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Welcome back, today I'm going to go outside my usual review style and review a compilation. I'll try to not go into detail about the actual games themselves but more as a whole of how the compilation is set up, though I can't make any promises.

I'm going to be covering Fatal Fury Battle Archives for PS2:



Fatal Fury Battle Archives 1 is the first 4 Fatal Fury games (Fatal Fury 1, Fatal Fury 2, Fatal Fury Special, and Fatal Fury 3.) The compilation is set up quite nicely, and the menu is fairly simple. Fatal Fury Battle Archives 1 is one of the many SNK compilations that have been coming out within the past year, and there will be many more in this coming year as well. Unfortunately for this compilation there aren't that many special features, unlike the Street Fighter Anniversary collection, you don't get to watch the anime movie based on the game, shame too, because it was rather good actually, and one of the only anime based things that I actually like, however, this does let you listen to the soundtrack of all 4 games in it's original form and in the arranged soundtrack form. This is a major plus, especially for me. The Fatal Fury series has an amazing soundtrack. The PS2 controller is very suited for an SNK fighting game. The SNK fighters have a 4 button attack system while the L and R buttons provide as either power attack buttons or allow you to go into the background/foreground of the stage. I'm going to do mini descriptions of the games that are on the compilation:

Fatal Fury 1:





Fatal Fury 1 is the story that started it all in the series. Jeff Bogard, Terry and Andy's adoptive father was murdered by the hands of Geese Howard, a crime lord who took over the city of Southtown after the death of Jeff Bogard. Terry and Andy go into training for 10 years to eventually come back to find that a tournament called The King of Fighters has been held by none other than Geese Howard. They meet up with Joe Higashi and together the three of them go into the tournament beating everyone in their way, including Geese's right hand man and current champion Billy Kane. Geese is infuriated that these 3 nobodies managed to beat everyone in their way, and so he chooses to fight them. Geese is eventually defeated with the combined effort of Terry and Andy, and it is said that Geese has finally met his demise....or has he?

The first Fatal Fury only has a character select screen of 3 characters. It's kind of odd by today's standards, but Fatal Fury 1 was worked on before Street Fighter 2's release, and the original Street Fighter only had 2 characters, depending on whether or not you chose to be player 1 or 2. You get to picked, you guessed it, Terry, Andy or Joe. I mostly use Terry, but do use Andy occasionally, and rarely, if ever, use Joe. The game was fairly innovative. The 2 player mode was very new for fighting games, and hasn't been used that much. The 2 player mode allowed a co-op mode, where it is you and your friend against the tournament. This can be very handy for beating the game because like most SNK fighting games, if you aren't careful this game is VERY unforgiving, and once again, especially Geese. The other bit of innovation is the background system, where players can jump into the background and fight, and in Richard Meyer's stage, they can jump on a bar hanging from the top and climb along the bar and fight in the air that way. SNK made good use of their stages.

All in all, this game is primitive, but if you interested in the Fatal Fury series, I recommend checking this one out, however outside of that, I can't say that I'd fully recommend it, because there are definitely much better sequels.

Fatal Fury 2:




A year has passed since the events of Fatal Fury 1, and invitations to the King of Fighters have been distributed to fighters around the world. Terry, Andy, and Joe all received invitations, however, who could have sent them, Geese is dead? Well, it turns out Wolfgang Krauser, Geese's half brother is the one who sent these invitations, he wants to fight the ones that beat Geese. Terry eventually makes it to Germany to fight Krauser, and when it looks like Terry is about to meet defeat, but out of nowhere, manages to pull off his newest and most powerful move the Power Geyser, leaving Krauser in defeat, he tells Terry to leave immediately so he can live with his shame in solitude.

Fatal Fury 2 now has a playable cast of 8 characters, including returning characters Terry, Andy, and Joe. New characters include Mai Shiranui, Kim Kaphwan, Big Bear (Raiden in Fatal Fury 1), Jubei Yamada, and Cheng Sinzan. There are 4 bosses in the game, similar to Street Fighter 2. The bosses are Billy Kane, Axel Hawk, Lawrence Blood, and finally Wolfgang Krauser. This is the first game to feature a super move system, known as Desperation move, in which you can perform a button command to unleash a powerful attack when your health has hit a certain point.

Fatal Fury 2 is a good game, and better than Fatal Fury 1, but since Fatal Fury Special is on the compilation, it makes this game obsolete and not really necessary at all. Play it once if you want to see the differences between the 2, but you'll probably be playing Fatal Fury Special much more than Fatal Fury 2.

Fatal Fury Special:



I've reviewed this game already, so all I'm going to say is play it, it's the best game in the collection...play it.

Fatal Fury 3:




Another year has passed since Fatal Fury 2, and everyone is celebrating in the Pao Pao Cafe 2 (Richard Meyer's second club) when all of a sudden the Jin twins wreck the joint, searching for the Jin Scrolls that have gone missing. The Jin Scrolls grant the keeper immortality. Turns out Geese is alive, and stole the scrolls. The Jin twins also hire Ryuji Yamazaki, a crazed psychopath who is willing to kill anyone, to help them find the scrolls and to defeat Geese. Geese however, still manages to keep the scrolls in the end of this adventure. Does that mean he is immortal?

Unfortunately, only 1 of the Fatal Fury 2 characters makes a return, and that is Mai Shiranui, but the 3 main heroes, Terry, Andy, and Joe return, as well as Geese as a fully playable character. The new characters are Bob Wilson, Blue Mary, Franco Bash, Hon Fu, and Sokaku Mochizuki.

There are 3 bosses in this game, Ryuji Yamazaki, Jin Chonshu, and Jin Chonrei. The Jin twins themselves are not entirely evil actually, they just want their scrolls back...but Ryuji..well yeah he is.

This game plays much faster than the other 3 games, and has a very good combo system. This game also adds foreground fighting alongside background fighting. The Desperation move system returns, and all in all it's a very fun game, but I personally would rather play Fatal Fury Special. I definitely recommend playing this one though, it's the second best game in the collection.

All in all, I give this compilation an 8. It would receive a 9 or even a 10 if it had some nice special features, but these games are definitely Neo-Geo perfect ports. If you're interested in the Fatal Fury series, pick this one up, if you aren't quite sure if the Fatal Fury series, I still say pick it up, it's only like 15 bucks. Some good news, Fatal Fury Battle Archive 2 is coming to America sometime in April, which features all of the Real Bout games. I do plan on getting this when it comes, and I may do a review on that too.

Anyway, thank you for reading, and let me know your opinion on the Fatal Fury series, I enjoy this series a lot, and it's good to know how other's feel on it too. Anyway, until next time, take care.

I'll see what I can do...but from now on, try to stick with games before the Nintendo 64. I try to stay retro with my reviews. I'll work on Star Fox 64 either sometime tonight or tomorrow.

Unfortunately my N64 was stolen a while ago, and playing on an emulator is really buggy. I'll try it tonight, and if I can't really play it, then I'll just review something else.

As far as Fatal Fury is concerned, in 1 and 2 I was mainly a Terry and Andy user, and in Special I enjoyed Terry, Andy, Duck, Billy, Geese, Krauser, and Ryo, and in 3 I mainly used Geese.

I can't wait either for Battle Archives 2. I plan on getting it, and the Art of Fighting collection as well.

I use Project 64. I had to go out tonight, so I didn't have the time to do a playthrough of Star Fox 64, however, tomorrow morning I will do a playthrough and review afterwards.

Yeah, that's why I stick to retro games...however I will do gameboy advance games, because they are emulated quite well, but a little harder to find. I can't seem to find my actual gameboy advance at the moment though.

why not do the original pokemon red/blue? the game that started a massive movement of milking an anime till it cries out in pain, and yet can still have chart topping sales

theres also a link to the past which introduced the whole alternate world that is still in LoZ games today in some way shape or form(time difference for OoT and actual other realm in TP)

Ape Escape? I've been looking into that recently! Yeah, that would make an EXCELLENT Wii title. Do you know of that one party game they did, Ape Escape: Pumped and Primed?

I tried to play Star Fox this morning and it was really lagging and buggy, so I'm not going to do that review..however, I do have a review for you all today, and I'll be reviewing Mortal Kombat II for the Arcadce:





After the success of the first Mortal Kombat, it was just about assured that a second game would be released, and what a release it was. This is my second favorite game in the series, followed by Trilogy (although it's not really canon, it's my favorite one to play, but in the main series II would be my favorites.) Just about everyone returns, with the exception of Sonya and Kano who have been imprisoned by Shao Kahn, the final boss of this game. New characters have been added in the form of Kung Lao, Kitana, Mileena, Jax, Reptile (now playable), and Shang Tsung (now playable and somehow younger), There are also more secret characters in Jade, Noob Saibot, and Smoke. Although they aren't playable, you can face them if you meet certain criteria. Jade is the ? in the single player mode. Basically, everything you loved about MK 1, is brought to you in MK2 and made even better. The game is slightly faster, looks smoother and better, sound is better, basically everything is better.

Plot:
After the defeat of Shang Tsung in the previous tournament, Shao Kahn is infuriated because if Shang Tsung had won, Earth realm would have been his for the taking. Shao Kahn decides to break the rules of Mortal Kombat and has the Earth Realm warriors enter Outworld to challenge him. Shao Kahn is also accompanied by Kintoro, a Shokahn, like Goro, who is angry that his idol Goro was defeated.

You really can't go into much depth with this game, it's your basic fighting game with the Fatality system that you grew to love in the first game. The fighters now have at least 2 Fatalities as opposed to 1 in the first game, although some do have 3. This game was also the one to introduce Dan Forben with the infamous, "WHOOPSIE!" Some other new additions to this are the Friendships, basically you would perform a button combination just like you would a fatality, but instead of killing your opponent, they just do something friendly or funny. This would also be carried into MK3 and it's multiple upgrades. Although they didn't call it one, Liu Kang's Dragon Fatality was the first animality, which would also be carried into MK3.

The soundtrack is kind of generic, not something that I would go out of my way to listen to, but it is fitting for this kind of game.

Mortal Kombat II was so popular that Midway decided to create an adventure game based on the events of MKII titled Shaolin Monks, which actually was a good game, and in fact, MKII was an unlockable for that game.

It did receive a few ports, although the most well known ports were the SNES and Genesis ports. I'd say the best version was definitely the arcade.

Who was my favorite character you may be asking yourself? I was a Scorpion user. He was just so badass in the first game, and even cooler in the 2nd.

All in All though, I'd give this game an 8.

It's a great game, but there are better fighting games out there (Most of the SNK fighters....) I'd recommend this for a try, it's very fun for it's multiplayer mode.

Well, that's it for this review, until next time, take care.