Fatal Fury 3: Road to the Final Victory

Fatal Fury 3: Road to the Final Victory (餓狼伝説3 遥かなる闘い Garō Densetsu 3 Harukanaru Tatakai, "Legend of the Hungry Wolf 3: The Distant Battle") is a 1995 head-to-head fighting game released by SNK for the Neo-Geo arcade and home platforms. It is the fourth game in the Fatal Fury series after Fatal Fury Special (which itself was an updated version of Fatal Fury 2). Console versions of Fatal Fury 3 were released for the Neo Geo CD, Sega Saturn and Windows 95-based computers. The game is also included in the compilation Fatal Fury Battle Archives Volume 1 for the PlayStation 2.

Fatal Fury 3 retains the format and controls of the previous game in the series, Fatal Fury Special. However, the two-plane battle stages have been revamped into a three plane format known as the Oversway System. The player fights primarily in the middle plane or the main plane, but can move or "oversway" into either of the sway lines at the background (LP+LK) or foreground (LK+HP). When the player performs an attack in a sway plane (or an Oversway Attack), their character will return to the main plane. Likewise, the player can attack an opponent who is in a Sway Plane with an Anti-Oversway Attack. The player can also do a "Quick Sway" to avoid an attack, leaving the opponent vulnerable to a regular attack.

Other new techniques introduced in this installment includes controlling the height of the character's jump, block an opponent's attack at mid-air (Air Guard), and a new type of combo techniques known as Combination Arts, allowing the player to cancel a specific series (which varies between characters) of regular attacks from one to the other. In addition to the regular Special Moves, and the Super Special Moves which can only be performed when the life gauge is flashing red, each character also has a "Hidden Ability", which is a stronger version of a Super Special Move. A Hidden Ability occurs once in every 1024 chances whenever the player inputs the command for the character's Super Special Move. A Hidden Ability can also be used by activating "Super Mode" before a match using a secret code. The player then enters a specific command for the Hidden Ability when the life gauge is flashing red. Unlike Super Special Moves, a Hidden Ability can only be used once per round.

Fatal Fury 3 also features a Fighting Level system when fighting against the computer. When the player completes a round, their performance is graded from A to triple S. The final opponents the player faces at the end of the single player mode is determined the by the player's average. The player will have a choice between four characters as their first opponent (Joe, Mary, Bob and Franco). After the first four opponents are defeated, the player will fight against Ryuji Yamazaki for a plot-based match in which the player must win only one round. The player will then proceed to fight against Mai, Andy, Hon-Fu, Sokaku, Terry and Geese in that order, before Yamazaki again for a full match. Depending on the grade average, the game will end against Yamazaki, or the player will fight against either, or both, of the Jin twins.

Source: Wikipedia, "Fatal Fury 3: Road to the Final Victory", available under the CC-BY-SA License.