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A new legend is about to begin.

Certainly, they existed...
Those blinded by ambition.
Those consumed with vengeance.
But here, they do not exist.
Only winners and losers here.
For here, THE MIGHTY RULE!

Fatal Fury, known in Japan as Garou Densetsu (Legend of the Hungry Wolves), is a Fighting Game series by SNK that was released for the Neo Geo arcade and home video game systems.

The story of the series is set in the fictional city of Southtown, USA, and starts many years before the events of the first game, when martial artist Jeff Bogard adopts two orphans, whom he names Terry and Andy. Later, crime lord Geese Howard killed Jeff Bogard, an event that young Terry witnesses. Swearing revenge, both brothers start to train, to fight Geese in his "King of Fighters" tournament. Andy leaves to train in Japan and Terry stays in Southtown. Ten years later, in 1991, the brothers and Andy's friend Joe Higashi enter the King of Fighters to avenge their father.

The first game only has three playable characters, and an interesting mechanic in which a second player joining in the middle of a fight will join the first player in double-teaming their present opponent before facing each other. The sequel drops this mechanic and adopts the World Tournament format used in Street Fighter II, introducing five new playable characters, and new bosses. More characters and villains are introduced in subsequent sequels, and the original Big Bad Geese Howard also returns in most of them.

The distinctive characteristic of the series is the ability of the characters to fight in two different planes in most stages, giving them the capability to avoid attacks by moving between planes. This system would undergo some changes after the third installment and was dropped altogether for the last game.Games in the series:

While the last installment of the series appeared in late 1999, many of its characters are still widely popular today and continue to appear in a number of Spin-Off series and other main series, most notably The King of Fighters series. Pachislot machines with the Fatal Fury theme were also released, and there is a crossover game with Fighter's History Dynamite available for mobile phones in Japan. Mai Shiranui appears in Dead or Alive 5: Last Roundnote  and its sequel, Dead or Alive 6, while Geese Howard appears as a DLC Fighter in Tekken 7. Terry Bogard himself appeared in Fighting EX Layer in 2018, and in 2019, was announced as the fifth DLC character in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. It wouldn't be until 2022 that SNK revealed they greenlit a new installment of the Fatal Fury series — Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves, ending an over 20-year hiatus.

Art of Fighting, another fighting game series from SNK, is a prequel — also set in Southtown — that takes place a decade before the events of Fatal Fury, with a young Geese Howard as a secret boss in the second game.

An anime adaptation comprised of two TV specials (often mislabeled as OVAs, even though they aired on Japanese TV before getting home video releases) and a feature-length theatrical movie was based on the games, all including character designs by Masami Obari. The TV specials were based on the plots of the first two games, while the feature film had an original plot and villains. While both the specials and the film were released in the States in the late '90s by Viz Video (and re-released on DVD years later), those releases fell out of print years ago. So Discotek Media snagged the licenses for all three and re-released them on DVD on August 26, 2014. Of note, their release of The Motion Picture featured an anamorphic presentation for the first time.

There are also manga adaptations of the games, usually acting as adaptations or sequels to the original game's stories, such as The Geese Howard Story and Geese in the Dark by Etsuya Amajishi. One of these mangas, Fatal Fury: Devil Street of Horror by Ken Ishikawa, forgoes this by telling an original story instead.


The video game series provides examples of:

  • Action Girl: Mai Shiranui, Blue Mary, Li Xiangfei, Bonne Jenet, Hotaru, and Tsugumi Sendo. Mai bounces in and out of the trope in the animated adaptations; she has the skills and uses them sometimes, but other times gets easily beaten and held hostage by the villains.
  • Alternate Continuity: The King of Fighters evidently has its own timeline since Geese is still around and Art of Fighting takes place much earlier, evidenced by the cast being the same age as their Fatal Fury counterparts, among other things.
  • Anti-Villain:
    • Wolfgang Krauser; while he seems highly evil-natured in battle, he has a very gentle side outside of it. Kim Kaphwan's ending in Fatal Fury 2 even shows Krauser being reformed by Kim. Additionally, when he wins, he still respects you enough to say, "you were good, you fought well" (even if you didn't), which is the opposite of most villains in any media.
    • Also, Kain R. Heinlein, mixed with Affably Evil. He never does anything heinous, and the only motive he and Grant had to turn to crime was to protect themselves of much worse people after they've witnessed a boy being beaten to death.
  • Armed Females, Unarmed Males: Terry's main group in the games and the anime movies consists of himself, his brother Andy, their friend Joe and Andy's "fiancée" Mai. While the guys all fight unarmed, Mai uses a Combat Hand Fan in battle.
  • Arrogant Kung-Fu Guy: Gato is the best example out there. The stern look, aggressive moves, and condescending win quotes convey a fighter with the most standoffish and arrogant personality. Laurence Blood and Rick Strowd delve into similar territory.
  • Art Evolution: The first game of the series was the grainy and gritty look that was more like an exaggerated realistic style that SNK were known for in their early releases. Once 2 and Special hit, however, the character shading started to soften, and the colors of everything would begin to brighten up, and Fatal Fury 3 continues this, becoming more firmly anime-styled. Once Real Bout comes through, it carries all of this onwards until it's effectively bright anime shading and style all over, setting the course for Garou: Mark of the Wolves's full use of the refinements over eight games.
  • Artistic License – Geography: Most of the stages in 2 and Special are Theme Park Versions of famous locales:
    • Andy's stage takes place in Venice, on top of a boat floating down one of the canals. Yet in the background, the Leaning Tower of Pisa and the Colosseum are visible. In real life, those landmarks are on the other side of Italy, with Pisa over 3 hours away from Venice, and Rome over 5. The stage also has the Rialto Bridge and the Doge's Palace, which are from Venice, but the buildings around them are not correct.
    • Terry's train stage is stated to be in West Albuquerque, New Mexico. But somehow this train magically passes by Monument Valley in Arizona and Mount Rushmore in South Dakota, which are over 300 and 800 miles away respectively.
    • Big Bear's stage is located in Alice Springs in central Australia, with Uluru/Ayers Rock in the background. However in real life, Uluru is 500 kms away from Alice Springs.
    • Laurence's stage takes place during the Running of the Bulls at Plaza de Toros in Pamplona, where the Sagrada Familia Basilica can be seen in the background. In real life the Basilica is located in Barcelona, some 500 kms away.
  • Artistic License – Martial Arts: A given since this is a 2D fighting game series with an emphasis on spectacular special moves, but special mention goes to Terry's Rising Tackle: an upside-down spinning double clothesline performed while casually jumping twice his height. Zangief would be jealous. Special mention also goes to Mai's Musasabi no Mai, a high-flying dive attack performed face-first, which would hurt her more than her opponent without the Rule of Cool in play.
  • Authority Equals Asskicking:
    • Geese and the Jin brothers are stronger than their respective subordinates, Billy and Ryuji Yamazaki.
    • Subverted when it comes to Kain and Grant, as Kain is only "stronger" than Grant due his more balanced (relatively speaking) fighting style rather than physical strength.
  • Ax-Crazy: Freeman. He's a serial killer, so what do you expect? And let's not even get into Yamazaki who laughs like a hyena as he's ripping you apart with his bare hands.
  • Battle Amongst the Flames: For whatever reason Geese's stage in Fatal Fury 3 will suddenly erupt in flames during round 2. If the fight goes to round 3 the fire will get even more intense. The music will also change to Geese's Leitmotif to match.
  • Big Bad Ensemble: Fatal Fury 3 and Real Bout Fatal Fury have two competing Big Bads: Geese Howard and Jin Chonshu...until there's a man behind the man, Jin Chonrei.
  • Blood Knight:
    • Geese Howard loves nothing more than to fight strong opponents and utterly crush their spirits, as his in-fight interactions consist of violent threats and insults.
    • Krauser, who hosted the world edition of the tournament to seek out the strongest of them all, Terry Bogard.
  • Body Double: Playing as either Geese or Billy in Real Bout Fatal Fury will have the dialogues imply that Geese assigned his body double to run Southtown while Geese is away recuperating from his wounds and recovering the Jin Scroll, but that Body Double, Shadow, got too corrupt and refused to relinquish command, so either Geese or Billy had to participate in the tournament and boot him out by force and Geese can reclaim his rightful place. Shadow's texts show that he's scared out of his ass that the real Geese Howard or Billy Kane are going after him.
  • Broad Strokes: Wild Ambition served as a rough retelling of events of the first game that included most of the original core players (Terry, Andy, Joe, Geese, Billy, and Raiden; Duck King was added to the PS1 port) as well as a few fan-faves from later installments (Mai, Kim, Yamazaki, Xiangfei), newcomers Tsugumi Sendo and Touji Sakata, and even an older Ryo as Mr. Karate II.
  • Calling Your Attacks: Most characters do it, especially the main hero Terry who's grown iconic for it. Terry in Garou: Mark of the Wolves tones this down, where most of the time, instead of shouting the names of his attacks, he yells things like "Rock you!" and "Kick Bath!", all of which were ported to his KOF appearances from 2002 on.
    • One exception: Terry has one special attack where he punches you, saying, "Are you okay?" and then punches you with his other fist, yelling, "Buster Wolf!" (the name of the attack).
  • Canon Foreigner: Lily McGuire, Tony, Elsa, Sulia, Laocorn, Panni, Hauer, and Jamin, all from the anime version.
    • Just to clarify, there's a Lily in the video games, but she's an unrelated character named Lilly Kane, Billy's sister who, like her bro, is a playable character in KOF 2006/Maximum Impact 2. Lily McGuire did make a cameo in the Mexican Pao Pao Cafe stage in KOF '94.
    • The girl who appears to be going out with Terry in his ending Fatal Fury 2 is named Medea and she was originally his love interest in Gamest's manga adaptation of the first Garou Densetsu. However, she is replaced a generic character in Special.
  • City of Adventure: Southtown is where the action of all the games takes place, with the exception of 2 and Special, which were about a worldwide tournament. Garou isn't in quite the same place as the previous games, but a neighboring city close enough to be considered an extension of it (it's even called Second Southtown). Both locales also double as a Vice City, albeit gradually moving away from this direction.
  • Compilation Rerelease: Fatal Fury Battle Archives Volume 1 (Fatal Fury, Fatal Fury 2, Fatal Fury Special and Fatal Fury 3) and Fatal Fury Battle Archives Volume 2 (Real Bout: Fatal Fury, Real Bout: Fatal Fury Special, Real Bout: Fatal Fury 2), both on the PS2.
  • Cute Bruiser: Xiangfei, a peppy kung fu master with a big appetite, and Hotaru, a kind, shy girl with massive reserves of ki to unleash.
  • Cutscene: The first game was notable for including a relatively extensive plot (for a 1991 fighting game, anyway), instead of telling it through short ending sequence like most fighting games did. This would continue in most of the series.
  • Dance Battler: Duck King, Richard Meyer, and Bob Wilson. Duck King implies breakdancing, while Richard and Bob are Capoeiristas.
  • Defeat Means Friendship: Many of Terry's rivals (such as Duck King and Kim) became his friends after he beat them.
  • Demoted to Extra
    • Everyone from the first game (except for the three heroes, Billy, and Raiden, who undergoes a literal Heel–Face Turn to become Big Bear) in Fatal Fury 2, although Tung Fu Rue and Duck King would return as playable characters in Fatal Fury Special (along with Geese, who was presumed dead in 2). This also happened to Jubei Yamada, Big Bear and Axel Hawk after Special.
    • Hwa Jai and Billy Kane were cut out as opponents in the Genesis port of the first game, but they still make background cameos in Duck King's and Richard Meyer's stages respectively.
  • Difficulty Levels: Up to eight, less for the earliest home versions.
  • Distaff Counterpart: Kevin is basically a male version of Blue Mary. They're actually distant relatives.
  • Distant Finale: All of Mark of the Wolves.
  • Does This Remind You of Anything?: In one of her supers, Hotaru straddles her opponent and releases a ball of energy as she arches her back and screams.
  • The Dragon: Billy to Geese, Laurence to Krauser, Yamazaki to the Jin Twins, Grant to Kain, and, in the anime movie, Jamin to Mars.
  • Dramatic Deadpan: The announcer in Mark of the Wolves from beginning to end.
  • Early-Installment Weirdness: The first game only has three selectable characters, Terry sounds different, and the bonus game is an arm wrestling match not using the fighting engine. It also lacks Mai, who was introduced in the next game.
  • Evil Laugh: In the first game, if you get beaten, your opponent will let out an evil laugh. It doesn't matter who the opponent is, be it Duck King, Richard Meyer or even Michael Max, who's just thanking God for his victory by making a cross sign, they all laugh evilly!
  • Executive Suite Fight: Geese likes fighting in his office.
  • Expository Hairstyle Change: Terry changes his clothes and cuts his trademark long hair in Mark of the Wolves. Memories of Stray Wolves, it's revealed that other characters missing from MotW have also done the same. Blue Mary has her hair worn much longer, and Duck King no longer has a mohawk or multicolored hair.
  • Expy:
    • Geese has a striking resemblance to King, the final boss of The Super Spy (see comparison here). The intro to Fatal Fury 3 may be a reference to it. He also draws comparisons with Aussie from the Jean Claude Van Damme movie, Bloodsport and Souther/Thouzer from Fist of the North Star.
    • Also, Sokaku seems to be based on a generic enemy of Sengoku 2.
  • Face–Heel Turn/Heel–Face Turn: Raiden is a monster heel, but when he takes his mask off (and grows a beard), he wrestles as "Big Bear", an all-Australian face, pulling a literal Heel–Face Turn.
    • Later games imply that his Heel–Face Revolving Door is actually a gimmick and that he's a face in real life.
    • Rock pulls a Face–Heel Turn... in a matter of speaking... it's revealed that not only did he win the tournament in Mark of the Wolves, but tournament host Kain tells him he has information about his mother supposedly being alive. Terry later finds Rock, who tells him he's going with Kain and nothing's gonna change his mind. Instead of being upset, Terry is pleased that Rock is about to forge his own destiny.
  • Fake Difficulty: In Garou: Mark of the Wolves, CPU controlled characters tend to do more damage than the player with the same attacks.
  • Fixed-Floor Fighting: Combat is possible in either the foreground or the background, but the stage itself is consistent.
  • Good Scars, Evil Scars: Gato and Sokaku both have some very bad scars. Neither gets any explanation, and neither is definitively good or evil.
  • The Grappler:
    • Raiden/Big Bear. As a pro wrestler, he was the series' first traditional example.
    • Geese Howard is notorious for this, due his upper, mid, and lower body counters which all have insane priority; especially when the computer's using him.
    • Jubei Yamada, a judoka introduced in Fatal Fury 2, is a unique example in that he is not a very large person as typical, he is in fact a frail, short old man. That won't stop him from throwing people across the room.
    • Introduced in Fatal Fury 3, Blue Mary creatively uses combat sambo to strike a nice balance between Big Bear and Jubei's offensive throws and Geese's counter throws.
    • Tsugumi Sendo in Wild Ambition brings Japanese wrestling to the table and has an appropriate moveset to match.
    • Finally, there's Tizoc from Garou: Mark of the Wolves, who has some truly visually stunning throws with plenty of ham.
  • Guest Fighter:
    • Ryo (of Art of Fighting fame) as a hidden final boss in Fatal Fury Special.
    • Alfred was technically created to be the main character of Dominated Mind (a remixed PlayStation port of Real Bout Special), but most fans outside Japan know him for his appearance as a secret final boss in Real Bout 2.
  • Guide Dang It!: The method to perform Hidden Desperation Moves in Fatal Fury 3 is extremely convoluted: first you need to enable them before the match by holding down all 4 buttons and Start before the match starts which turns your life bar green if you did it right, and after that, each character has an extremely specific condition that you need to fulfill to make your name flash, at which point you can perform one. The conditions include being as far away from the opponent as possible, performing a specific combo on them, getting knocked down, backdashing and having the timer be on an odd number and getting hit by a heavy attack
  • Hard Work Hardly Works: Kim Dong Hwan never practices, and basically made up all his moves himself, but is on par with his dedicated, disciplined brother Jae Hoon in skill and power.
    • The same applies to the Bogards; Andy trained his butt off to learn Ninjutsu and Koppoken, while Terry was an ordinary street brawler who made up his own moves and hardly trains. Guess which one is the better fighter.
  • Head-Turning Beauty: Mai is this. Signs are easily evident in comments made by the male characters, and it's more evident in the anime series. In contrast, Blue Mary, who's also considered attractive, attracts more attention because of her job.
  • Her Boyfriend's Jacket: Blue Mary. The boyfriend in question is deceased, though how was not elaborated on by much.
  • Highly-Visible Ninja: Mai battles in a bright red and white outfit; Andy's worse, since his outfit is mostly white, and he doesn't even tie his long blond hair back or anything (except in 3, that is). Hokutomaru's... okay. He's more a highly audible ninja, given how loud and obnoxious he is.
  • Hot-Blooded: Kim is a prime example. His son Kim Jae Hoon has tried to follow his example as much as possible... oh, and he's also got the literal fire powers, as well. But he can't hold a candle to his big bro Dong Hwan, who is clearly the Red Oni to Jae Hoon's blue.
  • Iconic Outfit: The famous red hat, red jacket, white undershirt, and blue jeans. Terry changes wardrobe largely in Mark of the Wolves, wherein he gives the hat to Rock and swaps out the sleeveless red coat for a brown, sleeved one.
  • I Know Madden Kombat: Terry's Power Dunk is said to be modified after a basketball move.
  • Image Song: While not quite to the extent of The King of Fighters, quite a few characters get their own songs, such as Kong Kuwata (the seiyuu of Geese) fittingly singing "Devotion: The Sunset Sky", the song that plays during the credits of Real Bout Fatal Fury. Perhaps the zaniest and best example would be "Dance de Peace!", which involves Duck King leading Terry, Blue Mary, Mai, and Xiangfei in rap while Yamazaki randomly intrudes and screams at them for not including him in the festivities. Each respective character part even incorporates parts of their past themes.
  • Immortality: The entire premise of Fatal Fury 3. Geese is rumored to have this after those events since he got the Jin scrolls.
  • Inflating Body Gag: Cheng Sinzan already has a nearly spherical torso, and he can inflate himself with air during one of his attacks.
  • Kaizo Trap: White from the PlayStation port of Real Bout Fatal Fury Special (known as Dominated Mind). Beat him, and be ready to dodge his cane laser. Or jump over it.
  • Kevlard: Cheng Sinzan blocks attacks with his large belly.
  • Ki Manipulation: Pretty much everyone.
  • Later-Installment Weirdness:
    • Fatal Fury 3 has the Hidden Desperation Moves. This walkthrough on how to perform them will surely make you think how could such a weird system have been approved. No wonder it was dropped in Real Bout, the Updated Re-release of sorts.
    • Real Bout and Real Bout Special have a Ring Out system where you first destroy at least one of the stage borders by forcing the enemy into them, and then make the enemy fall out of the stage, giving you an instant round win.
    • The series' signature two-plane system was dropped in the last few games. This started in Dominated Mind (a revised Japan-only PS1 port of Real Bout Special), and was played with in the 3D spin-off Wild Ambition, before it was eventually ditched in the final installment Mark of the Wolves.
  • Left Hanging: Garou ends with some loose threads being left behind. Rock joined Kain, but they were still in the beginning of trying to uncover the truth about the whereabouts of Marie Heinlein. Meanwhile, Gato and Hotaru's father is revealed to be at least allied with Kain, but for what reason, it's not known yet, and Gato has been blinded by him, with Hotaru still in the dark about the true nature of her father. All of them remained unresolved for years despite SNK promising to eventually revisit it 'when the time is right', preferring to continue dabbling with or putting the characters into The King of Fighters continuity. They would eventually announced a continuation in 2022.
  • Left the Background Music On: Sound Beach in the third game is silent until Terry's pet monkey turns on a boombox.
  • Local Hangout: Let's just say that, if you're a fighter and you're passing through South Town, you have to stop at the Pao Pao Café. One of the intermissions in Fatal Fury 2 even shows its patrons watching the tournament on TV.
  • MacGuffin: The Jin scrolls count as these because there are two Big Bads, Geese and the Jin brothers, looking to get them to gain power.
  • Martial Pacifist: Kim, Jae Hoon, Hotaru.
    • The latter is a tragic example, as Hotaru fights to find her brother (heavily implied to be Gato) and reunite her family, but she either falls short or he acts like a major jerkass to her.
  • Mighty Glacier: Raiden/Big Bear, Franco Bash and Tizoc a.k.a. Griffon Mask. Both Raiden and Tizoc are pro wrestlers who use grappling moves, while Franco is a very muscular kickboxer.
  • Mirror Match: For all the sequels. In some games, the characters even have special phrases for their alter egos, and in Geese's case, his double appears in Billy's Real Bout ending as an impostor.
  • Monster Brother, Cutie Sister: Billy is a fearsome character, a sadistic punk with a large cane who's The Dragon of Geese and Arch-Enemy of the "Hungry Wolves" team. His little sister Lilly, however, is a motherly-like younger sister who awaits for his brother when he's in fights ignorant (or not) of what's her brother is doing and always worried for him. She's also hinted in different appearances to be Joe's Love Interest, which irritates Billy to no end.
  • Ms. Fanservice: Mai has always been like this, but never as much in the Fatal Fury games as in the anime or the Spin-Off games, where Flanderization did its job. In fact, in The Movie, Fatal Fury The Motion Picture, Mai gets to try on various revealing outfits based on the location she's at. Blue Mary and Bonne Jenet are also fanservicey, but not reaching this extreme.
    • B. Jenet probably does count, however, given Mai's absence in Mark of the Wolves.
  • Ninja: Mai, and later Hokutomaru, also part of the Shiranui clan. Oh, and Andy.
  • Nintendo Hard: An SNK standard, no doubt, but it's especially notable because by default some of the AI is fiercer than average for a fighting game. Even professional players may find themselves having trouble against the first fight of a game like 3, and it only gets harder from there. By the time you hit the end boss, they're near-universally an SNK Boss in all its glory.
  • Non-Standard Game Over: Do poorly enough in 3, and Jin Chonshu won't be bothered to fight you, ending the game after beating Yamazaki. Doubles as No Final Boss for You.
  • Numbered Sequels: Sort of: Fatal Fury 2, Fatal Fury 3 and Real Bout 2, are the second, fourth and seventh games in the series, respectively.
  • Oddly Named Sequel 2: Electric Boogaloo: Except for 2 and 3, all of them; Dominated Mind probably takes the cake for the most oddly-named one thanks to having enough words to qualify as a Word Salad Title.
  • Ominous Latin Chanting: Krauser's "Dies Irae" and "lacrimosa". The intro cinema of the fight against him in Real Bout Special even has a woman singing the latter one.
  • Optional Boss: Netto Real Bout Garou Densetsu Special, a handheld port of Real Bout Special, included Iori Yagami as a bonus boss.
  • Parental Abandonment: Gato and Hotaru's father, who briefly returns in Gato's Garou ending just to knock him senseless and call him worthless.
    • And blind him.
    • Rock was also subjected to this by Geese, but Rock also hates him for other reasons.
    • In the second anime special, Geese himself was revealed to have been abandoned together with his mother by his father, Rudolph Krauser, and went to get revenge. His half-brother Wolfgang kicked the crap out of him.
  • Phrase Catcher: "Geese..."
  • Playing with Fire: Mai, Billy, Jae Hoon, and Kevin.
  • Psycho for Hire: Yamazaki, Freeman, etc.
  • Public Domain Soundtrack: Krauser's themes are renditions of Mozart's "Dies Irae" (2/Special) and "Requiem" (Real Bout Special/RB2).
  • Punch-Kick Layout: Fatal Fury: King of Fighters established the punch-kick layout for the Fatal Fury series, and by extant all of SNK's fighting games. The game has a three-button layout consisting of punch, kick, and throw. Fatal Fury 2 then turned this into the four-button layout used in almost every SNK fighter since; light punch, light kick, heavy punch, heavy kick.
  • Rank Inflation: The system introduced by Fatal Fury 3 and kept until the end of the series.
    • Gets especially ridiculous in Mark of the Wolves, where the highest rank is Miracle.
  • Recycled Soundtrack: The VS. player fight music in the original game' is a rearrangement of Street Smart's first stage theme.
  • Red Eyes, Take Warning: Subversion: the red-eyed Rock may be Geese's son, but he rolls with Terry and his crew, and is one of the main characters in Mark of the Wolves.
  • Red Oni, Blue Oni: Terry and Andy are the main Red and Blue (respectively). The Kim brothers from Garou also fit (Jae Hoon is the collected and disciplined Blue while Dong Hwan is the over-confident and arrogant Red).
  • Re-Release Soundtrack: The Fatal Fury Battle Archives collections had the option to turn on new remixed soundtracks.
  • Ring Out: Oddly for a 2.5D fighter, Real Bout Fatal Fury had destructible sides in all arenas but one. Breaking one and knocking your opponent off (or into a train about to take off, an elevator, a fire, etc.) would result in an instant win. You could just as easily side step out of the way of an overzealous opponent and let them take a dip too, however.
  • Save the Villain: Terry (canonically)note  tries and fails in Real Bout.
  • Secret Character: Real Bout Special had the EX characters: alternate versions of some characters that had different special moves and personality, almost as an Evil Twin (inverted with Billy, who instead has a Good Twin, while Master Tung has a... Not-Quite-There Twin). Optional Boss characters were playable in the home versions. Bosses Grant and Kain are also playable with a code in Garou.
  • Ship Tease: While Mai and Andy's situation is pretty much perpetual unrequited love ever since Fatal Fury 3, Terry and Blue Mary has actually had a fairly good amount of it. Not so much in KOF, but still.
  • Shotoclone: Several fighters are given movesets like this (i.e. Terry, Jin Chonrei, Jin Chonshu, Khushnood Butt, Hotaru). Terry technically subverts this, as, while many of his moves fit that of a shoto in spirit, his versatility goes way beyond that with extra moves. He's got a projectile move (Power Wave), a Shoryuken-esque move (Rising Tackle and/or Power Dunk depending on the game), and three different rushing moves that strike from unique angles (Burn Knuckle, Power Charge, and Crack Shoot).
  • SNK Boss: Geese, who started it all, Krauser (Geese's half-brother), and Kain, Geese's bitter brother-in-law. It seems to run in the family... including Geese's in-laws. Kain, who lacks any moves with absurd power or priority, has actually pretty long cooldown periods for some of his moves and is quite balanced as a player character, however he has the ability to overpower the player as a boss easily, thanks to him being able to use charge-style attacks while walking towards his opponnent and his T.O.P. area expanding to his entire lifebar if you manage to win your first round against him.
  • Source Music: Krauser's stage in the second game has an orchestra in the background, busily playing the background music (namely, "Dies Irae").
  • Spam Attack: Several, the earliest example being Geese's Reppuken from the first game, which can make approaching a major pain.
  • Spell My Name With An S: The central locale of the series suffers from this. Is it Southtown or South Town?
  • Sunglasses at Night: Duck King and Cheng never take off their shades.
  • Super Special Move:
    • Joe Higashi's "Screw Upper" takes his Hurricane Upper and turns it into a massive cyclone, striking well past the top of the screen.
    • Terry Bogard's "Power Geyser" uses a similar animation to his normal "Power Wave". The biggest difference being that instead of creating a Ground Wave projectile he creates a massive pillar of energy that strikes opponents in front of and above him.
  • Sworn Brothers: Grant and Kain, who swore an oath of eternal allegiance to each other as children.
  • Take My Hand!: Terrynote  to Geese at the end of Real Bout; Geese rejects the offer and allows himself to die.
  • Tornado Move: Joe's moveset includes multiple attacks of this nature. Beginning with his "Hurricane Upper" and "Twin Hurricane", which are two of his basic attacks. Followed by his DMs "Screw Upper", and "Exploding Screw Upper". He first gained "Double Cyclone/Cross Gigantes", which unleashes two Screw Uppers at once, in Capcom vs. SNK 2. And last, but certainly not least, there's his NEO MAX, "Screw Straight"! They call him "The Human Storm" for a reason.
    • Wolfgang Krauser's Gigantic Cyclone first made its appearance in the anime adaptation of Fatal Fury 2 in the form of the Senpu-Ken move, where both he and Terry Bogard could use it (00:45-01:09). (though Terry used it in the previous anime as well and he also used a kick variant to beat Geese). It became a case of Throw It In!, when SNK added it to Krauser's moves set, as his P-Power move, in Real Bout Fatal Fury Special, where it was renamed "Gigantic Cyclone".
  • Traintop Battle: Terry's level in 2/Special and Mark of the Wolves where the fighters duke it out aboard a transcontinental railroad.
  • Ugly Guy, Hot Wife: Cheng is a very short, very fat, very immoral... with an incredibly beautiful and affectionate wife.
  • Updated Re-release:
    • Fatal Fury Special is a heavily revised version of Fatal Fury 2 with more characters, including the four unplayable bosses from the previous game.
    • Real Bout is pretty much this to Fatal Fury 3 due to using the same character models, their respective BGMs, and even the way their names are written under the life bar (Sokaku, for example, still has only his first name). Additionally, Yamazaki and the Jin brothers are playable without a codenote , Duck King was added to the roster, a Ring Out system was implemented, and the S-Power/P-Power desperation move system was created to replace the one from FF3, which — as previously described in Later-Installment Weirdness — included the bizarre Hidden Desperation Moves. The only downside was that, unlike in Fatal Fury Special, the character-exclusive stages from the previous game were replaced by shared ones — like in the first Street Fighter Alpha, but this time with no fixed set of fighters sharing them.
  • Vice City: At times, Southtown seriously shares some space with other craptastic American cities fictional or otherwise, like "America's Crudbucket And Worst City By Newsweek" Springfield, USA and "Where the weak are killed and eaten" Detroit, Michigan, being known as the city "where the strong survive and the dreams of the weak are torn apart and left for dead". It does get better as its future crime lords are weakened from their presence over the public and muncipal government by rising local heroes, but its miserable end of those who get the short end of the stick in its streets is known all too well by Terry and Andy, with even the post Real Bout novelization pondering the nature of happiness in its hard knock depiction of the modern urban world.
  • Victory Pose: A few of them rather famous like Terry's and Mai's. In most games, characters also had specific animations when losing, but Krauser, Geese, Jin Chonrei, White from Real Bout Special and Kain, also had special defeat poses, of which White's is actually lethal to the player if ignored.
  • "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue: Garou: Memories of Stray Wolves (part 1 and part 2), a bonus featurette for the 15th Anniversary of Fatal Fury, features appearances from characters missing from Mark of the Wolves, notably Richard Meyer, Duck King, and Blue Mary. The movie reveals that Krauser killed himself after losing to Terry in 2. It also deals with the events leading up to and after MotW, including Terry's feelings on his life's journey and Rock's decision to join Kain after the tourney.
  • Where the Hell Is Springfield?: South Town. While its exact location in the U.S. is never revealed in the games, it's heavily implied that it's located in Florida, and based off of Miami.

The anime specials and movie provide examples of:


BUSTAH WOLF!!

 
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The Death of Geese Howard

Geese Howard refuses to let Terry Bogard save his life, and laughs in his face as he falls to his death.

How well does it match the trope?

5 (12 votes)

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Main / DieLaughing

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