What it was
Eight fighters, then a gauntlet. You pick from Terry, Andy and Joe, back from the first game, or newcomers Big Bear, Jubei Yamada, Cheng Sinzan, Kim Kaphwan and Mai Shiranui. Beat all eight, including a mirror of your own pick, and four bosses wait: Billy Kane, Axel Hawk, Laurence Blood and the German nobleman Wolfgang Krauser. A bonus round turns up after every fourth match.
The story is thin and the hook is the cast. A mysterious nobleman sponsors a new King of Fighters tournament a year after Geese Howard's death, and starts beating up the veterans of the first game to find the man who finished Geese. The SNES version lets you play the four bosses with codes, which is the best secret on the cartridge.
Where it sits in history
SNK made the arcade game for the Neo Geo, and Takara handled the SNES and Mega Drive ports. The Super Famicom version came out in Japan on 26 November 1993 and in North America in April 1994. To launch it, Hori Electric sold a special pad, the Fatal Fury 2 Commander, with every character's special moves programmed to a single button each.
The arcade game did well. It was Japan's second highest-grossing arcade game of 1993, just under Street Fighter II: Hyper Fighting, and the SNES port topped the Famitsu sales chart in December 1993. Critics split on the port. Electronic Gaming Monthly called it one of the better fighters on the SNES and gave it Game of the Month. GamePro was cooler: better than the first game, but the graphics trailed the Neo Geo, the audio was terrible and the controls unreliable. They told fans to wait for Fatal Fury Special.
How it plays today
Treat it as a curiosity with a good roster. The SNES port is the version critics argued about, so expect rough edges, and expect the fight to reward knowing your fighter over twitch reflexes.
Play it with a mate, pick someone odd, and unlock the bosses. Kim and Mai are in the series for good reason, and seeing where they started is half the fun.
Compared with
Why it matters
Vygotsky wrote that in play a child acts a head taller than they are. Fighting games do that to a lot of us. Picking Mai, or the boss you only got by cheat code, is a way of trying on a bigger self for a few minutes.
Przybylski found games are most engaging when playing a character brings people closer to their ideal self. Nobody picks the fighter they feel like on a Tuesday. They pick the one they want to be.
Read: Who you are when you play →
- Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in Society: The Development of Higher Psychological Processes.
- Przybylski, A. K., Weinstein, N., Murayama, K., Lynch, M. F., & Ryan, R. M. (2012). The ideal self at play: The appeal of video games that let you be all you can be. Psychological Science, 23(1), 69-76. doi:10.1177/0956797611418676
What you're levelling up
You have been training these without noticing. Here is how to do it on purpose, and where it pays off away from the couch. All the skills games teach →
Pattern recognition
In the game. Eight fighters, each with a different set of specials and a different way of closing the gap. You learn them by spotting what they do over and over.
Do it on purpose. Fight each of the eight once and write down one thing each always does before you press on.
Off the couch. Your boss asks the same question in every meeting; your mate always argues by changing the subject. Spot the move they repeat and you're ready before it comes.
Planning ahead
In the game. The desperation move only opens when your life gauge is at 25% and flashing red, so you decide how hurt you're willing to get.
Do it on purpose. Play a match where you plan the round's last exchange in advance, then see if it works.
Off the couch. Holding your best argument until the end of a negotiation instead of opening with it. Decide before you walk in when you'll play it.
Winning and losing well
In the game. The four bosses are tough, and you reach them only after beating a copy of your own fighter.
Do it on purpose. Next time a mate beats you, say 'good fight', mean it, and ask them to show you the move that got you.
Off the couch. Coming second in a pitch, or a date that goes nowhere. Thank them, keep it warm, and you leave a door open you'd have slammed by sulking.
Verdict · 6/10
A fun roster in an uneven port. Worth a go for Kim, Mai and the unlockable bosses, but the Special is the better version of the same idea.
