Fatal Fury: Mark of the Wolves

Also known as: Garou: Mark of the Wolves (Japan)

Developer: SNK

Just because I'm still a little child at heart, I need to get this out of the way right off the bat - there's a fighter in this game named "Butt." If that's not enough reason to praise this game, I don't know what is. This is a game where you can legitimately claim to have "kicked Butt's butt." Anyway, with that said, Mark of the Wolves is a fantastic 2D fighter that doesn't seem to have been played by nearly enough people. This is one of the best-made SNK fighters that you can find on a console. Beautiful 2D models brawl it out with smooth controls and fun, unique move sets for each character. If I were to complain about anything, it would be the number of game modes, but honestly, back when Mark of the Wolves was released, it's not like most fighting games had a large array of modes to choose from…that complaint is coming from a more modern perspective. The positive of that complaint is that the only reason that I want more modes is because this game plays so well that I want more excuses to play it. Mark of the Wolves isn't a Street Fighter killer by any means, but it's a very good game and one of the better SNK fighters that you can find, in my opinion.

Review added: 02/17/2024

Fire Pro Wrestling D

Also known as: N/A

Developer: S-Neo

Fire Pro Wrestling D, until Fire Pro Wrestling R (Fire Pro Wrestling Returns in the West) was made on the PS2, was the ultimate Fire Pro Wrestling game. Scratch that. It may have been the ultimate wrestling game regardless of game series. Like the fantastic previous game in the franchise, Fire Pro Wrestling S: 6 Men Scramble on the Saturn, Fire Pro D offers the player several match types not typically seen in a professional wrestling game, including MMA-style shoot fights and exploding barbed wire steel cage matches. Fire Pro Wrestling D also offers a plethora of wrestlers to play as that are strikingly similar to real wrestlers, but with generic names to avoid copyright issues, which allows players to access wrestlers from multiple promotions from around the world and pit them against each other…and yes, if you’re a wrestling fan and don’t like the names, you can always rename each wrestler as who they actually are. Like most games in the series, there's definitely a learning curve to overcome here, but once you overcome it, you would have been very hard pressed to find a deeper wrestling game for its time. If you’re like me, and a lot of fans of the Fire Pro series, much of the fun is simply simulating matches and watching the outcome…and since you have the ability to tweak absolutely everything, right down to how often the computer AI uses specific holds and when, wrestling fans can lose hours watching matches that they’d never be able to see otherwise. Fire Pro was a must-import game for Dreamcast wrestling fans outside of Japan, and it’s still fun to revisit today.

Review added: 04/03/2019

Floigan Bros. Episode 1

Also known as: N/A

Developer: Visual Concepts

This was actually the first episode of what was scheduled to be…well, more than one (I don't know how many) that followed the crazy antics of the Floigan Bros. Unfortunately, it was the only one ever released. While no exact number of planned games has ever been specified, to my knowledge, the plan was to have each episode have its own story…kind of like an episode of a television show. When it first came out it was praised at how much it felt like being an interactive cartoon, and with all of its personality, it still feels that way to a degree. Interacting with Moigle is both amusing and a necessary aspect of the game. However, the gameplay does get a little tedious after a while. It's probably a perfect game for young'uns and it has its moments where some adults may enjoy their time with this game as well. Unfortunately, though, the game as a whole is only passable, and despite how full of personality the game is, most players may find themselves getting bored shortly into the story due to pretty simple gameplay mechanics. Still, for those of us that grew up on Saturday morning cartoons, Floigan Bros. does have a bit of charm to it, and that may be enough to push some folks through to see the credits roll.

Review added: 04/03/2019

Frame Gride

Also known as: N/A

Developer: From Software

I've never been very big on the mech games…I can play them, and I can appreciate them for what they are, but I don't think I'd ever go out of my way to play one, to be honest. Frame Gride did have my interest for a bit, though, as I was absolutely blown away by the graphics it had for the time. Honestly, it still looks pretty nice today, considering the hardware it was running on. But unfortunately, great graphics can only get you so far. That's not to say that Frame Gride is a bad game. It's not. And if the idea of a free-roaming 3D fighting game where you control giant mechs sounds good to you, you may enjoy this game a bit more than I did. The fact that I'm not really interested in mechs, combined with the fact that I'd prefer a traditional 2D fighting game over a 3D fighter nine times out of ten, just resulted in me thinking that this game was simply so-so. Still, if you're a fan of From Software's recent games like Elden Ring, then it may be worth checking out some of their earlier titles like this fella right here.

Review added: 12/15/2023

Fruit'y

Also known as: N/A

Developer: Retroguru

Fruit’y was released relatively recently…well, in comparison to other games released on the Dreamcast, that is. It’s a puzzle game where your goal is to manipulate the left side of the screen so it matches the right side of the screen. It’s not necessarily a bad concept…but it also tends to be very slow and very boring. I made it through 20 or 30 levels, then wanted a nap due to boredom…and there are 120 levels in total, so I didn’t get too awful far before feeling like I was ready to move on to something else. That said, Fruit’y isn’t my cup of tea, but I do like to support and give exposure to independent developers, so if you’d like a copy of Fruit’y for yourself (it’s free) head over to www.retroguru.com and head to their downloads section to download this and other games that they’ve developed for various platforms.

Review added: 04/21/2019