- Decent collection of Fatal Fury gamesSNK just keeps them coming. After seeing their spectacular Metal Slug series get packaged for the holidays with Metal Slug Anthology, and only meer months after another fighting franchise (Art of Fighting) was packaged in a nice, affordable package; SNK's flagship fighting series Fatal Fury gets the same treatment. Fatal Fury: Battle Archives Vol. 1 compiles Fatal Fury, Fatal Fury 2, Fatal Fury Special, and Fatal Fury 3; all of which are emulated from their Neo Geo arcade counterparts almost perfectly. And if you've played Art of Fighting Anthology, then you know this is both good and bad. The original Fatal Fury features archaic controls, while Fatal Fury 2 and Fatal Fury Special (both of which are relatively the same game) suffer from similar age spots. Fatal Fury 3 however remains the best of the bunch, taking the series' innovative two-plane 2-D fighting engine to new heighs with crisper animations and tighter combos. Fatal Fury 3 is reason enough to pick up this collection (and the price tag doesn't hurt either), but once again, like they did with Art of Fighting Anthology, SNK Playmore dropped the ball with any sort of supplemental features. Yeah, there's a music and color palette feature to tinker with, but some articles or interviews or anything else would have been more than welcome here instead. All that aside, Fatal Fury: Battle Archives Vol. 1 is a decent collection of one of the finest 2-D fighting franchises ever, and hopefully, there will be more to come down the road.
