SNK Playmore unleashes the Fury on XBLA
by Ludwig Kietzmann 
{ Aug 25th 2006 at 1:25PM }
As if Xbox Live Arcade wasn't already a menagerie of two-dimensional creatures, Gamespot reports that it's about to become home to fighting wolves and geese. Using less obscures references, SNK Playmore has revealed that one of their titles to be shown at this year's Tokyo Game Show is none other than Fatal Fury Special (Garau Densetsu Special in Japan) for the Xbox 360. Terry Bogard and his punching pals join Street Fighter II: Hyper Fighting, which was released several weeks ago to brisk sales. It's wonderful to see 2D fighting games making the rounds on our fancy, next-gen consoles (especially, you know, good ones), and with enough player interest, it may even spur on the creation of some brand new entries in the genre. For now, however, SNK Playmore is sticking with the classics -- the rest of their TGS lineup is comprised of The King of Fighters '98 Ultimate Match, Garou Densetsu Battle Archives 2 (both for PS2) and Metal Slug Complete for PSP.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
teknomusik @ Aug 25th 2006 1:29PM
FF2 Special is soooo much better than SF2HF... I might actually buy this one :D
skr1lls @ Aug 25th 2006 1:31PM
i'm a neo geo collecter.
and all i gotta say is keep em coming!
first post. w00t!
kinda wish it wasn't fatal fury tho... much rather have KOF 98 or 99, samurai showdown, or Mark of the wolves.
But hey it's a start.
skr1lls @ Aug 25th 2006 1:33PM
damn i got beat =P
nalgae @ Aug 25th 2006 1:42PM
As for brand new entries in the genre, the Guilty Gear series recently released Slash and are actually already working on the next serious version (serious being not Isuka, a DS version, etc).
Also, Melty Blood is a series popular in Japan. Its fighting engine is balanced and fun, but the sprites are rather low quality. It's actually a fan-made game for the PS2, but was popular enough to be imported INTO arcades. It's probably not as popular in the US because it is based off of an anime, and not everyone in the US is a weeaboo.
sambo @ Aug 25th 2006 1:43PM
Just give me some Marvel vs. Capcom II on xbox live and I will be set for life.
Ok, some Ultimate MK III also would be nice.
phillosmaster @ Aug 25th 2006 1:46PM
Any game featuring Joe Higashi is alright by me. That guy should be in every fighting game. How could you compete with the possessor of The Strongest Low Kick in History or The World's Most Explosive Punch.
Loque @ Aug 25th 2006 1:53PM
Ikaruga for Xbox Live. I'd buy a damn Xbox for it.
the Brayn @ Aug 25th 2006 2:11PM
"As for brand new entries in the genre, the Guilty Gear series recently released Slash and are actually already working on the next serious version (serious being not Isuka, a DS version, etc)."
I believe they were referring to new IPs instead of sequels to already existing ones. Hopefully this resurgence of 2d on Live Arcade will allow some indie game developers to break into the industry.
Mountain Dew @ Aug 25th 2006 2:24PM
Somebody please...please...please.... release a joystick for the 360!
Brian @ Aug 25th 2006 2:25PM
Final Fight man, we need it. And Double freaking Dragon please.
phillosmaster @ Aug 25th 2006 2:29PM
SNK needs to make another Last Blade. I still dust my Dreamcast off every now and then just to play Last Blade.
a Master Ninja @ Aug 25th 2006 2:29PM
Mountain Dew, Hori already released a joystick. Its that DOA one for$40 now. It works great.
Dr. Tubesteak @ Aug 25th 2006 2:40PM
Wake me up when they announce Samurai Showdown 2.
B @ Aug 25th 2006 2:46PM
Fatal Fury Special(HOLY EFFING GOD) for the 360....OK, Im seriously considering to buy a 360....however if SNK Playmore decides to realse any KOF for the 360..I will buy it instantly.
Neil @ Aug 25th 2006 2:58PM
Magician Lord would be nice.
laserboyjc @ Aug 25th 2006 3:03PM
Not a fighter, but a side scrolling brawler asking for some XBLA love is Streets of Rage 2. In my opinion it is one of the best of its kind, or at least one of the most memorable games for me in my gaming history. I replayed Eternal Champions via Gametap and found it was horrible, not at all like the fun I remembered having. However Streets of Rage 2 was excellent, the catchy music, the sound of a pipe cracking a punk's head...sweet gaming indeed. I played it all the way through again til the end. If they make co-op on Live I'm all over it. While I'm dreaming I'll also ask for TMNT too...bring it on I say.
Mountain Dew @ Aug 25th 2006 3:31PM
Yeah, I've heard about the Hori joystick, but have never found it anywhere. Was it only sold in Japan?
Insomnia Bob @ Aug 29th 2006 4:53PM
I second the motion for Marvel vs. Capcom 2. That game is like the holy grail of 2D fighters. I work in a game store, and we recently saw a copy traded in for the Xbox. It sells USED for $60. And I'd have bought it on the spot, but it's not on the BC list. (Damn you, damn you all to hell.)
I'm sure MvC would be a smash hit on XBLA, but sadly, they're probably going to work their way forward through a bunch of other fighting games before the start giving us the more modern iterations.
On a final note, Marvel and Capcom need to kiss and make up, or whatever. The world needs to see Dante vs. Wolverine vs. Zero vs. ....ah...whoever. You get the point. And Marvel isn't doing it's brand any good by letting EA urinate on it's IPs.
dsub @ Aug 25th 2006 5:48PM
"Just give me some Marvel vs. Capcom II on xbox live and I will be set for life."
I 2nd that. Or at least make it Backwards Compatible for the XBOX version.
dsub @ Aug 25th 2006 5:48PM
You guys know madcatz is releasing the Xbox Live Arcade stick right?
http://www.joystiq.com/2006/08/17/mad-catz-goes-retro-with-xbox-live-arcade-stick/
kftgr @ Aug 25th 2006 9:35PM
Fatal Fury Special is good, but a gem like Mark of the Wolves would be awesome. Probably easier to "pretty up" for HD, but harder on the networking issues as MotW is faster paced. Of course, the 50 MB limit really limits it.
What's funny is that I seem to remember an interview with SNK Playmore USA's head guy and he wasn't very supportive of the 360... ah, found it:
http://360.advancedmn.com/article.php?artid=7430
'"What do we do with 360?" Live Arcade is something we're talking about. That still gets some of our older games available but yet that has been a little bit of a stumbling block because their base system, the memory capability is not strong enough to take some of our arcade classics. They want us to compress it. Maybe we can't compress it. They don't want to go to a memory stick that has 128 megs, they just feel like it's not fair to their consumer base because if they had only done the larger SKU, this wouldn't be a discussion. So their Live Arcade, which has got a lot of games presented, and they want to do a lot of games. . .there has been very little coming out because they have an issue with the memory capacity. We want to support Microsoft, but its been an interesting market...'
So either 1) FFS doesn't take that much space, 2) SNK's willing to compress, or 3) MS is laxing their size restrictions...or any combination. Hmm, wonder how much influence SFII's success had to do with this deal.
The excerpt came from page 4, but the whole thing's an interesting read.
epobirs @ Aug 26th 2006 2:45AM
I suspect the upcoming 256MB Memory Unit is going to raise the bar for XBLA game size.
I'm not much for fighters but there are some SNK classics I'd really like to see. If not on XBLA then on a collection disc. Not all were created by SNK but I expect the companies wouldn't turn down the money for running the existing code base under emulation so as to create essentially no work for them. Magician Lord, Pulstar, Blazing Star, Andro Dunos (I like me some shooters, I do), the original Puzzle Bobble/Bust-a-Move, etc. A long list beyond the fighters. Many of them have never had a release on other consoles despite the issues of processing and memory being long a thing of the past.
SNK could do a lot of business through online sales to next-gen consoles if they just rise to the occasion.
epobirs @ Aug 26th 2006 3:04AM
Keep in mind when SNK says megs, they mean megabits. But when Microsoft says a game has to fit on a 64 meg memory card with room to spare for saves and such, they mean megabytes.
SNK used to make much of the '330 mega' potential capacity of their carts but that only works out to 41.25 megabytes. By comparison, the biggest N64 game, Resident Evil 2, was 512 megabits or 64 megabytes.
Some later Neo-Geo CD games got a lot bigger but still on the small side for CD games. They were still mostly structured toward the arcades and didn't focus on the stuff that really eats up CD space. It was just vstly cheaper than shipping the games on mask ROMs. If they'd just had a decent load speed the reduced overall cost of the platform (which ws no longer that far ahead of the home console competition) and games might have made for a good sized high-end niche market rather than the tiny niche market for those that could bear the horrible load times.
Anyways, a very big portion of the Neo-Geo library isn't nearly as large in data volume as they once seemed. A 1990 Magician Lord at 46 megs was amazing compared to what else was available then but now it's less than 9 megabytes. Not even close to large as XBLA games run.
Swavuu @ Aug 26th 2006 4:21AM
Samurai Showdown, Hello!
Alex @ Aug 26th 2006 3:59PM
Swavuu, I agree with you. A Live Arcade version of Samurai Showdown will be an instant buy for me. FFS, though, will be a buy by me, if only to show SNKP some support. :)