Fatal Fury is one of those video game series that has done pretty well for itself. It has tons of games and remakes over the years and yet it has always struggled to reach the same heights as Street Fighter and Tekken. It’s tough for any fighting series to match those two though. Street Fighter has decades of legacy among the core fans and Tekken has its legendary story. Fury is sort of stuck in the middle of that and has to share a lot of screentime with King of Fighters. Still, this is a pretty fun game to check out on the Nintendo Switch Online. A true retro title that keeps you on your toes.

I jumped right into Arcade Mode and naturally picked Terry Bogard as my character. That guy is a whole lot of fun to play and he’s also a good all around fighter. So I couldn’t really ask for much more than that. The arcade mode is quite a bit longer than the average one. Usually you have around 8 fights in this mode but this game went closer to 15. Not bad eh? It really makes you work for this and you fight all kinds of secret bosses.

It was a good decision because it does make you feel like you are playing the special version here. The gameplay is very smooth and you will have fun mixing up your combos. The game does a good job of not letting it feel like the villains know all of your moves ahead of time. You can actually “trick” them with a mixup every once in a while which was definitely a good thing. It helps make the whole thing feel more realistic.

Naturally the graphics are fun with the retro sprite look. It will feel like you were playing the game right at the arcade. The soundtrack is also very old school and fast paced to match the action. There are a good amount of levels for the game considering how old it is. There isn’t an abundance of content here so the value is really going to be in the multiplayer. That’s true for most fighting games to be honest. I’d say the ones with a robust story mode are outnumbered by the multiplayer ones, certainly back in these days that was even more true.

So compared to newer games in the series this one won’t be able to compete but if you look at it in a vacuum, this is a good game. It’s very basic but delivers what you are looking for in a fighting game. The characters all have distinct movesets and the combat is executed well. The gameplay is smooth and the game doesn’t seem overly unbalanced. I’m sure it probably would be in the hands of an expert but for the most part on a casual level it feels like the devs did a really good job here.

At this point I own most of the Fatal Fury games. I’m certainly not caught up but I’m always glad to play a fun fighter like this one. The Switch Online has been a great way to play through a lot of retro games so I look forward to seeing which ones come up next. There is certainly still room for quite a lot more titles in the future especially if they keep on adding more consoles.

You probably won’t need rewind a whole lot for this one compared to some of the other old games but of course it can never really hurt. Some of the secret bosses at the end can really hit like a tank and the game’s sped is just fast enough where it can be difficult to react to their attacks at times. You have to absolutely bring your A game at all times and also have to be careful not throwing out too many big hits. They deal a lot of damage but naturally leave you open for quite a while as well.

Overall, Fatal Fury Special is a really good game. It’s one of those titles that reminds you of the fundamentals the whole time. You can’t just close your eyes and start spamming specials. Instead you have to slowly close the gap and win. Also I couldn’t figure out how to use most of the special attacks even if I wanted to do them. So I did a lot of sweeps and throws which is a fun and balanced way to play anyway. I would definitely recommend checking this game out.

Overall 7/10