Fatal Fury 3 is one of the early popular fighting games to hit Japan, and later, the USA. The main venue for the story lies in Southtown, located in the US, and home of the Bogard brothers, Terry and Andy. The story focuses on the two brothers, and their enmity against Geese Howard, the undisputed crime boss and lord of Southtown. Geese had previously murdered the brothers' father, Jeff Bogard. Geese and Jeff had both been students of the Hakkyoukuseiken school of martial arts, with Jeff being seen as the best of the two due to his high moral beliefs of justice and honor.
Fatal Fury 3 is one of the early popular fighting games to hit Japan, and later, the USA. The main venue for the story lies in Southtown, located in the US, and home of the Bogard brothers, Terry and Andy. The story focuses on the two brothers, and their enmity against Geese Howard, the undisputed crime boss and lord of Southtown. Geese had previously murdered the brothers' father, Jeff Bogard. Geese and Jeff had both been students of the Hakkyoukuseiken school of martial arts, with Jeff being seen as the best of the two due to his high moral beliefs of justice and honor. His hate rising against Jeff, Geese had Jeff killed. Jeff's sons were witnesses to this act of murder. Vowing revenge, the two brothers,
due to their master's request, poured themselves into training. Andy continued his training in the Shiranui school of ninja arts, and Terry became a street fighter, continuing his training in the Hakkyoukuseiken school of fighting, and earning the moniker the "Lonely Wolf," due to his distance attitude.
Returning from his training, Terry had a showdown with Geese, where he utilized a hidden technique of the Hakkyoukuseiken school, given to him with his master's last breath. Terry defeated Geese with the technique, causing the crime lord to fall to his death from the top floor of his tower. Fatal Fury takes place after the fall of Geese.
Being one of the earlier fighting games, Fatal Fury 3 is still primitive in its fighting engine and strategy. Unlike today's more complex fighting games, the gameplay is pretty standard for fighting games. For its time, though, Fatal Fury utilized unique plane system, which allowed characters to switch between two fighting "planes," foreground and background. Switching planes allowed the characters to dodge attacks, as well as maneuver themselves around their opponent without having to jump over them. This added a bit of strategy in within the game. For example, if you noticed your opponent was gearing up for a devastating attack which required a bit of time to complete, you could wait until the last second before the attack launched, switch planes as the other character was caught up in completing the attack, get behind them, switch planes again, and attack.
The graphics, for their time, were gorgeous. There was a varied cast with thirteen playable characters, each with his/her unique personality and attacks. It seems that it was the characters themselves, and the relationships and rivalries they shared with the other characters that made the games so popular, launching three motion pictures later on.
All in all, Fatal Fury 3 was good for its time, at least until the King of Fighters series debuted. With a deeper fighting engine, playable "teams" and characters from both Fatal Fury and the Art of Fighting series, Fatal Fury was sent to the back burner. A great game for nostalgic reasons, but don't expect the graphical wow or deep gameplay of current titles.
