Fatal Fury VII

[Nu-Eclipse]

With fighters, revived as its been since SF4, there's a need to appeal to a reasonable amount of the masses. I know MOTW has always been a well regarded game but it's 26 years old and outside of its core fanbase has never been the cornerstone of the franchise due to its limited releases and not bearing the Fatal Fury name.

Sorry, that isn't correct.

MOTW literally bears the OG Japanese Fatal Fury name of Garou aka Garou Densetsu. On DC, it was known as Fatal Fury: MOTW.

By every metric, it is very much a Fatal Fury game as any Fatal Fury fan will tell you. Sure, it advances the story far on and leaves Terry and Geese as sole original characters to "end" the saga (Terry seeking vengeance for Jeff's murder), but it definitely is a FF game and to say it isn't is factually wrong.

But that said, yeah, there probably should've been a sequel of sorts made sooner than 25 years later. I guess there wasn't because the old SNK considered the story done and dusted (if Terry's ending in MOTW is anything to go by), which makes this Saudi sequel even more cynical.

[Neon Ignition]

It's 100% a Fatal Fury game, it's just the one entry that's more commonly known and referred to in the West under its Garou monikor which has never helped in terms of it maintaining the brand. Though FF continued some way past the arrival of the first KOF but past Real Bout it was drowned by that franchise increasingly. If SNK had never hits its difficult years, been able to complete Mark of the Wolves 2 and get it on the market they might have found themselves in a different position by keeping it chugging along like SS and so less of clean break. Reviving it now is more like launching it from scratch and it seems like they added to their woes by letting the Saudi owners weigh on the marketing approach. A fortune has been spent on that front, but in really poor ways that would never bring the right attention and audience to the game.

[eastyy]

We were in new York and saw on massive screens in times square adverts for this game which was quite surreal

[112]

I’ve never got the impression that fatal fury was ever that popular in the west. But that’s my own anecdotal experience of how it influenced my own beat em up journey from the 80s till now. Like the masses in the West, I would typically favour the Capcom brand of fighting games in all its various guises and perhaps entertain other beat ‘em ups from time to time (Mortal Kombat, Killer Instinct, etc).

Perhaps, what may have helped the Fatal Fury franchise was if they released a remake of an original Fatal Fury title as a soft launch, entry title, to allow people who had never heard of the game before to become somewhat familiar, before releasing the latest version of the game.

It is apparent that the marketing team who decided on the tie in celebrity characters and extravagant boxing event, do not understand the gaming community, as well as they thought. It may have been more logical for them to release a generic fighting game filled with celebrity endorsements, rather than ride on the coat tails of a ‘forgotten’ game that is mainly supported by its hardcore fans who already know and follow SNK / Fatal Fury. What they have done so far is effectively damage the reputation of a beloved game, rather than revive it.

112

[hudson]

Me: Defending fighting games in forum

Fighting game:


Me:

[hudson]

There's some obvious massive disconnect between the dev team/director and the marketing team. Maybe there isn't. This ain't the way though. This is mobile phone gaming levels of marketing. Maybe we are just too old to understand now.

[Asura]

Maybe we are just too old to understand now.

I mean a flop is a flop whether you're skibidi or YOLO.

[hudson]

I mean a flop is a flop whether you're skibidi or YOLO.

Come at me, bro!

I sound like a broken record, but the game is actually an amazing fighting game.

[Dogg Thang]

I mean a flop is a flop whether you're skibidi or YOLO.

This is it. Bottom line is that the marketing isn't working.

Which is all the more tragic if it's actually a really good game.

[hudson]

SNK games tend to have this trajectory though don't they? I only ever imagine guys in their mid 40's to 60's picking up these games

The marketing money (and they must have had a fudge tonne), was badly spent. Well, in hindsight, I suppose. Whilst I didn't like their approach to bring in these real life people into the game. Especially Ronaldo. I can get why you would maybe want to get them on board as Ronaldo is a sportsman with 75m subscribers. Maybe a percentage would check out the game. But again, like someone said earlier, this marketing team didn't think it through - there's a disconnect. Ok, you get the Ronaldo fans trying the game, but ultimately, as the game is old skool at it's roots and now with added mechanics such as the REV system, newcomers were mostly always going to bounce off this hard.

[wakka]

There's some obvious massive disconnect between the dev team/director and the marketing team. Maybe there isn't. This ain't the way though. This is mobile phone gaming levels of marketing. Maybe we are just too old to understand now.

Nah. We're not the ones out of touch here, the marketing department are.

If you look at how they market even the biggest fighting game franchises, they put what can seem an outsize amount of energy into courting the FGC.

Why? Because they know that getting that core audience on-side is critical to building broader appeal.

That goes double for something like Fatal Fury, which as you've said is old school at its roots and also contains additional mechanics designed for experienced players.

They should've built grassroots hype with the people who love and appreciate fighting games the most, and looked to grow the game's audience from there.

I do reckon that a lot of what's gone wrong here is meddling from clueless Saudi scions who see SNK as a bit of a toy to play with.

[Nu-Eclipse]

hudson I feel your pain. I have a historical soft spot for Garou/Fatal Fury, as I do with all classic SNK beat-em-ups.

But trying to class this Saudi-led f--k up of the new game as a "we're too old to understand" problem is, frankly, nonsense. The Saudis have quite clearly been clueless with this. Problematic people like Cristiano Ronaldo (accused rapist) and Conor Benn (accused drug cheat) have absolutely no business being anywhere near this no matter how much social media clout they might have and the fact that they are just shows pure marketing ineptitude from the mediawashers who now own the carcass of what used to be SNK.