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Just the opposite, it's the zenith of urineournalism.
Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves
- Thread starter Hattori Hanzo
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Anecdotal, but none of my friends ever bought or played it back in the day. It got trashed in review mags too.
Probably got semi-decent rentals from ye olde VHS rental stores, but that's about it.
Anyways, that Vice article brings up some good points, but I disagree with one big thing, and it's that marketing your game to people who don't know about it is a bad thing. Kind of ridiculous to criticize trying to make a niche game less niche by marketing it to the mainstream, which is something SNK has sucked at forever. SNK loyalists and people in the FGC aren't the ones it needs to be marketed to, we know about the game already and what we're getting from the character reveal videos and gameplay demos.
The actual problem is how they did it.
Soccer Rape guy was a big mistake as clearly his global popularity didn't do squat and Fettuccine, while players have turned around on him, where completely out of left field and the general reaction to him was "who the fuck is he and why is he taking up a roster spot?". Having two forced Saudi characters did nothing but hurt it, especially with a small starting roster.
Plus there's all the bonkers videos like the boxing video thing, and tacky product placement like the...other boxing thing.
Still think getting it in the center of the Wrestlemania ring was a great idea though, because you had the KOF All Stars crossover already, and that's just mass general exposure that doesn't feel too shoehorned.
Fundamentally, you have all this product placement and flashy bonkers advertisement, but not very much in the way of what the content of the game was, and why people should care and want to buy it. They really should have leaned more heavily on SNK/Fatal Fury's legacy, advertised the game's content more, and gotten Ken and Chunners in the starting lineup to boost initial sales. Oh, and maybe put a tenth of the marketing budget into the game's development so it's content could be more fleshed out and given SF6 a true run for it's money.
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When the first beta came out the game got data mined and Rick's name showed up as future DLC so it's probably just a matter of time until your husbando shows up.Sales tanked, because no Rick S
I told y’all so.
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Unfortunately, I think he’ll just be background in some other DLC’s arcade mode, like Jack is now…if-at all.
No VA listed for him in the end-credit roll.
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Surprisingly, the reviews were decent for the most part....
Shaq Fu: What Did Critics Say Back in 1994? - Defunct Games
Today we're taking a look at Shaq Fu for the Sega Genesis. This game was originally released in 1994 and has a reputation for being one of the worst games of all time. But is it that bad? I certainly didn't think so when I gave it a B-. Do the critics agree with me or everybody else? Let's dig...
I played it at a buddy's house on Genesis back in the day. We had some fun with it. I think its current reputation is likely due to the sheer absurdity of Shaq starring in a fighting game. It seemed to achieve internet meme status in the 00s or so.
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All I remember of the game was they animated him to look like he was dying for a pissSurprisingly, the reviews were decent for the most part....
Shaq Fu: What Did Critics Say Back in 1994? - Defunct Games
Today we're taking a look at Shaq Fu for the Sega Genesis. This game was originally released in 1994 and has a reputation for being one of the worst games of all time. But is it that bad? I certainly didn't think so when I gave it a B-. Do the critics agree with me or everybody else? Let's dig...www.defunctgames.com
I played it at a buddy's house on Genesis back in the day. We had some fun with it. I think its current reputation is likely due to the sheer absurdity of Shaq starring in a fighting game. It seemed to achieve internet meme status in the 00s or so.
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It tanked so hard they fired the CEO?
So much for it being worth it to put the soccer guy in there, huh. Shocking that those hundreds of millions of Latin American fighting game fans didn't come through.
So much for it being worth it to put the soccer guy in there, huh. Shocking that those hundreds of millions of Latin American fighting game fans didn't come through.
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You’re right, it should’ve been Embiid
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The fact is the marketing and gimmick characters hurt the game and alienated it from its actual base. I don’t think it would have sold particularly well regardless compared to Tekken, SF6 etc. but if they would have had realistic expectations and catered to the actual fans and FGC I think it would have done better.
Throwing their fans under the bus to try and appeal to douchebags who were never going to buy the game regardless was an incredibly short sighted move.
Throwing their fans under the bus to try and appeal to douchebags who were never going to buy the game regardless was an incredibly short sighted move.
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I can't really offer any insight on this from euroland, these games were never big here as far as I can tell, but I'm definitely disappointed that it's apparently a great game but nobody seems to care
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Hey, I'm just glad they didn't set him on fire. It is the saudis after all.
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He probably better stay in Japan just to be safe, though
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even rise of the robots got some positive reviews back in the day, mostly for the amiga version, because people who still owned an amiga in 94/95 really were that desperate.Surprisingly, the reviews were decent for the most part....
Shaq Fu: What Did Critics Say Back in 1994? - Defunct Games
Today we're taking a look at Shaq Fu for the Sega Genesis. This game was originally released in 1994 and has a reputation for being one of the worst games of all time. But is it that bad? I certainly didn't think so when I gave it a B-. Do the critics agree with me or everybody else? Let's dig...
I played it at a buddy's house on Genesis back in the day. We had some fun with it. I think its current reputation is likely due to the sheer absurdity of Shaq starring in a fighting game. It seemed to achieve internet meme status in the 00s or so.
reviewers are full of shit.
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Back when SNK got the new Saudi ownership there was a pretty strong backlash and possible boycott, online at least. Not sure how much that was a factor here. The two guest characters only seemed to remind people of the ownership on social media.
Positive word of mouth is sometimes enough for a game, and COTW had it, but in today's fractured media landscape I'm not sure what it takes to get the desired attention from the consumer base. Plastering subway walls in Japan can't have really helped.
Is the AOF game still happening? They need to scale back and be much smarter about how they spend their money. Saudi pockets may be deep, but return on investment is obviously always critical.
Positive word of mouth is sometimes enough for a game, and COTW had it, but in today's fractured media landscape I'm not sure what it takes to get the desired attention from the consumer base. Plastering subway walls in Japan can't have really helped.
Is the AOF game still happening? They need to scale back and be much smarter about how they spend their money. Saudi pockets may be deep, but return on investment is obviously always critical.
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I don't know if it's enough to matter overall, but I do know several people who outright refuse to buy SNK games now due to the Saudi link. If anything, they might pick up a used copy so that no money goes directly to the prince.
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The beta had about twice the peak players as the final game. Maybe I'm swayed too much by the presentation, but the final game does feel really different from the beta. It feels so much more complete, which should be an obvious difference, but... the beta just left me feeling kind of empty somehow. The real game just feels better. I have two brothers who bought KOF XV, but then skipped buying COTW after playing the beta. I told them they chose the wrong one to skip though.
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I played XV hardcore for about 6 hours. After that, I only returned to it sparingly when I was doing 'full series' playthroughs for nostalgia's sake.
XIV and XV are both very underwhelming. Both are ten pounds of monkeyshit in a five pound bag.
CotW is SOOO much better than either of those games, but your mileage will vary on that statement.
XIV and XV are both very underwhelming. Both are ten pounds of monkeyshit in a five pound bag.
CotW is SOOO much better than either of those games, but your mileage will vary on that statement.
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Punch them in the balls until they change their minds.
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To a casual player there is nothing about this game that stands out. The graphics are mediocre, the characters are most recognizable from cameos in other games rather than the series itself, and casuals don't know or care about advanced mechanics, series lore, the online metagame, etc. If a casual is looking for a fighting game they're just going to buy Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter, Tekken, Super Smash Bros, or Dragon Ball. They thought putting a soccer player in it would be enough to make the casual audience care, but there is no relation between what the soccer guy is famous for and the actual content of the game. So obviously nobody gives a shit.
So that leaves the hardcore audience. The people you made wait 26 years for a new Fatal Fury game and then decided to completely abandon to court casuals and please the Saudis. Here's some soccer guy and some random DJ nobody has ever heard of, give us money for DLC if you want Andy and Joe!
This was the most predictable bomb imaginable. The people who they should have targeted with this are the people that are playing Guilty Gear, but instead the Saudis thought they could brute force a dead franchise into parity with Street Fighter or Mortal Kombat.
So that leaves the hardcore audience. The people you made wait 26 years for a new Fatal Fury game and then decided to completely abandon to court casuals and please the Saudis. Here's some soccer guy and some random DJ nobody has ever heard of, give us money for DLC if you want Andy and Joe!
This was the most predictable bomb imaginable. The people who they should have targeted with this are the people that are playing Guilty Gear, but instead the Saudis thought they could brute force a dead franchise into parity with Street Fighter or Mortal Kombat.
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Fatal Fury deserved a new installment, but it's probably been too long. It was an important series, but only older players remember it, and it hasn't had a new game in over 25 years.
Capcom has kept Street Fighter going over the years, and Marvel vs Capcom got new installments too, but Marvel vs Capcom Infinte was a stumble. Perhaps one fighting franchise is the limit in this day and age, and for SNK that has been KOF. We're lucky we also got Samurai Shodown. Maybe we have to accept that KOF is all that's going to be left of Fatal Fury going forward.
Capcom has kept Street Fighter going over the years, and Marvel vs Capcom got new installments too, but Marvel vs Capcom Infinte was a stumble. Perhaps one fighting franchise is the limit in this day and age, and for SNK that has been KOF. We're lucky we also got Samurai Shodown. Maybe we have to accept that KOF is all that's going to be left of Fatal Fury going forward.