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FATAL FURY: WILD AMBITION
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[Fatal Fury: Wild Ambition Gallery]
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| GAME STATISTICS |
| A.K.A.: |
Garou Densetsu Wild Ambition (Japan) |
| Release Date: |
 November 30, 1999
 June 24, 1999
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| Publisher: |
SNK |
| Developer: |
SNK |
| Genre: |
Fighting |
| # of Players: |
1-2 |
| ESRB Rating: |
T |
| Our Score: |
6.0 out of 10 |
| Our Reviews: |
Ape - Review below.
To submit one, click here! |
| Systems: |
Playstation |
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6.0 out of 10
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| Bland...That’s the first word that you’ll likely think of when you play Fatal Fury: Wild Ambition for the first time. The gameplay seems plain, the graphics seem ordinary, and the game modes are basic fighting game modes from the 16-bit era...However, after you spend some time with this fighter, you’ll see it packs a little more punch than meets the eye.
First off, much like how the Street Fighter series went into 3D for the first time with the EX series, Wild Ambition is SNK’s first attempt at bringing the Fatal Fury franchise into the world of 3D....And like I mentioned above, at first glance, the game doesn’t seem very ambitious. Where as the Street Fighter EX games were fairly easy to pick-up and play without knowing anyone’s moveset and just mashing buttons, Fatal Fury: Wild Ambition isn’t quite as playable to newcomers or the casual crowd that don’t care how to do anything fancier than a punch or a kick. By mashing buttons, you may do well for a match or two, but you’ll likely never make it to the end of the Arcade mode without knowing how to execute moves, dodge, and block attacks. However, just because it’s not an easy game to just pick up and play, that doesn’t make it a bad game. In fact, that’s what I like about Wild Ambition...However, it’s kind of done poorly in some aspects. |
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Button mashing or not, you’ll likely win your first two or three fights in arcade mode...However, despite the difficulty that you have the game set at, once you fight your fourth opponent onward, you’ll be in for a big fight. If you button mash, you’ll be destroyed. The only way to victory is to strategize as you fight; anticipating your opponent’s moves and blocking or countering them. This gives you a great feeling of accomplishment when you win...And it helps give a little bit of a thrill as you play, too. This is the first game in a long, long time that got my heart pounding because I’d be one successful hit away from victory...But so would my opponent. It was nice to have that feeling when playing a game again. The down side, however, is that you may be often spending more time blocking during a fight than actually attacking...And quite frankly, when the majority of my time playing a fighting game is blocking, it loses its thrill and turns to boredom pretty quickly.
I had mentioned earlier that the game has only the basic modes that you’d see in the 16-bit era; Arcade and Versus modes. Initially, this is true. However, as you play the game, you can unlock Team Battle mode, which adds a little bit more replayability to the game after you’ve managed to beat the game with all of the characters on the roster. There are also two hidden characters that you can unlock if you’re skilled enough. I won’t spoil who they are, but longtime fans of the Fatal Fury/King of Fighters series will recognize them. While unlocking these modes and characters don’t add a tremendous amount of replay value to the game, they add enough to keep you playing well after the first time you complete Arcade mode. |
| Graphically, Wild Ambition isn’t that great...Especially considering that the MUCH better-looking Tekken 3 was released about a year and a half prior to this game. However, despite the fact that it looks more like an early Playstation One game rather than one that was released closer to the end of the system’s lifespan, I don’t find the graphics to be terrible...They’re just a kind of rough in comparison to what you were seeing on the system at that time. The audio is a bit better than the graphics, but it’s still not overwhelmingly great. The audio works with the game, and that’s pretty much that. It’s nothing fancy, but it gets the job done and won’t have you reaching for earplugs. Simply put, Wild Ambition is not a game that you’ll buy for the cosmetic aspects.
All in all, Fatal Fury: Wild Ambition is a decent, passable title...But it really lacks anything to make it more than that. Everything seemed to be done bigger and better by everyone else at the point when Wild Ambition reached store shelves...Which is probably why it didn’t sell so well and is hard to find today. But, if you look past the obvious flaws and give the game a chance, you’ll find a decent fighter waiting for you. You may get bored blocking at a near constant rate and having the enemy take it to you rather than the other way around, but some folks may find this style to be rewarding. If you love fighting games, then give Wild Ambition a chance. It’s no Tekken or Soul Blade, but it’s a decent 3D fighting game that’ll give you a slightly different experience than you’d get with those other 3D fighters. However, one can’t help but think that if the developers of this Fatal Fury game had the ‘wild ambition’ that the title suggests, this game could have been much, much better. - Ape |
 
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