Grounded Gameplay With Much Mechanical Depth
I’ve never really played Garou: Mark of the Wolves or any of the Fatal Fury games growing up, but I’ve played and competed in multiple fighting games such as The King of Fighters, Street Fighter, Tekken, and much more. I bring this up because, considering my experience with numerous fighting game sub-genres, you can trust me when I say that City of the Wolves will appeal to multiple fighting game players. At its core, City of the Wolves is a 2D fighter that is very grounded. Similar to the Street Fighter games and the Granblue Fantasy Versus series, the game rewards good anti-airs, solid whiff punishes, walking your opponent down to the corner, and hit-confirms. I definitely recommend Street Fighter and Granblue players to give this game a shot when it releases!
However, as I stated previously, this game will appeal to multiple fighting game players, no matter what you play. City of the Wolves has a huge list of mechanics and rules that seem to borrow from different games, so here’s a nice list of them below:
Shared Mechanics and Rules
- Hops – By quickly pressing jump or pressing the REV button and jumping at the same time, you will get a hop instead of a normal jump. This is taken from some of the older Fatal Fury and King of Fighters games, and it’s useful for baiting out the opponent’s anti-airs and doing hop pressure up close.
- REV Guard – By holding the REV button, you will activate a unique guard that pushes the opponent back every time they hit it and negates any chip damage applied to you. Not only is this very similar to Guilty Gear‘s Faultless Defense, but it also acts like Granblue Fantasy Versus‘s block button because it automatically blocks cross-up attacks.
- Macro Dashes – Pressing the REV button and forward or back at the same time will give you a forward dash or backdash macro. Multiple fighting games recently have used this feature, so if you love it, you’ll feel at home!
- REV Blow – By pressing heavy punch and heavy kick at the same time, you will activate an attack that can armor through multiple attacks. This is similar to Street Fighter 6‘s Drive Impact, and using a REV Blow of your own will beat the opponent’s REV Blow on reaction.
- REV Meter – Each time you use a REV mechanic mid-match, your REV Meter increases, eventually getting to a point where you overheat and cannot use any more REV mechanics. Also, your guard gauge will deplete when you block attacks. This functions the same way that the Drive Gauge in Street Fighter 6 does. Using too many EX specials will put you in burnout, and if the opponent Drive Impacts you in the corner, you will get stunned.
The Beauty of Guard Cancels and Baits
For you defense lovers out there, I think the defensive mechanics in this game are quite powerful. In particular, using “Just Defense” and “Hyper Defense” allows you to guard cancel into a super or special move afterward, punishing any attack the opponent did on your block. This gives players the ability to turn disadvantageous situations into advantageous ones. What makes it even cooler is that many characters in the game have the ability to avoid the special move or super that comes out after the opponent’s guard cancels by using one of their own special moves or even feints. There’s an answer to almost everything in this game, which makes City of the Wolves extremely appealing. But of course, where there are pros, there are also cons.
Smart Style isn’t So Smart
After Street Fighter 6 implemented its Modern Controls, a couple of fighting games started adopting this same feature. I have my own opinions about this recent trend, but I’ll share that in a bit. Anyways, City of the Wolves adds its own rendition to the “Modern Controls” trend called “Smart Style”, and…there’s a lot to talk about.
To explain, “Smart Style” keeps the control scheme simple by having Punch, Kick, Dodge Attack, and REV Blow set to one button each. Moreover, auto combos can be done by mashing the Punch or Smart Combo button. Lastly, there is a designated Special Move button where, if you combine with the direction of left, down, or right, you will be given one of your character’s special moves. No motion input is required, and it’s just that simple.
However, “Smart Style” limits its users by not having the following features:
- Feint – Mechanic that you can perform after inputting unsafe normals on your opponent’s block up close so that you can make them safe or even advantageous.
- Brake – Gives you the ability to cancel the animation of certain special moves, such as anti-air reversals, so that you can combo after them.
- Proximity Kick Normals
- Standing Far Light Punch
- Proximity Heavy Punch
- Heavy Version of Special Moves
I would also like to note that if you have two bars of super meter, “Smart Style” will automatically use the two-bar version of the super you want. This is horrible because rather than giving you the option of using 1 bar to save some meter, “Smart Style” just has you dump it all out.
My Honest Opinion
I’ll be honest: I don’t know why these developers insist on making these simple control schemes when they’re clearly disadvantageous compared to the Arcade Style. You might as well not even include them in the game. The Granblue Fantasy Versus series is the only fighting game that did it right where they don’t separate the control schemes and just put it all into one. It’s weird that this “Modern Controls” trend is a thing when Granblue is right there setting the standard. Nothing against the developers at all, of course, but this is something that needs some more discussion.
Unique Menu Design That Could Use Some Work
On the bright side, I love how the main menu screen looked! It appears like a bunch of comic panels mixed together that consist of different modes. All we saw in the beta was the online, offline, and settings panel, but I’m sure the rest of the panels will show themselves at launch. Having said all that, I do think that some of the text in the menus is small. Depending on what monitor you have and maybe even how your eyesight is, it might be a bit difficult to see them. If possible, I’d like the developers to make the texts a bit larger so that we can clearly see what we’re selecting.
As for the online lobbies, I like the overall design of them, but there are a couple of things that need to be addressed. For one, there’s a lot of delay or input lag in these menus. Pressing on a specific menu option will take a while for it to be selected. I’m not sure why this was a thing, but it’s definitely something that needs fixing. Also, a mouse cursor appears in the lobbies, but you can’t use your mouse to control it if you’re on PC. In fact, for both console and PC, you must use your controller to slowly move the cursor to where you want it. This is super inconvenient, and I’d rather just be able to select menus quickly.
Most importantly, though, City of the Wolves needs to allow players to copy and paste the room code. This would be a great way to simply acquire the code and send it to friends on different platforms. I believe that players should always have the most comfortable experience playing a fighting game, so ensuring things are easy to access is vital.
Questionable Online Experience
As you may know, City of the Wolves uses Rollback Netcode for its connectivity and has cross-play between PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and PC via Steam. I had a fun time online, but it’s a beta, so there were issues of course. I did notice that there was a lot of one-sided rollback in my matches, causing one player to have a good time while the other suffers. Having an option where players can adjust their rollback and set their own delay would help alleviate this.
Also, there needs to be an option to add selectable regions you want to play against. As someone from North America, I was matched with many people from Europe, South America, and Asia. The connections felt really bad, and I would rather play people in my region to make things smoother.
I encountered other network issues, but I trust SNK will address them before launch. Releasing a fighting game with a great online experience is vital these days. Online play gives you huge access to a sea of players that you might never play offline. Making this a big focal point of development will pay off well!
Closing Out My Impressions of The Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves Open Beta
Overall, I had a fun time with the Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves open beta, despite some of the unfortunate impressions it left on me. The gameplay is genuinely good, and I hope the game will explode in popularity in the fighting game community. SNK deserves a fantastic launch these days, and that’s why we must be critical with our impressions. Excitingly enough, a second beta test is being considered. This next beta test will be an excellent way to show what the developers learned from this beta and make it a better product. If you participated in this recent beta, be sure to send your feedback to the developers in the feedback form below:
Thank you for reading our impressions of the Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves open beta, and be sure to look forward to more City of the Wolves content here at Final Weapon!
