The arrival of polygons was the starting signal for the fall of SNK, one of the most important companies of the 16-bit era, creator of such well-known franchises as Fatal Fury, Samurai Shodown or Metal Slug.
Capcom’s strongest rival in the fighting game scene of the 90s failed to find the key to its reconversion in the transition from the Sprite to the polygon and, little by little, we saw how many of the great franchises that were the center of attention in the arcades of the time were falling into oblivion.
“Fast-forward” to today and we find an SNK struggling to come back to life. In recent years they have been testing the ground and have carried out the modern versions of The King of Fighters and Samurai Shodownalthough they still lack that “something” that gives cohesion to the game.
The new The King of Fighters have managed to recover the gameplay of the franchise and raise it to a new level, however, it is still looking for a visual style that has something special. Samurai Shodown, on the other hand, has that special visual touch but the game is heavily anchored to the original in terms of control and seems to need an overhaul.
Now comes the turn of Garou: City of the Wolves, sequel to Garou: Mark of the Wolves; latest installment of the Fatal Fury franchise and one of the last games published in the Neo-Geo catalog. And it seems that we are facing the first round game of the new SNK.
The character designs and settings of ‘Garou: COTW’ recover the essence of the original, but they know how to take advantage of the polygons to enrich the formula that made it one of the most beautiful fighting games of all time. The gameplay, for its part, seems to evolve just enough to give a little more depth to a game that worked very well, even in these times.
Terry Bogard and Rock Howard (son of Geese; villain of the first Fatal Fury) will meet again on current consoles, but it will not be until 2025.
The one that will arrive in 2024 is Metal Slug Tactics, Neogeo’s classic shoot’em up reimagined as a turn-based board strategy game. I hope I’m wrong, but Metal Slug should be one of the few franchises free of reinterpretations. Yours truly understands that creating a title like the originals is expensive, laborious and, therefore, expensive, but if the maxim of “if it works, don’t touch it” should apply to something, it is Metal Slug.
In any case, SNK has decided to take the easy route and takes advantage of the excellent designs of the original games to create a board battle title that smells more like a free smartphone game than a console success.
The good news is that SNK is still alive and that, with successes or mistakes, they continue to develop and recover their star franchises little by little.
