Fatal Fury Special

Fatal Fury Special, known as Garō Densetsu Special (餓狼伝説SPECIAL, Hungry Wolf Legend Special) in Japan, is a 1993 fighting game developed and published by SNK and originally released for the Neo Geo arcade and home platforms. It is an updated version of Fatal Fury 2 (1992), adding four CPU-only bosses as playable characters, featuring three characters from its predecessor, and introducing combos while further balancing the gameplay. In addition, it featured Ryo Sakazaki as a secret boss character at the end of the single-player mode; the inclusion of Ryo inspired SNK to create The King of Fighters series.

Gameplay

Fatal Fury Special is an updated version of Fatal Fury 2. It features many of the same graphics and gameplay, although some slight changes were made to the system, including faster game speed and an all new combo system. Unlike the previous Fatal Fury games, Special allows the player to combine their attacks. When an attack lands, the player will have a brief moment of invincibility. The number of Line Move Attacks have also increased; pressing the Light Punch or Light Kick button while the opponent is on an opposite line will perform a Low Line Jump Attack.

In single-player mode, the player fights all of the playable characters, beginning with the eight regular characters from the previous game, as well as Tung and Duck; the player gets to choose their first opponent. After the first ten opponents, the player will fight against Billy, Axel, Laurence, Geese, and Krauser, respectively. If the player wins every match in two rounds, they will be challenged by Ryo in a special "Dream Match".

Characters

The character roster of Fatal Fury 2 returns. The four AI-only characters from the previous game (Billy Kane, Axel Hawk, Laurence Blood, and Wolfgang Krauser) can now be controlled by the player, and three characters from the original Fatal Fury (Tung Fu Rue, Duck King, and Geese Howard) return, increasing the number of playable characters to fifteen. Ryo Sakazaki, the protagonist of Art of Fighting, appears as a hidden opponent at the end of the Single Player Mode and is playable in the home versions. This cross-over inspired SNK to create The King of Fighters series. The first installment of this series, The King of Fighters '94, was released a year after Fatal Fury Special.

Release

Home versions

In addition to the home versions of the Neo Geo and Neo Geo CD, conversions of Fatal Fury Special were made for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (with Playmates Interactive Entertainment handling distribution), Sega CD and Game Gear, as well as the PC Engine game console (in CD-ROM² format), and the X68000 and FM Towns computer platforms in Japan between 1994 and 1996. The game is included in 2007's Fatal Fury: Battle Archives Volume 1 for the PlayStation 2.

Fatal Fury Special for the Neo Geo was later released on the Wii Virtual Console in 2010. An emulation of the Neo Geo arcade game was also released for the Xbox Live Arcade in 2007. Furthermore, mobile versions were released for Android and iOS-based devices. It was later ported to Nintendo Switch in July 2017 by Japanese game publisher Hamster Corporation. The Super NES version was re-released on the Nintendo Classics service on October 9, 2025.