but it's got great back to basics gameplay, great balance, smooth play, great character selection, and basically has everything I could ever possibly want in a SF game.  SFA3 was my favorite in the series previously to this, as it had the best gameplay and the best presentation and the best character selection, but there were a few things that CvS2 did better.  USF4 beats them both in all possible metrics.

One interesting side effect of the presentation is that, while the characters do have their classic themes remixed for a modern sounding soundtrack (as well as new themes for the new characters) you don't actually hear them very often.  The BGM that normally plays is the one associated with the stage that you're on instead, which means that you don't get to hear much of the classic SF2 sounds updated for the 2010s.

I'm trying to think if there's anyone missing from the roster that I think should be on it, and I'm coming up blank.  Other than Mike Hagger, which I already mentioned, but that's more of a theoretical desire--I don't actually like playing grapplers all that much anyway.  All of the SF2 roster is here.  Most of the SFA3 roster.  Frankly, most of the SF3: Third Strike roster makes the cut by the time we get to the Ultra update.  There's a handful of new characters that are unique to SF4.  Most of them aren't that wonderful, in my opinion.  Perhaps the most interesting are, sadly, yet again shotokan variants; Gouken: Ryu and Ken's old master (who's supposed to be dead, but clearly isn't after all) and Oni, which is a new variant on the Shin Akuma idea; a more pumped up version of Akuma with a more variant movelist.  Decapre is a Cammy variant (so therefore, I suppose, steps on the toes of the Juli and Juni space).  I haven't really experimented much with El Fuerte, Rufus, Abel, Crimson Viper, Hakan, Seth, Poison or Juri--the other characters who are unique to the SF4 franchise.  I suspect only a few of them will stand the test to find themselves even half a memorable as the basic 12 characters of the original SF2 game (8 playable and 4 bosses.)

Anyway, no doubt I'll be posting a bit more about these games (especially USF4) over the next several weeks.  Needless to say, my somewhat slumbering love of the genre has lurched back to life now that I've acquired some new toys to play with...

Essay No. 3: On Continuity and Canon

(What happened to Essay No. 2 you may ask?  Nothing.  It was just kind of obsolete, so rather than port it from my old website, I just dropped it.  I might add it back in with new formatting... maybe.  But probably not.)

Because I think these types of games, their characters and their settings represent a foreign (namely, Japanese) interpretation of the modern superhero story line, I often make comparisons to superhero comic books. If you think of Ryu, Terry or Kyo as analogs to the X-men, or Spiderman, then they kinda work, and if you think of Rugal or Bison as Magneto or Dr. Doom, you can see striking and obvious parallels. If you think of the plot to take over the world by NESTS from King of Fighters '99 through King of Fighters 2001 by holding a martial arts tournament, gathering data from how the champions fight, and channeling that data into a clone army, you can easily see what I'm talking about in terms of "comic book" plots too. Heck, Heidern serves for the King of Fighters games (and Chun Li and Charlie/Guile's bosses for the Street Fighter games) almost like S.H.I.E.L.D.

However, I specifically want to talk about one issue and discuss it a little bit in relation to my story, and that is continuity and canon. Comic book fans the world over were excited when Sam Raimi filmed the first Spiderman movie with Toby MacGuire and Co., yet nobody expected it to be a faithful reproduction of the origin of Spiderman as originally written by Stan Lee in the early 1960s. For one thing, the media was completely different. For another, the audience was considerably more sophisticated. And for another, there've been too many changes in the world over the last forty years for that to still be even a little bit credible.

So what did Raimi do? He retold the story. The spider that bit Peter Parker wasn't radioactive, it was the result of genetic manipulation by Norm Osborn. Parker's look and powers changes slightly; Osborn changed even more significantly (the Halloweenish original Green Goblin wouldn't look anything other than extremely cheesy in a big budget action movie meant for a general audience, after all) and many of the details of the origin of Spiderman story, as well as the relationship between Spiderman and the Green Goblin were changed fairly significantly.

This of course, wasn't the first time this happened. Marvel Comics a few years back kicked off an extremely popular line of comics called the Ultimate comics where popular characters and series were "rebooted" and restarted, the stories retold and the character redesigned, with a more modern and sophisticated audience in mind, and without all the baggage of forty years of accumulated back story. There are some very significant differences between "regular" Spiderman and "ultimate" Spiderman, which in turn are quite different from "movie" Spiderman. If you keep in mind that there are at least five animated series of Spiderman, each also with their own separate "canon" of continuity and details of how the stories were told and the characters developed, you can see that some major changes were made to accommodate different media and different audiences.

What does that have to do with me and this story? Well, frankly, I'm doing the same thing. I'm referencing the "original" canon when it works for me, I'm even giving a nod here and there to the UDON comic books, because they had some great ideas, but I'm retelling these stories my way to make it work for me. I have a few more significant challenges than most others who've tried to write fan fictions about these games; I'm combining incompatible plot lines from several different games with well over a hundred potential characters, and setting a goal of meeting as many of those characters as reasonably possible without it feeling forced or fake. This means, of course, that I'm going to have to make a fair number of changes to plot points as well as character description and development.

One way in which this will happen is in the arena of romantic entanglements. Maybe I'm just a bit of a softie, but a good romantic relationship makes any story better. Sadly, most of the interesting prospects from SNK at least are already tied up with other characters. This is problematic; for many reasons, cross-source material pairings are more interesting than in-game pairings. I've also decided to make some rather major consolidations and changes to, again, further facilitate the mingling of various story lines. With three story lines from King of Fighters to contend with, one from Fatal Fury, a few from Street Fighter and even some nods towards Darkstalkers, anything else would be a confused mess. If you don't like to see established video game canon changed like this, I can only suggest that you avoid this story, then, and read the paragraphs above; my changes aren't any more significant than having Spiderman date Shadowcat from the X-men, for example. To make the story tell-able, I had to make changes, and I'm creating this note specifically to justify them to the fans.

On a slightly less serious note, exactly what stories am I retelling, and which stories are being relegated to the background? That's a good question.

I'm going to assume for the time being that the plots of the original Street Fighter and Fatal Fury video games happened more or less exactly as described, in the "distant" (i.e., at least a year or two ago) past, while the events of the Street Fighter Alpha series and the original Rugal headed King of Fighters games ('94 and '95) happened in the very recent past (i.e., just a month or two tops before the stories start.) Geese Howard is missing and presumed dead (cf. the Fatal Fury ending), as is M. Bison after the explosion of his Shadowloo headquarters in Thailand (cf. Cammy, Chun Li, Charlie, Ken, Sagat, Ryu and Sakura's endings from Street Fighter Alpha 3) and even Rugal is presumed dead after the crash of the Black Noah (cf. Kyo's team ending for King of Fighters '95.)

The story lines that I intend to weave together, with a fair amount of changes to fit them all together, are:

1. The later Fatal Fury games (although these stories tend to repeat themselves over and over again; Geese falls from his tower no less than three times before finally being declared "officially" dead, so the Fatal Fury story lines are an amalgam of Fatal Fury 2, Fatal Fury 3 and Real Bout Fatal Fury. The other two Real Bout titles are "dream matches."
2. The "NESTS" story line from mid-era King of Fighters games.
3. The "Sacred Treasures" story line from current King of Fighters games (although granted; since the resolution isn't yet out, this story line is a bit confused at the moment. When King of Fighters XII is released, hopefully it will make more sense. Of course, by then, it'll no doubt invalidate what I've written. NOTE: Since this is an Orochi based story line, I'm dropping the original Orochi story line and telling this one instead. It could feature characters from the Original Orochi story line re-imagined here (i.e., Leopold Goenitz and possibly others. But not the New Faces team; I think those guys are incredibly cheesy.)
4. The Street Fighter 2 story line.
5. Possibly a few ideas from the Street Fighter III, Final Fight or Darkstalkers story lines as well.

As you can hopefully see, this is a bewildering tangle to try and unwind and remake into anything that's coherent or interesting, so a little patience and forbearance if you see changes that are obviously "wrong" from the canon is requested here.

Essay No. 1: On the Nature of Setting

What does it take to adapt the actual, modern, real world to make room for games like Street Fighter, Fatal Fury or King of Fighters to actually exist? This essay attempts to analyze some of the things that are necessary for them to all fit together.

The first goal is to mostly minimize the changes. There's no reason to make very big, sweeping changes to the "real world" setting if I'm not forced to. At the same time, though, some changes, some of them actually fairly broad and sweeping, do certainly facilitate the genre. But I'm going to try to be as conservative as possible. I'm also going to point to actual in-game situations or scenarios to justify changes. Overall, though, the changes aren't too big a deal; no more than is necessary to incorporate superheroes into the modern world, as Marvel and DC Comics have done, for instance. Anyway, here's a list, with discussion:

• Very few of the characters look Asian, despite the fact that many of them are. Large, round eyes, fairly light brown hair, and relatively white skin are all very common. A lot of this can be attributed to art style, but not all of it; characters like Karin Kanzuki or Benimaru Nikaido are clearly born and raised Japanese, yet have curly blond hair, blue eyes, and other hallmarks that point to a classic Caucasian; even Nordic, physical type. Iori Yagami is similar; with his bright red hair, for instance. The best explanation for this is simple: the fictional world of superhero martial arts games (and many anime too, for that matter) is a much more racially cosmopolitan and mixed society than we currently have. If so, it's totally possible for a Japanese born and bred girl like Karin to be blond, blue-eyed and Caucasian in features, and not attract too much undue notice. Many of the other Asian characters are also at least partially Caucasian in their features too, I'd think, if the high frequency of Caucasian coloration and physical features seen in character artwork is any guide.

• Along those same lines, there are also physical types that we currently don't have. Of course, it's always possible that a girl with blue or purple hair or eyes is wearing a wig, dye, contacts, etc., but I think it's pretty implicit in the characterizations that that's not really what's going on. Some variations that are rare in the world at large, but not too uncommon in games include purple/lavender hair, green or greenish hair, blue hair, and a type of towhead coloration that is literally white or silver, but on young people. If the default colors for the characters isn't enough to convince you, check out some of the alternate colors for some real wildness. Or just look at characters like Blanka. It's possible that the chi that powers these metahumans also kinda evolves or mutates them sometimes, causing new physical times to spontaneously arise, but I don't know that it's strictly necessary to say anything like that.

• Governments around the world seem to be more lax and hands-off than in the real world, for the most part. Characters don't think twice about traveling around the world, often penniless, to participate in martial arts tournaments. Not only are borders not that open in the real world, but martial arts tournaments of the type being held in these games are generally illegal in almost any country in the world today. These tournaments aren't usually taking place in controlled environments either if the stages are any guide; in front of famous landmarks, in the middle of the street, in restaurants and bars, or in the more conventionial boxing ring type of environment all seem to feature, and apparently governments are not cracking down on these activities--some of them are even very official and formal and broadcast around the world like the Olympics, i.e. King of Fighters of the Orochi time-period. Apparently, the governments are also unperturbed by the fact that minors participate in these tournaments from time to time; there are plenty of teenage characters, and even a few like Bao seem to be pre-teens. Another example of laid-back governance is the fact that Southtown can be literally taken over by a criminal syndicate, and seriously talk of seceding from whatever nation it belongs to (presumably the U.S.?) which in the real world are both quite impossible. Criminal organizations aren't just like the Mafia; they can actually set up small rogue nation-states, and do so relatively unopposed by the rest of the world, i.e ., Shadaloo in the Golden Triangle and Brazil.

• Along with the rather hands-off government, a lot of the real-world conflict that makes travel to many areas of the world dangerous for some people seems to be completely glossed over. My preference to resolve this conflict with the real world is that almost all of the world's governments are small, and relatively centralized. If you imagine all of the world running more or less like the American West of the later 1800's; territorial governors manning vast stretches of land with a skeleton crew bureaucracy, then it works. Have all of the world's nations hand over a fair amount of their sovereignty to a world governing body helps too; imagine if all the world belonged to an organization somewhat similar to the E.U., for instance, and you've got the right idea. For a story, I don't think this needs to really be dwelt on, though--government interference can simply fade into the background, i.e., the government doesn't really actually ever make an appearance except as a plot device.

• The final point that needs some addressing is the question of--if we have all these superhuman warriors running around, what changes does that have on society and history? And this one, more than any other, I want to gloss over without changing the real world any more than necessary. So, first of all, they have had an impact on history; but it's the same impact other famous warriors and whatnot have had. In other words, historical figures like Alexander the Great, Atilla the Hun, Genghis Khan, etc. most probably were metahumans. Legendary figures like Hercules, Beowulf, Gilgamesh, etc. are almost certainly all based on metahuman prototypes as well. But, they've always been very rare; one that really has the ability to change world history doesn't even come along once every few hundred years.

• However, given the cast of characters in even one company's roster (say, SNK) to say nothing of combining them (adding in Capcom, for instance) makes you wonder about that; there are over 100 characters in the King of Fighters series alone, about fifty or so in the Street Fighter games, and many more if you start adding in other series that have popped up over the years and are clearly related, such as Rival Schools, Final Fight, Fatal Fury, Art of Fighting, etc., then we've got a lot of characters, and there's no indication that these characters are so unique that there aren't many more in the setting that simply haven't been in the games yet. One way around this is that the proliferation of some modern technology has accelerated the growth of these techniques. With fast, safe and easy global travel, finding a martial arts master to teach you has never been easier. With the sharing of techniques and knowledge over the Internet, or by global post, even, the spread has been even faster. Many characters, such as Shadaloo's Dolls, or the Ikari Warriors, or the N.E.S.T.S. agents, literally have had their powers scientifically and/or genetically engineered for them. Populations themselves are much higher around the globe; why not just assume there's been a sharp rise in the numbers of metahumans over the last generation or two? Is this sharp rise explained by all the factors I just listed? I don't know, but I actually think it's intriguing to say that no, it's not. Something else is going on too, but what could it be exactly? Is Mother Destiny stepping in and preparing the world for something big that's coming; spinning out more potential heroes than normal? Hmmm...

Southtown: A Brief Geography, part III

Part I
Part II

The river running southward from the hinterlands marks the far eastern boundary of "original" Southtown locations, but it marks the western boundary of the locations that turn up in Mark of the Wolves' Second South. The map here, taken from the game itself, and labeled (not by me; I found this online) has all the locations that turn up in that game. Notably, you can see the river that runs near the edge of mainland Southtown, as well as East Island and Geese Island. While the Port town island and the bay area aren't shown in the map, because we know them well from other maps, that's not a big deal. The majority of the locations are on yet another island, about twice the size of East Island, and farther to the east (ironically) connected to the mainland by several bridges, at least one of which is a train bridge--if you fight Terry on his moving flatcar, you can see the train run along the beach at sunrise, stop in the station, and then cross the bridge from the mainland to the island (or vice versa--can't tell from the stage art.)

While Second South's relationship to Southtown is difficult to ascertain from the games, certainly they are close neighbors and probably work together in many ways. Like Southtown itself, Second South seems to be a large city with high rise districts, ethnic neighborhoods (Korean, in particular), and apparently gambling has been legalized. That's actually not that amazing of a claim to make now, but in 1999 when this game came out, it's important to remember that gambling was rare in the US other than in Vegas or Indian-owned casinos. Second South is also a crime-riddled city. Kain Heinlein grew up in the worst neighborhood in Second South, and rose to become a criminal kingpin. Oddly, Second South seems to be a bit more anarchic than any real US city could possibly be--it talks of seceding from the US, for instance, and Heinlein's goals of fomenting chaos so that the residents have to fight for their lives in some kind of Darwinian survival of the fittest test couldn't possibly ever fly. Of course, I've said before that that's obviously one of the main conceits of this genre overall, though--a very hands-off, laissaz-faire government that allows folks, including foreigners and minors, to travel around getting into super-powered fist-fights in all kinds of public places. Freedom!

Here's the known locations from Second South.

• Live House "Old Line" - Rock Howard's stage, and apparently his favorite hang-out. Although it supposedly welcomes hard rock musicians, based on the look, the stage BGM, the small size, and the older classic cars and hot-rods, I'd expect it to be the kind of place where middle-aged fans of Jimmy Buffet go to get drinks after work.
  
• Philanthropy Belfry - Far enough away from the Pioneer Plaza cathedral that it attracts a completely different clientele, the Philanthropy Belfry is named for the fact that the it was built on funds raised from charity. You can just see the front of it in the second phase of Terry's train stage, so it's near a passenger train station on the mainland. Although it looks nice, and has a peaceful relaxing feel (and BGM) I can't believe it's very fun to be up there in the Belfry when those giant bells are ringing. Hey, I still have a copy of The Amazing Spiderman #300 where Spiderman and Venom face off in the Belfry. Nice issue. The first real appearance of Venom was in that story arc, actually.
• Sarah Forest - The Sarah Forest is geographically quite close to the National Park swamps seen in Joe's Fatal Fury 3 stage, but it looks very different. This is probably attributable to its higher elevation--its a bit drier and cooler, and therefore looks like a typical temperate forest. Curiously, I think the karate bears are not meant to be taken too seriously, but the presence of a bald eagle sitting on a fallen tree is very atypical for the southern Florida climate.
• 5th Avenue and 2nd Street - A rather typical junction in the busy downtown area of the island portion of Second South. Also, a dramatic demonstration of why karate supers fighters should be careful about where they throw down--innocent people could be hurt in these car accidents!
• Oriental Casino "Woo" - Very close to the Korean Quarter, Oriental Casino Woo is a typical example of that particular attraction--a bit tawdry and full of flashing, blinking lights, and cheap superficially beautiful women. As casinos often are, this one is under the thumb of gangsters. Geese's criminal empire doesn't really go too far into Second South, but up and coming relative of his by marriage, Kain R. Heinlein, has been putting the squeeze on Mr. Woo for some time.
  
• S. S. P. Maneuver Field - Short for Second South Police Maneuver Field, but no municipal police force has the wherewithal to have a training facility like this, and those choppers are not police type choppers, those are military. Actually, the SSPD only lease a small portion of what is otherwise a fairly secretive government base run by the military. The headquarters of the multi-disciplinary task force to contain and control criminal superhuman fighters is also located here. Members of that organization include SSPD, like SWAT team member Kevin Rian, as well as federal agents (Mary Ryan, Vanessa, Seth), international agents (Hon Fu, Cammy White, Chun-Li), the US military (Guile, Charlie), and even mercenaries (Heidern, Leona, Ralf, Clark, Whip, etc.) In fact, former military now mercenary colonel Heidern is the head of the multidisciplinary task force, so his office is located here. Not that he's always in it, by any means.  In addition, the vast base has a number of other buildings, basement levels, and other hidden and top secret experimental facilities. While there's no warehouse housing the Ark of the Covenant in a crate, the Jin Scrolls have been relegated to just such an ignominous fate--lost in a bureaucratic paperwork shuffle and buried under hundreds of other, identical crates. Experiments and research into the illegal cloning and AI technology that the supervillain organization NESTS is so fond of takes place here as well, and when Cammy, K' and Maxima all defected from NESTS, they were debriefed here first.
• Slam "Free Field" - An extremely dangerous and run-down downtown district, full of criminal predators and the desperate. Second South also has an L-train or people mover of some sort, as demonstrated by the depiction of this neighborhood in Mark of the Wolves.
• Universal Arena - Second South has a large athletic complex that is used most often as a pro-wrestling venue. However, like all such arenas, it's frequently re-purposed for other events, and when Athena came through town on tour last, she played here as well (stages from console version of King of Fighters XI.)
• Blue Wave Harbor - This stage is under attack by a pirate band in a submarine when illustrated, but normally, it's a quiet marina and harbor, for commerce as well as personal pleasure craft. In this, it's a rival to the harbors and marinas of Sound Beach and Port town, but it staunchly faces away from them on the far side of Second South Island, as if unwilling to even look at its colleagues. This harbor is poorly patrolled, and because it's the closest to the open ocean to the east, drug smugglers on smaller yachts and other pleasure craft tend to favor Blue Wave Harbor over those in Southtown.
• Barbaroi Falls - While the Barbaroi River seems to be the final, most eastward boundary of the original run of Fatal Fury, Art of Fighting and King of Fighters locations in Southtown, it's the westernmost boundary for Second South. As the waters rush down from the cooler mountains of the Sarah Forest to the swampy delta of National Park and the river's mouth on the coast, it changes elevation rapidly, and Barbaroi Falls is the most scenic and dramatic of several falls.
• Yok Chong Market - In the Korean Quarter, this is an open air bazaar and market. Livestock and ethnic food can be purchased here, and most of the signs and conversation is in Korean. In addition, there are Taekwando dojos located here, and rivals from the various schools, easily set apart by their different-colored uniforms, often meet in this open air plaza for demonstration matches when the weather is good.
• Freight Express - Part of the same railway system that runs through Southtown, the Freight Express, it's motto "Running Wild" is a local branch of the nationwide railway, Orion Pacific. Seen in Terry's stage, this is really three different locations completely--the first phase is a sunrise ride along the mainland coast, showing the rural suburbs and environs around Southtown and Second South to the east and north. Stopping briefly on the mainland, near Philanthropy Belfry is a passenger train station, where commuters board to head to Second South Island. And the part mapped here (and shown in the third phase of Terry's stage in MOW) is on the long bridge that crosses the channel leading to the island. The Freight Express continues westward to Southtown as well. Besides passengers, one of its most common loads is lumber, from the forested foothills and mountains around Southtown and Second South to Port town, where it will be shipped around the nation and the world.

Southtown: A Brief Geography, part II

Part I
Part III

Let's go through town, now, and take a look at known locations in and around Southtown. Let's start with the map below, which is a slightly modified and labelled take on the Fatal Fury 3 map, incorporating all of the known Art of Fighting and Fatal Fury locations. Second South will be the subject of a separate annotated map further down the page.

1. National Park - The National Park is the location of Ryo's horse barn stage from Art of Fighting 2, as well as Joe's swamp stage with the prominent alligator from Fatal Fury 3. Although the coloration of the Art of Fighting 2 map seems to suggest some terrain relief, Joe's stage in particular seems to show that there are large areas of low, flat wetlands. This national park probably also extends to the other side of the river, at least as an undeveloped area if not actually administered by the park service. As it gets into the foothills further east, we come to Barbaroi Falls and the Sarah Forest from Mark of the Wolves.
2. Pioneer Plaza - It seems unusual that such a large cathedral would be located on the outskirts of town, far from where the majority of the people can easily use it. Of course, perhaps that's exactly why Mary Ryan hangs out there so much--it's quiet and lonely. Named for the early settlers of the area, this relic reflects a time before the center of commerce migrated south and west, or south and east, to the Central City district, or to Second South. Although religious Southtowners no doubt have many other options for more local churches, the cathedral in Pioneer Plaza is still the largest in town, and serves as a popular spot for Sunday Mass and for weddings of the rich and famous.
3. Garcia Mansion - Robert Garcia and his family live in this wide open quiet suburb, with bay side views, and large estates. Only the very rich can afford the exorbitant price of land here, and because they are very rich, they don't just buy plots, they buy acres and acres and build mansions surrounded by park-like gardens, forests, and other buffers that keep the hustle and bustle of Southtown itself at arm's length.
4. Southtown Airport - This international airport has flights coming in from all over the world, particular from Latin America, Europe and the Far East, as well, of course, as from other areas within the US. In addition to bringing fighters into Southtown to compete in the King of Fighters tournaments, and for other reasons, the airport itself has often become the scene for battles between super-powered fighters. Luckily, these fights tend to take place out on the tarmac, or occasionally within the vast airplane repair and construction facilities housed on the airport grounds.
   
5. Karate Gym - In point of fact, there are two karate gym locations, one from Art of Fighting and one from Art of Fighting 2. Not only that, there's a bonus area that looks just like a karate gym that would be right smack in the middle of the map where no numbers are but several streets cross. Other gyms and dojos pepper the town, of course, an artifact of the important Asian minority population on Southtown.
6. Kaluta - A Japanese garden and park, where the Todoh's train.
7. Crawley's Airfield - This small, private airfield has small, crop-duster type planes. It's located outside of the city proper, and is in a fairly rural location, not far from the National park. That said, Joe Crawley, a former military pilot, and his small airfield are well positioned to smuggle things into Southtown, willingly and knowingly or otherwise.
8. Boxing Gym - This seedy little dive is where Mickey Rogers trains. For a reforming villain and gangster, Mickey is patriotic, with a large American flag on the wall of his gym, and he manages to stay under the radar of the new wave of crime headed by Howard Connection, probably because it's a private, not a public gym.
9. Delta Park - Delta Park is east of the thickly concentrated downtown area, but because it's on the main through way headed towards East Island, a lot of traffic heads by it routinely. Delta Park is most notable for it's large statue of a Chinese dragon, shaded by balconied terraces. It was also famously the location of the showdown between Terry Bogard and the Jin boys, who were manhandling the secrets of immortality in an attempt to rule the world.
10. Mac's Bar - Mac's bar is a typical biker dive. It's dimly lit, the patrons and service are surly and world-weary, there's crackling neon signs and pool tables, and fights break out fairly regularly.
11. Chinatown - Just east of the downtown cluster is Chinatown, a densely built and packed district with a far Eastern flavor. Although it's called Chinatown, and resembles Hong Kong superficially in some respects, it's really more cosmopolitan than that, featuring lots of Japanese and other Asian residents as well as, of course, Chinese. The Southtown tourism board has purchased a few multistory buses that provide public transportation throughout this district at a low price. It's bustling open-air markets are a major tourist attraction from elsewhere in the city as well.
    
12. Downtown - Downtown has known better days. While there are still active office buildings and skyscrapers throughout the district, downtown is a seedy and dangerous place, and the businessmen and women who work here don't stop for anyone or anything--they head straight to their secured parking garages when at work, and straight home in the suburbs otherwise. As East Island has become much more developed, and even Second South turned into a major high-rise district, they have done so largely at the expense of the original Southtown downtown.
13. Port Town - Although it's difficult to tell from this map, the original Art of Fighting map, as well as this other image (from the Kula team ending of King of Fighters 2000) show that Port town is really an island district, and that fat connection should be rendered as merely a slim bridge. The Port town district is, as you can imagine, mostly a working district. Docks, cranes, warehouses and factories cover the entire small island and dockworkers, crane operators, truck drivers and more keep this district bustling at all times of the day or night. Although crime has taken hold of this district, as it has all of Southtown, this is also still the district that is most capable of earning a semi-honest profit, and many folks who work here are simple and honest people. Whether in the grip of the gangs, the protection rackets, the unions, or otherwise, most people here try to keep a low profile, earn a paycheck, and go back to their homes across the bridge. The construction elevator where you can fight Hon Fu, as well as get a scenic view of the entire city is located here.
14. Docks - The stage where Temjin hangs out with his coworkers putting stuff from the ships onto trucks and vice versa. The crane scene from King of Fighters NeoWave is located near here too, as is Kula's stage on the rusted waterfront.
15. Factories - The stage where Mr. Big hangs out, as well as factory stages from King of Fighters 2000 and King of Fighters NeoWave.
16. U.S.S. Guardian - Nestled just on the mainland side of the channel that separates downtown Southtown from the Port town district is a small military base. I say small, but it's large enough to be the home berth of the carrier U.S.S. Guardian. The military keeps to itself and doesn't involve itself much in the affairs of Southtown, although they do have to cross through it frequently--if nothing else the S.S.P. Maneuver Field is on the far side of Second South, and they cooperate closely with that base as well.
17. South Station - South Station is final stop on the mainland of the Central City district. In fact "stop" is no longer accurate; as the importance of this stop has faded, most trains just rumble on past without even slowing on their way across the rail bridges to the Port town island. Because of this, South Station is generally deserted and weed-grown, and if anyone is seen here at all, they're probably up to no good. Considering this is where Ryuji Yamazaki hangs out in the game where he makes his first appearance, that assessment is even more likely to be true. Yamazaki is always up to no good. It's curious that the rail lines make an extraordinary use of steam engines still, many decades after they faded away elsewhere. The Southtown tourism board, again, keeps them on as a tourist attraction. Although railfans certainly don't come to South Station to see the steam engines (unless they want to get mugged) as the trains steam back and forth between Southtown and Second South, making their way along the coast and through the hilly lands of the National park, the Sarah Forest and passing within sight of Barbaroi falls, crossing bridges from island to island, they do indeed make a nice tourist attraction, and several times a day trains with local passengers who come just to ride the rails pass all through the metro area. Another curious fact; when fighting Yamazaki, you may notice that timber is a common load on the trains, making its way to the ships where it is an important export from the Southtown region.
18. Fitness Club - Yuri Sakazaki works as an aerobics (and possibly Zumba) instructor at this fitness club. It's pretty typical for that kind of establishment; with wide open windows to let in the sunlight, lots of lifting opportunities, tanning beds and more. While I've seen it claimed that Mr. Karate's stage is the same as the fitness club, that's nonsense. Mr. Karate's stage is an old fashioned dojo lit by basketed open fires while the fitness club is a very modern facility. They are, however, very close to each other.
19. Karate Theatre - Mr. Karate's stage from the first Art of Fighting game.
20. L'Amor - While I've focused on many of the seedier places in Southtown (not surprisingly given that both the Art of Fighting and the Fatal Fury games are gang-driven stories) the entire town isn't a cesspool. The restaurant where King worked as a bouncer, and then later as owner, L'Amor, is one such place. The rich and famous in Southtown frequently find their way here for an evening of fine dining, and listen to the piano of the highly professional musicians that King keeps on retainer. Of course, even L'Amor isn't immune from the gangs and their protection rackets, and while King hates and despises the criminals, she's occasionally been unwittingly forced into working with them from time to time. Perhaps because of this, King has gradually phased out her direct involvement with L'Amor, and opened up various more "common" establishments across town, in friendly rivalry and competition with Richard Meyer and his Pao Pao Cafes.
21. East Side Park - Although the other interpretation of Southtown that I've seen has the East Side Park and Southtown Park as two separate entities, although really close to each other, I think this is a much better and more likely arrangement--Southtown park is just a generic name for East Side Park, which is just one place. Sporting a large Ferris wheel, a castle, a fortune teller, a roller coaster on a large fake mountain peak, an aquarium, and a large greenhouse and shopping area underneath a massive glass roof, East Side Park offers a variety of entertainments for Southtowners. It can be seen from Hon Fu's stage after the elevator rises high enough above the roofs of the warehouses and factories, it's also a stage in Art of Fighting 2 and Real Bout Fatal Fury. The Aquarium for Mai's stage in Fatal Fury 3 is located here, as well as, probably, the aquarium from King of Fighters 2000. The greenhouse from King of Fighters Neowave, where the blimp flies overhead, is also here, and although the Ferris wheel from King of Fighters XI is no doubt meant to be the London Eye, I'm going to rule that the East Side Park essentially copied their design, so that that can be in Southtown too.  The view from Hon Fu's construction elevator shows that there is a rocky hill or small mountain here too, and that East Side park nestles right up in its lap.
22. Pao Pao Cafe 2 - The Pao Pao Cafe is a fixture of Southtown, so Richard Meyer hired his associate Bob to open this Central City Pao Pao 2 on the mainland. Instead of a Chinese theme with a massive statue of a dragon, this one features a Polynesian theme, with changing lights in the face of a giant tiki idol. The exterior back alley of this cafe can also be seen in King of Fighters XI, which shows us a number of young delinquents loitering about long after they should be somewhere else, but highlights the dangerous sport of bullet bike racing through the Southtown alleys in the predawn hours. Because super-powered fighters frequently hang out in (and get into fights in) the Pao Pao cafes, they have a tendency to do so outside on the streets as well.
23. Geese Tower - Leaving Central City and the mainland behind, Geese tower is located on a small island east of East island, along with a number of other high rise buildings. This island, as well as most of East Island, is hyper developed, looking like a south Atlantic version of Long Island. Geese Tower itself is the most important landmark here, to the point where the small island has acquired the common nickname of Geese Island. Geese Tower itself is the tallest building in town, and his office takes up the entire top floor. On top of his office is his open air roof, decorated like a Japanese temple (although oddly sporting numerous American flag motifs as well) including several very large statues. Both the office and the rooftop have been pictured several times as game stages by SNK--the former in Art of Fighting 2 and King of Fighters NeoWave, the latter in Fatal Fury, Fatal Fury Special, Fatal Fury 3, Real Bout Fatal Fury, Real Bout Fatal Fury Special and Real Bout Fatal Fury 3, not to mention it being a prominent location in Capcom's Capcom vs. SNK. In Fatal Fury 3 the roof caught fire and was significantly damaged, having to be rebuilt.
24. Southtown Bridge - On the map this looks like a fat connector again, but it's not--this is the Southtown bridge, a large suspension bridge (the largest of many in town) that connects East Island to Geese Island. Fights have happened both on the bridge itself (Fatal Fury, King of Fighers NeoWave) as well as at the base of its pillars (Real Bout Fatal Fury, King of Fighers '94, King of Fighters '98).
25. Pao Pao Cafe - The original Pao Pao cafe, which has featured as a location across all three main SNK fighting game series. Again, the map makes this look like it's on a fat land bridge; it's actually a slim man-made bridge, or series of them more accurately, that connect East Island to the Central City mainland.
26. Parking Garage - There's lots of parking garages throughout Southtown, as in any major urban downtown area. The one where you meet Mr. Big happens to be very close to the Pao Pao.
27. Howard Arena - Named after Geese, after a donation from him restored this park, Howard Arena is Japanese garden and temple, not unlike the Byodo-In temple on O'ahu in Hawai'i. It's frequently very quiet here, and few people visit the "arena." Possibly that's because fighters like Andy Bogard and Tung Fu Rue are often here, and as sworn enemies of Geese Howard, folks are worried about getting caught in the crossfire. For whatever reason, it seems more prone to rain on the Howard Arena than in the rest of town, although I'm sure that's an artifact of perception rather than a reality.
    
28. West Subway - The west subway is the busiest stop in Southtown. Oddly, it's the only stop we know of, although clearly a subway that doesn't go anywhere isn't of much use to anyone, so the lack of detail does not imply an actual lack of other stops. As well as the actual subway stop, made famous in Real Bout Fatal Fury, there is an above-ground L-train or People-mover type train can be seen in the background of Duck King's stage in the original Fatal Fury, proving that such transportation exists in Southtown as well.
29. Dream Amusement Park - The Dream Amusement Park is a complex with lots of different attractions, including a pirate ship, a Big Thunder type roller coaster on a fake mountain spire, a large ferris wheel, a cowboy town, and an Egyptian themed area complete with sand and pyramids and other ruins.
30. Sound Beach (Sand) - Although many fans discussing the geography of Southtown seem
    
    confused by the location of Sound Beach relative to Happy Park you have to keep in mind that the original Fatal Fury map was not meant to be an accurate image of the layout of the city, just an iconographical representation of the various areas in which you had to go to fight opponents. The image of Happy Park shows that it's clearly not on the waterfront itself--Sound Beach therefore wraps around most if not all of the southern shore of East Island. It needs to--it's been illustrated in game stages many times and always differently, meaning that it needs to have enough geographical differentiation to allow for wide, white sandy beaches, marinas, piers, and waterfront shopping areas and more all along the beach. Surfing is obviously a popular pastime, so it must face the Atlantic and get decent waves. There is also a Jeep-based lifeguard service on the beach, although it's not clear how extensive an area they cover. And, according to King of Fighters XI, there's even a shop where you can buy, rent, or have repaired surplus military vehicles like jeeps. Sound Beach is usually one of the very first stages you encounter in the very first Fatal Fury game, where you fight Michael Max next to a surf shop right on the beach itself. Sound Beach returns again as a sheltered marina as Terry's stage in Fatal Fury 3, as a nightlife hotspot in Real Bout Fatal Fury, and as an idyllic white sand beach in Real Bout Special and King of Fighters XI.
    
31. Sound Beach (Marina) - The Fatal Fury 3 map locates Sound Beach here, and has a sheltered marina.
32. Happy Park - The last location for Southtown proper, before we turn to Second South, is Happy Park, known only from a single appearance in the first Fatal Fury game. It's clearly not on the waterfront itself, and is notable for it's pleasant plazas and pedestrian traffic, it's old country Bavarian architecture, and as the location where the Real Bout martial arts store is located--a place where the fighters who frequently pass through Southtown get new martial arts uniforms, gis, fighting gloves, and more.

Southtown: A Brief Geography, part I

Part II
Part III

The SNK games in particular make a lot of mention of the city of Southtown. It's the fictional setting for two of the three Art of Fighting titles, three of the Fatal Fury games (and still features as a location even in the more "global" titles) and features prominently in several King of Fighters titles as well. Capcom has the less well developed but overall relatively similar Metro City--it's easy as pie to combine them. Because Southtown is more developed, with more stages, more history, and more detail all around, for my purposes the two towns will be collapsed into a single one, and for the most part, it defaults to the SNK version of Southtown. About the only thing that needs taking from Metro City is that Mike Haggar is the mayor, and that Mad Gear Gang has been making inroads into the town while Geese was absent following his first defeat by Terry Bogard.

Although fictional, Southtown has been confirmed to have been loosely based on the real city of Miami. The little icon from Fatal Fury 2 confirms that it's in the far southeast. Although here it looks like it's up in the panhandle of Florida instead of on the tip, that's not meant to be taken too literally; the icon is a large bit of graphics that's only supposed to be vaguely related to an actual spot on the vague outline of the lower 48 states.  If you look at the other image above, though, you will see a skyline that looks nothing like the Miami skyline.  Where do all of these green mountains come from?  And where's all of the Cuban and Caribbean influence, rather than Asian influence which is shown repeatedly in the games?  I've decided that I believe the most likely source of this is that the Japanese developers say that it's based on Miami, but in reality it's based on the only US city that most Japanese tourists are likely to be very familiar with: Honolulu.  Hawaii has a huge ethnic Japanese component (as well as Chinese and other Asian elements).  It also has a military and industrial port (an important component of Southtown) and lots of Asian-themed architecture.  It's as if the developers wanted it to be Miami, but since Honolulu was the only city in the US that they really knew very well, they imagined that Miami must be just like Honolulu.  In any case, simply imagine that a city very much like Honolulu, including the mountain/jungle topography all around it, were somehow transported in toto to the tip of the Florida peninsula, and you basically have Southtown as it is presented to us in the games.

This series of posts, then, discusses more of the details of the geography of Southtown rather than this big picture view.  While SNK have indeed given us lots of detail about Southtown, the problem is that the detail doesn't always match from one title to another. Most of the geographical information comes from the first two Art of Fighting games, Fatal Fury 1 and Fatal Fury 3, with a major add-on in the form of the Second South sister city that was the setting for Fatal Fury: Mark of the Wolves. Let's start with what each game gives us, in order of release.

Fatal Fury - The first Fatal Fury game was released late in 1991, and is the first appearance (I believe) of Southtown as a setting. The setting for Southtown in this game was meant to be more or less "now", i.e., in the early 90s when the game was released. The geography is very constrained; there's a kidney bean shaped city surrounded by water with only a thin connection to a mainland beyond (bridge, probably, although not clear) and there's another bridge that connects this island to another island to the right, which appears to be east southeast. The images from the stages in game as well as pre-game demos and other images here and there clearly show a very large suspension bridge, that connects these two islands to each other. They also show a dynamic skyline full of skyscrapers. There is a subway, which is perhaps a bit odd in a place like Miami where the water table is high and the city is traditionally lashed by hurricanes, but hey, I said it was only loosely based on Miami, right? There's a big amusement park, the famous Pao Pao Cafe (which appears over and over again in SNK games) and a beach with pretty good waves that are apparently good enough to surf in, and a Japanese temple and garden. The town also seems to be surrounded by low mountains. At one point we see Terry on a high, craggy rock looking out at the town, and we can see the mountains surrounding the town. In fact, looking back at that list of characteristics, its clear that although Southtown is supposedly set in Florida, clearly the point of reference, and the real American city that it most closely resembles, is Honolulu. Considering how many people of Japanese ethnicity live in Hawaii, and how many actual Japanese people visit the islands for vacation, maybe that's not surprising for a game made by Japanese. Besides movies and soldiers on the bases in Okinawa and whatnot, that's probably the most likely frame of reference the Japanese have of America.  The screenshot of a map above seems to indicate that what we see is the majority of the town, but as we'll see shortly, that quickly changed, as every other game had the original Fatal Fury part of Southtown as merely "East Island"--SNK's version of Manhattan to the greater New York City on the mainland.

Art of Fighting - 1992's Art of Fighting was a significant departure and significant addition to the canon of Southtown related details. For one thing, it completely ignores the East Island altogether, and develops part of the "mainland" area of town that's west and north of East Island. Because of this complete lack of overlap, all of the locations that it shows are completely new. This game also takes place during the heyday of Hong Kong theater, i.e. in the 70s. This is problematic in some ways. Because the Art of Fighting games take place in the same continuity as the Fatal Fury games, but a good fifteen to twenty years earlier, the characters from one can't really appear in the same games as the characters from the other without being aged. That never stopped SNK, though--Ryo showed up in Fatal Fury Special, and of course, all kinds of characters from both series appeared in all of the King of Fighters games. Arguably, it was the concept of combining the Art of Fighting characters with the Fatal Fury characters that led to the genesis of the King of Fighters series in the first place. "Officially" the King of Fighters continuity is different from that of Art of Fighting and Fatal Fury, which is how they can all exist at the same time without Ryo being old enough to have his own kids fighting in Fatal Fury. 

The first Art of Fighting game establishes that an industrial port district is located on the western tip of the city, including a Navy base of some kind sufficient to berth an aircraft carrier. This was on another smaller island. The "mainland" has several seedy downtown slums, Mac's Bar, a run-down biker bar, a Chinatown district, the restaurant King works at, L'Amor (in later games, particularly in King of Fighters, she actually seems to own these restaurants) and last but not least, another different Japanese temple and garden spot. Overall, the place seems to be a rough town without a lot of social graces. Gangs are (as in Fatal Fury the year before) shown to be probably the most important player in the city, and poverty and crime are shown in stark relief. Is this because that's the focus of the games, and not necessarily indicative of the city overall? Yeah, probably, but still... it's clearly a major facet of Southtown still. Also, as you can see, the nature of the new locations further the resemblance to Honolulu rather than to Miami, and the gangs specifically make it feel like a Hawaii 5-0 rip-off in a way.

Art of Fighting 2 - In 1994, Art of Fighting had a sequel. In this game, for the first time, the parts of Southtown from the two series are merged into a map that shows them both, in context with each other, and which also show some of the more far-flung suburbs and regions just outside of town, including the airport, a national park, and the ritzy neighborhoods with expansive grounds where Robert Garcia's manor is, for instance. It shows a river running through the eastern edge of town, and even has a number of streets named. A few locations, like the horse barn of "National Park" and Crawley's Air Field actually seem to be almost rural in nature, but they're far to the northeast of the downtown area. Chinatown looks more like downtown Hong Kong than it does an American city with a Chinatown, which is actually kinda nifty. And of course, many locations are the kinds of things that you'd expect to see in most large cities, especially with an Asian minority population--martial arts dojos, fitness clubs, and places like that.

Fatal Fury 3 - The next year, 1995, had the release of Fatal Fury 3. After jumping across the globe for Fatal Fury 2 and Fatal Fury Special, we return to Southtown, a more contained story, Geese as the villain, and we get another view of the town. This time, the geography is more consistent with that of Art of Fighting 2, although naturally it showcases some different locations. There's a mainland East Side park, with a large aquarium. This can also be seen in the distance from Hon Fu's stage, which is an open air construction elevator in the far western port town part of the city. East Side park also has a large ferris wheel, for instance, and a zoo, as well as a Disney-esque castle. There's also a rocky hill or small mountain near the park. From the top of the elevator, you can see out over the water. There's a small island in the bay that has a building or monument of some kind built on it. We also see that there's a second Pao Pao Cafe on the mainland, making that a small chain rather than simply a stand-alone place. There's a large cathedral in Pioneer Plaza, and the National Park is shown here to be a tropical swamp complete with alligators and weird carved tiki heads or some other kind of idol. And Dream Amusement Park looks less like an amusement park and more like an actual cowboy town stuck in the middle of the city--although in the first daylight version of the park, you can barely see the skyscrapers through the haze; it's only for the sunset and afterwards stages that the skyline is clearly defined. And near the run-down industrial district of port town is a train station, South Station, which oddly enough seems to sport a lot of steam engine traffic. I think that has more to do with the designers at SNK (and at Capcom, for that matter) being obvious railfans than anything else--there's a surprising amount of train featuring stages in games from both companies. Sound Beach is clearly not all just sandy breakers, as wharves and other more built up areas are shown. We see Delta Park, yet another area with Chinese style statues. And finally, we also see that there's a big airplane manufacturing facility at or near the airport.

Fatal Fury: Mark of the Wolves - The final Art of Fighting game leaves Southtown behind and explores Mexico of the 1970s. Fatal Fury Real Bout doesn't give us new locations, although it does show us a few surprising sides to the locations we already know. We see more of Sound Beach again, looking less like a beach and more like an entertainment district waterfront. East Side Park has a weird indoor greenhouse/garden/shopping mall with a gigantic Easter Island-esque head. Terry, the most famous native of Southtown, appears to spend some time in the American southwest, at a lonely gas station on a wide stretch of road, with buttes and mesas in the background. Of course, it's always possible that the designers didn't think that that would be far away from southern Florida too and just aren't very familiar with American geography.  Or, they simply didn't care very much.  Neither would be surprising. 

We get slightly different views of Sound Beach again in Real Bout Special. It's really not until Real Bout as a subseries is over and the Mark of the Wolves game is released that we get a major new take on Southtown, though. Here we're treated to an all new geography that seems completely unfamiliar, as well as all new locations. The latter isn't too weird, given that another generation (about) is supposed to have passed between the mainline Fatal Fury games and this last chapter in the series, but the former is harder to explain. Careful examination, however, shows that these new locations are all located just to the east of the other Fatal Fury locations, and the tip of East Island, and Geese Tower's little island can just be seen on the western edge of the map. This Southtown is actually supposed to be an all new city, and given the rural areas located in the land between them, it looks like they must be twin cities that are located very close to each other, like Dallas and Fort Worth, but all part of a single expanded metro area. Second South, as the new city is called, has many features in common with the original Southtown, including having a concentrated, highly urbanized island connected by bridges to the mainland, Asian ethnic neighborhoods, a harbor, train station, slums, a pro wrestling arena, a large church, and it even has the Sarah Forest and Barbaroi Falls, which are near the National Park area shown in earlier games. Maybe the falls indicate a rapidly changing elevation, which would be consistent with some of the stuff shown in some games that has the town nestled amidst some low mountains. It would also go a long way towards explaining how more temperate forests can be in the same place as a tropical, swampy rainforest.

King of Fighters - NESTS - Southtown featured prominently in the NESTS saga too; notably in that the finals for King of Fighters 2000 were supposed to take place there, and at the end of the game, Southtown is destroyed by the space-based Zero Cannon! Oddly, that is hardly mentioned again, and not long afterwards, it seems to be thriving again. I think it more likely that there was an attack on the city, which did cause some destruction, but that it wasn't as extensive as all that after all. A few buildings downtown were destroyed, people were killed, the nation was shocked, etc. but life went on, most of the city remained intact, and within a few months life went to to something not too unlike normal. Curiously, although the King of Fighters series, like the Street Fighter series, sent fighters all over the globe to fight, the locations in '99 and '00 are not identifiable as belonging to a specific country. In fact, it's possible that they are all located in Southtown (with the exception of the flying rocket ship and the satellite, of course, from King of Fighters 2000)--the only one that is problematic is the Korea stage from '00. Which could possibly indicate a Koreantown neighborhood. Since one shows up in Second South in Mark of the Wolves that's not even a difficult bridge to cross. The "Egypt stage" from '00 was even labeled as a Dream Amusement Park locale in at least one source I've seen before which, if true, would strengthen the notion that almost all the stages from both games actually represent Southtown localities. It doesn't really add significantly to the canon of what is available in Southtown either--it postulates that Krizalid's secret base was underneath Southtown somewhere. Since the Zero Cannon attacked Southtown in an effort to destroy the NESTS base, that's not even new news. A natural history museum, complete with dinosaur skeletons, and an Egyptian themed part of Dream Amusement Park, complete with lots of sand and pyramids, are the only significant adds in terms of what the stages show--we already had an aquarium, factories, various parks and urban areas, an airport, and a Chinatown.

Although not strictly necessary, other location stages here and there from King of Fighters titles might represent localities in Southtown. Notably, the Sound Beach stage in King of Fighters XI most certainly does. The sunset over an industrial landscape which is the "USA Stage" from King of Fighters '95 would be consistent with a Southtown location, as would several stages from King of Fighters '96 including the docks of the Yagami team stage, the waterfront of the New Ikari stage, and the restaurant of the New Women Fighters stage. And the two USA stages from King of Fighters '98 could easily fit here too; the basketball stage at the base of a large suspension bridge (which is a remake of a very similar stage from King of Fighters '94) looks like a slightly different angle of the bridge seen in Fatal Fury and Real Bout Fatal Fury, and the train yard, like Southtown's trains, features a surprising amount of steam still in use. And finally, the ultra non-canonical King of Fighters Neowave has unidentified locations, almost all of which could be reasonably placed in Southtown as well, including the interior of yet another factory, more urban suspension bridges, another view of a train yard, another view of a working dock, the interior of a large clock tower (possibly the same clock tower we see the exterior of in the Dreamcast version of King of Fighters '99?), and the interior of what could possibly be the Howard Arena temple grounds!

While there's no really compelling reason to place any of these locations in Southtown really, except for the destruction of Southtown as part of the NESTS story, which hints at a NESTS base being underground in Southtown somewhere, there's also no reason not to place these other stages from various KoF titles, especially 99, 2000 and Neowave, within Southtown itself. With few exceptions, all it does is add another view to locations that we already knew Southtown had, or could reasonably presume that a city like Southtown would have anyway.

Of course, as has been said before, the Fatal Fury and the King of Fighters continuities are not supposed to overlap. For my purposes, this is immaterial--I'm not only collapsing the continuities (or more likely, utilizing the King of Fighters continuity, adapted, since it already adapts the Art of Fighting and Fatal Fury continuities itself.) In somewhat brief and genericized terms, that means that we know a little bit about Southtown, where it came from, and how it got to be the way it is when we first encounter it. Made up of the same ethnic mix that populates most of the US, Southtown also has a stronger than normal Asian influence on some of its architecture, some of its neighborhoods, monuments and decorations at various parks and other places around town, and in its restaurants. Organized crime has always been a major problem in Southtown; both Italian mafia as well as Asian groups--Yakuza and Triads--have worked over the city. Geese Howard's Howard Connection, a much more organized outfit with a legitimate face, clamped down on most of the organized crime in Southtown, incorporated the best and brightest of its former rivals (Mr. Big), and marginalized or eliminated the rest. Unknown to Geese, however, a major international syndicate set up shop here. They perhaps flew under his radar because they didn't dabble as much in the "day to day" crime of smuggling, racketeering, and whatnot, and instead focused on high tech illegal experimentation with human cloning, AI, and the creation of super-powered human beings.  This new gang is NESTS, an international conglomerate originally birthed in the Yakuza, but now multi-ethnic and multi-headed.  NESTS itself stands for Nipponese Expatriate Shadow Trading Syndicate, and is sometimes nicknamed the Shadow Law, or Shadaloo.

Shuddering back to life...

Well, it's been a ridiculously long time since I have had a post on this blog.  Nearly a year.  As it happens, it's been a ridiculously long time since I played one of these games (although not quite that long.)  The last two evenings, I've managed to spend half an hour or so each with Street Fighter Alpha 3 and Real Bout Fatal Fury 2--two of the best games in the genre, and classics from the mid to late 90s era Golden Age of karate supers.

In addition; a few other developments.  My old Xbox died.  This means that I no longer have access to some of my titles that were exclusive to that console, or for which I never bought PS2 equivalents.  I'm finding, however, that I don't really care all that much.  My attitude, which was more like a completionist collector, in many respects, is now one of "I'd rather own a few games that I actually will want to play" rather than a bunch of titles that I only get out once in a blue moon to remind myself why I don't like them as much as their brethren.  Of the titles I have, that means that really only KoF2002 will be missed on the Xbox, and if I really wanted to, I could get that for the PS2 anyway (and I'd have liked to get the upgraded Unlimited Match version of that anyway--which isn't readily available in my market.  Grrr.)

I also still haven't gotten an Xbox 360 or a PS3... although both are now "aged" technology with replacements that have been in the market for a little while.  The price hasn't really dropped, though, and SF4 continues to get revisions (the supposed last one due to come out this summer sometime) and I've spent money that I could have used to feed this hobby on a slew of new backpacking gear instead.  Frankly, this hobby waned in my attention, and I haven't given it much thought.  But it didn't go away completely (like my interest in tabletop miniatures wargames has), it merely slumbered.  I'd like to revisit just a few things in the next little bit, and I'd like to play some of my old games a bit again too.  I'd like to get a new system, and I'm now leaning a bit towards the PS3 rather than the 360, since it will have the latest SF4 title, KoFXIII and the upgraded MvC3 titles--really all that I probably even want, at this point.  Maybe I should haunt garage sales and whatnot looking for one?  I still remain pretty cheap, and with a son going off to college in the near future, that's not likely to change soon either.

However, I'd like to archive a few of my websites; converted and upgraded, perhaps, into blog posts.  I'm more confident that blogger will be here than freewebs in five to ten years, frankly, and I've already been burned with content that I lost when Geocities died.  Better to keep stuff handy.

I'll start by converting my Southtown geography pages into blog posts.  Ironically, it looks like the last time I blogged--nearly 11 months ago--I addressed that topic lightly.  It will perhaps seem as if I'm fixated on the subject.  Ah, well.  I don't really blog all that much anyway.