Q&A: THE GAROU MASTERS

Eiichi Ogura, Nobuyuki Kuroki and Yasuyuki Oda on rebooting Fatal Fury

Why was it that snk decided to reboot Fatal Fury? nk: Actually, the decision to reboot the Fatal Fury series was taken by the company, so I don’t know that much about the details.

I can say that the characters in KOF at that time were very stylish and very popular among fans, while the classic character designs in Fatal Fury hadn’t changed that much up to then. That’s why I believe they decided to remove everything that was considered as ‘old’ and create a ‘brand-new’ Fatal Fury style.

EO: Many game series were in competition at that time at SNK, and, to be frank, I slightly had the impression that I was considered as a staff dedicated exclusively to the development of the Fatal Fury series. I also felt that we would risk boring our fans if we would just keep only adding new characters and minor changes to the series.

Moreover, the fact that Geese Howard, the main antagonist in the series was no longer around was also a huge problem. We decided there to move the clock and storyline forward and revive the series by introducing a new hero with Rock Howard.

How difficult is it to implement new mechanics like the Just Defend system in fighting games?

EO: I guess this was a tough task for the game planners, but for designers like me, the creation of art and assets was very easy thanks to the fact that it was streamlined and systematic in its concept.

Yo: Yes, it was a tough task to implement new mechanics such as the Just Defend system.

Is there any reason why there’s never been a Garou sequel?

NK: I don’t exactly know the full details, but I would say that it was due to the dismantlement of the Fatal Fury Team at that time.

EO: I was actually involved in the development of the Garou sequel, but unfortunately due to SNK’S situation at that time, we were never able to complete the project… I also remember that game development was temporarily stopped for a while at that time.