Fatal Fury 3 was actually the 4th game in the series and released in 1995. The other being: Fatal Fury – King of Fighters (1991), Fatal Fury 2 (1992) and Fatal Fury Special (1993). The Japanese translation of Fatal Fury 3 is roughly 'Legend of Hungry Wolf 3 - The Distant Battle'.
With Fatal Fury 3 we find the Lone Wolves - Joe Higashi, Terry Bogard, Andy Bogard, & Mai Shiranui downtown at the opening of the new branch of Pao Pao Cafe by former street fighter Richard Meyer.
Our Lone Wolves get caught up in the chase for Shiranui Scrolls and the mysterious fighters that are after them! The game has a different graphic style to previous versions, with two different background planes to fight, hidden moves and combos, a grade system depending on how well you perform and alternative endings.
There are some differences with this game to previous incantations such as this version offered a deeper plane change system adding in that throws seemed slower and harder to pull off. In FF3 we see eight new characters added; Franco Bash, Bob Wilson, Sokaku Mochizuki, Blue Mary, Ryuji Yamazaki, Jin Chinrei, Hon Fu and Jin Chonshu. The best new feature added in my opinion was chain combos these added in more of a depth
to each characters fighting style not seen before. Another neat thing was the ability to slam opponents into some tangible backgrounds. The main negative point I have to make is the control system, being different to the rest in such a marginal way made it that much more difficult to control. The difficulty overall was average for a typical fighter like this, but maintained reply value! (Alternative endings based on your performance).
Overall this is an excellent fighter with excellent character design, evolving story, gorgeous backgrounds and with a game engine tuned to near perfection: this is the peak of the FF series thus far and definitely worth a try.
