Review: Garou: Mark of the Wolves (Dreamcast)

Fighters, Reviews — By Jeffrey L. Wilson on September 6, 2009 at 2:20 am

Garou: Mark of the Wolves, considered by many as one of SNK’s Holy Four (along with King of Fighters ’98, Last Blade, and Metal Slug 3),  is slated to make its grand debut on Xbox Live Arcade tomorrow. Garou‘s re-release has been a long time coming for SNK die-hards, so before the debate sparks regarding this version’s accuracy, we’re going to take a pleasant look at the 2001 Dreamcast port.

It’s hard to believe that 1999′s Garou: Mark of the Wolves (ported to the U.S. Dreamcast as Fatal Fury: Mark of the Wolves) is a decade old, but it remains one of the games I fire up to doubters to prove the viability of 2D gaming. It’s an amazingly beautiful game with large, bright sprites  and sparkly special attacks that are animated with old school SNK’s loving care.

Over the years it’s been knocked for simply being SNK’s Street Fighter III (and it is without a doubt heavily inspired by Capcom’s classic game), but that’s not necessarily a negative. SNK went to the drawing board and totally deconstructed and reconstructed Fatal Fury‘s visuals and gameplay to take the series to the next level.

Garou: Mark of the Wolves strips the Fatal Fury franchise of all its familiar faces, save for Terry Bogard and Rock Howard. Although the names are new, many are echoes of classic Fatal Fury characters, so you should be able to find one that you can bind with quite easily.

• Kevin Rain: Second South Town super cop
• Bonne Jenet: Hot, female pirate in a skimpy purple dress (go figure)
• Kim Dong Hwan: Kim Kaphwan’s son
• Kim Jae Hoon: Kim Kaphwan’s other son
• Gato: Hard-hitting mysterious lone
• Hotaru Futaba: Young, annoying girl; Garou‘s Athena
• Hokutomaru: Andy Bogard’s student
• Khushnood Butt/Marco Rodriguez: Ryo Sakazaki’s student
• Tizoc: The Zangief of Garou
• Freeman: Badassmofo with Iori-like attack
• Grant: Sub-boss
• Kain R. Heinlein: Main boss, and Rock Howard’s uncle

Garou: Mark of Wolves’ gameplay is the most Capcom that SNK had ever gone until King of Fighters XII. Combos flow openly and freely,  more so than any previous SNK fighter, making for a decidedly “noob-frinedly” experience.

One of the coolest aspects of Street Fighter III was it’s parry technique, that let a player block without taking special move/guard damage by pushing forward on the joystick as a blow was about to land. Parrying was a genius addition to Street Fighter III‘s silky smooth gameplay as it introduced a risk-reward scenario: if you weren’t especially adept at it, you ate a fist, foot, or fireball.

Naturally, as SNK was heavily inspired by Street Fighter III, Garou: Mark of the Wolves has its own special blocking technique entitled “Just Defend”, which rewards players with excellent last second blocking skill by filling a characters lifebar a bit. It’s a handy tool if you’re low on life and an opponent is working overtime to end the match with chip damage, but unlike Street Fighter III, there’s no major drawback for blowing a Just Defend, as you pull back on the stick to activate it. That’s right, Just Defend is a super block executed in the same manner as a regular block that offers no risk-reward; it’s a turtlers wet, sloppy dream. A successful Just Defend also lets you guard cancel into an attack.

But that isn’t the only strategic element to Garou: Mark of the Wolves. The TOP system will keep this title tournament-worthy for quite some time. TOP is represented by a bracket that you can position at the front, middle, or end of the lifebar. Once a character’s lifebar enters the TOP zone,  s/he will begin to recover energy, and gain new/more powerful atacks that can quickly guard crush blocking opponents.

Garou: Mark of the Wolves‘ wondefully animated sprites get plenty of attention, but the backgrounds are just as delicious. Terry’s freight-train stage and Gato’s waterfall stage showcase two of the most detailed, eye-catching backgrounds in fighters, the quality of which wouldn’t be matched until King of Fighters XII. The music isn’t particularly classic, but they don’t offend, either.

The one legit gripe that anyone can have against Garou: Mark of the Wolves is its small roster; it isn’t nearly as sprawling as other fighters like King of Fighters ’98: Ultimate Match. Still, its a premier title in its genre, and is one of the many reasons to own a Dreamcast – - or an Xbox for a XBLA download. This is one of SNK’s finest moments.

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Tags: 2D, dreamcast, fatal fury, fighter, garou: mark of the wolves, king of fighters '98: ultimate match, sega dreamcast, snk, snk p, snk playmore