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[Tizoc]

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BUSTAH WOOOOORV

...and now you know why I have a Tizoc avatar :V

(Images courtesy of Fighter's Generation and the SNK wiki...and google images)

Released in 1999, Garou MotW was the latest entry in the Fatal Fury series. Taking place nearly 10 years after the events of Real Bout: Fatal Fury 1, a martial arts tournament is held in Second South(town). Terry returns to his home city to participate and help his protege, Rock Howard, learn about his past.

This is gonna be a repost of a huge write-up I did months ago, so hopefully you'll enjoy reading it and get an idea of the game. As is the game is available on Xbox Live, but the online is pretty weak, though the port itself is good.

Intro videos 1 and 2
Gotta love that uplifting samba-like theme that plays in the 2nd intro~

Garou: Mark of the Wolves was perhaps the first Dreamcast game I’ve ever seen and played. The graphics and effects were very impressive from what I had seen, though at the time I didn’t realize it was a Fatal Fury game.

None the less once I got my hands on the game and been able to play it, I spent HOURS AND HOURS playing it, and experimenting in Training mode.
Heck I even made .TXT files of my findings in regards to damage scaling, etc. but sadly that got deleted over the time I switched computers and lappies @_@.

What I DO remember from my findings:
BJ, Hokutomaru and Hotaru all take 10% more damage
Tizoc and Grant take 5% less damage (not that it’d help Big Bird much…)

Damage scaling was based on hits, not attacks (like SF4’s) and min. damage from any attack will do 50% of its base damage.
To this day I’m still waiting patiently for SNK to have Garou released on PSN or Steam with good net code.

For many KoF or SNK fans, Garou is the swan song of SNK, a game that few have every played or watched match vids of, but always hearing of how good it is.

As is, many a new KoF newcomer via KoF 13 may even hear of Garou, but all the time they’ve spent in KoF 13 won’t prepare them for it.

Garou is a lot stiffer than the usual SNK fighter from the period, I’d say the game feels more like Street Fighter Alpha/Zero games if you’ve ever played them. Humorously enough, Garou is very lenient with its command inputs, you could do QCF, Hold Forward for half a second, input the next QCF and the super will come out after having walked forward a few steps. Like various SNK fighters, it utilizes 2 Punch buttons and 2 Kick buttons. Furthermore, charge moves, like Kain’s, only require holding the direction for 1 second (or less!), rather than a long-ish charge time like in Capcom games.
Many refer to Garou as SNK’s answer to SF3, though their most prominent similarities are having a defensive technique as well as being the latest game in that series with fluid animation.

Game play wise, Garou is a very easy game to learn its mechanics:
The meter at the bottom of the screen is used for one thing and one thing only- performing your super move. Here’s quick breakdown of supers in Garou:
Supers have 2 levels: S. Power is Lvl. 1 & P. Power is Lvl. 2

S. Powers do an average of 25% damage, P. Powers do an average of 40% damage

Supers are performed as QCFx2+Punch or Kick, and each character has 2 supers, with Rock, Butt, B. Jenet, Gato and Dong Hwan having an extra P. Power super. Tizoc’s Punch super is a 720 motion, while Dong’s Punch super needs to be performed in the air.

S. Powers are performed with Light Punch or Kick, while P. Powers are performed with Hard Punch/Kick.
Interestingly enough, one of your 2 supers can function as an anti-air.

That’s about it for super moves in Garou, I’ll write a little more about them when I write about the characters. With supers out of the way here’s a quick rundown of its main game play systems:
Pressing A+B (Light Punch+Light Kick) will do a Universal Overhead attack. It has a slow ish start up but some characters can link combos after it in some situations (like Grant)

Pressing Down+A+B will do a Universal Anti-Air, I’ve not seen this used much in matches for such a purpose since those characters have better anti-airs prob., but this can be combo-ed into and is cancelable into specials or supers (even Grant and Tizoc’s you just gotta be fast)

A staple of the Fatal Fury series (I neglected to mention them before but will do an upcoming addendum) is retained in Garou: Feints, these are down by Pressing Down or Forward with both Punch buttons. Feints are used to extend combos and are one of Terry’s most effective tools in Garou.

Feints will make the character do the starting animation of a super or attack, and in Garou can be used to combo normals together (Garou has chain combos but only for a few characters and most are not cancelable), in Terry’s case he can do Standing C>Feint>Crouching C>Feint>Crouching C>Super/Special.

Those wondering if infinites are possible with it, then it is possible but you will almost never see it in matches due to the pushback from attacks and that using Feints for infinites is more effort than it’s worth.

Like many fighting games, it helps to know how much damage your combos into supers do, this way you can know when a combo you’ll be doing is gonna KO an opponent, and can help for saving meter if you just want to get a life lead.

Just Defend is the game’s defensive mechanic, and is a lot safer than Parrying in SF3. Many would be familiar with it from Capcom vs. SNK 2, but it made its debut in this game.

Just Defend requires the player to simply block at the very last second as an attack is about to hit them. If they succeed they will flash blue and recover a very very small amount of health, and like Parrying you can JD multiple hits to recover a decent chunk of health.

Upon JDing the player can do a Guard Cancel into any of their special moves or supers, or to their TOP Attack (explained soon). Simply Just Defend and then immediately enter the command for the move you want to perform and you’ll perform your Guard Cancel.
A sub-system in Garou is the TOP (Tactical Offensive Position I think…), after selecting your character, you will be asked to assign it in a location on your health bar. When your health is in the TOP area, you get an attack boost, and will slowly recover your health but only within the TOP area. In addition, when in TOP, Pressing C+D (Hard Punch+Hard Kick) will have your character perform a TOP attack, which functions as extra special move. Each character’s TOP attack has its own properties but need to be carefully used due to their slow recovery.

TOP offers, by default a 25% attack increase, and it covers 1/3 of your health bar by default as well. You have the TOP area either at the first, middle or last third of your life bar.

Pressing Up or Down at the TOP menu will reduce its size but increase the damage output, you can get a whoppin’ 75% extra attack power by reducing the size of the bar so it covers 1/10th of your life bar, but no one bothers with that since 25% attack increase is fine as it is and balanced. Blocking TOP attacks can be risky as they can put your guard meter in the red from blocking them a few times.
Oh and the health bar consists of 120 points for every character, and there are no super cancelable moves.

One neat feature in the game is ‘Breaking’; each character has at least 1 special move which they can stop it’s animation early on, by pressing A+B, to extend a combo or in case it gets blocked, or just whiffing it for meter.

Using Terry as an example, his Break-able move is the Power Dunk, so you do the motion, Press A+B to Break it, then follow with a super or another Power Dunk.
Counter Hits in Garou are interesting, where in KoF, Counter Hits result in your combo or attack doing more damage, in Garou they’ll either stun the opponent for a short while or juggle them into the air. In case of the opponent getting juggled, if you just let them fall to the ground, they can be hit OTG, and with a Super even! Juggles via Counter Hits also allow for certain combos that are normally not possible (like connecting 3 Power Dunks with Terry if the first CHs and is then Break-ed).

The game also has a hidden Guard Meter, if you see your character flashing red after blocking too many attacks, then you should be careful as it means an upcoming attack you block will break your guard leaving you open to a combo.

I’d say that’s it far as Garou’s game play goes, if it’s all too much to take in just re-read it again and you’ll get it memorized.
Much like how Capcom only brought back Ryu and Ken for SF3 (then Gouki and ChunLi), SNK decided to go a similar route, except they only brought back Terry with certain characters being legacy characters to pre-existing ones. One legacy character that takes the center stage in this game is Rock Howard, Geese’s son who is seen in Terry’s RBS ending and in various games Terry appeared in. Furthermore, Terry himself was redesigned losing his trademark cap and long hair, but keeping his legendary English accent.

Garou MotW takes place 10-15 years after the events of Real Bout Special, with Geese gone from people’s lives, the city of Southtown prospered in peace and has now expanded into Second Southtown, where the events of the game take place. Rock and Terry are invited to participate in a tournament by a man named Kain.
Many consider Garou and KoF 2000 to be SNK’s swan song released during the final years of SNK, and in case of Garou it shows.

Visually speaking the sprites are colorful and animate really well, the backgrounds are colored in a somewhat different style making the sprites stand out. …but in typical SNK tradition, the backgrounds are very well detailed and look beautiful and dynamic for the most part. The Neo Geo was said not to be able to produce 3D images, but SNK have tinkered with it in past games and in Garou the KO message is drawn with a pseudo 3D animation.

One neat little feature SNK added to the game that many may not know about has to do with Taunts.
First off after winning a round you can do extra 2 taunts by Holding Forward or Back then pressing Taunt. Now in some stages something happens when you taunt, it’s not anything major but props to SNK for adding more novelty to the game.

During arcade mode, before fighting your opponent a short cut scene will show the location or the character you will be fighting, such as Butt and the Kyokugen Bear doing a flying kick at each other ala Hokuto no Ken.

The music is another high point of Garou as it properly reflects the characters and their personalities, it should be noted that it’s perhaps the only fighting game that I know of at least, that has a different theme play depending on how you defeat your opponent, but the best has to be when winning with a super move:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_IU_fboWYs

More on the music and stages when I write up on the characters.
The main artist on Garou: MotW is TONKO (Senno Aki) who was the main artist on Last Blade 2, she also did promotional and cover artwork for SNK as well.

Garou MotW consists of 14 characters (2 can only be select by entering their respective codes), and each with their own unique play style and characterization, allowing for anyone to find the character whose design or play style suits them. Furthermore, instead of a generic icon to state how a player won the round, each character has a unique symbol to show how many rounds they’ve won in a match. A very nice touch that I do not believe has been done in any other fighters I’ve played since.

Terry Bogard is the only returning Fatal Fury character now sporting a cool jacket and changing up his English vocabulary. For some reason I personally prefer his new look over his trucker look but both are cool in their own way. Terry gets his popular BUSTER WOLF super in this game and its special effects are beautifully colored.

Some of Terry’s moves have a ‘volcanic’ colored ‘aura’ in his fist when he performs them, such as his Power Wave, B. Knuckle, Power Dunk, Power Geyser and BUSTER WOLF. I found this to be a nice touch, and fits in well with his ‘explosive’ personality. Terry’s TOP Attack is a tackle to a Power Dunk, has a slow start-up but if it is blocked Terry will be left open for combo.

In the events of Garou, Terry is more of the Deuteragonist. I feel as if the events of Garou take a look at his actions in his struggle against Geese instead of being about the character himself. It is unfortunate that the game’s poor English translation fails miserably in letting the player figure out just WTF his ending is about.

Terry’s win icon is a Star, and his stage takes place on a moving train, reminiscent of his Fatal Fury 2/Special stage. Round 1 start with the train moving and the sun can be seen rising in the background! The train is traveling on its way to a train station, which is the setting for Round 2, where you can see some passengers in the waiting area cheering on the fight. In Round 3 the train has left the station passing by a bridge in the background.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNNnzCiSwI0
Terry’s theme in Garou is aptly titled ‘Sunrise On The Train’, and the theme really fits with his stage’s background as the first few seconds coincide with the start of a new day/the sun rising. I find that Terry’s Garou theme also reflects how he doesn’t give up and will keep on fighting.

Rock Howard is the game’s main protagonist and who the game revolves around. Were Geese looked menacing, Rock appeared more ‘bishi’. How he came to learn moves similar to Geese are unknown, but he has uses a few of Terry’s moves as well. His TOP has him jump to the air and do a stomp.
Funnily enough Rock resembles Kaede from Last Blade and K’ from KoF, but I blame this mainly on their body build.
Rock’s ‘aura’ color in Garou is light blue in contrast to Terry’s volcanic color.
Rock’s supers are the Raging Storm and Shinning Knuckle, the latter being Terry inspired, and its P. Power ver. would be given to Terry in KoF 02. Rock can also do Geese’s Deadly Rave which results in an interesting victory pose if he wins a match with it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flPBoVYkyx4
Rock’s theme is ‘Spread the wings’ which resembles Robert Miles’ Children. Rock’s stage is a parking lot of a club at night time. Taunting in his stage will cause something to occur in the background. His win emblem is a wing or pair of wings.
Apparently Rock is one of the weakest characters in the game but isn’t too hard for beginners to use.

Kim Jae Hoon is the youngest of Kim’s sons, who have been around since Fatal Fury 2/Special and can be seen in his stage in those games. Jae Hoon shares his father’s view on good and evil, right down to saying his trademark ‘Aku wa yurasun!’ against evil characters. It is interesting to note that he’s quite mature and actually polite, such that if he wins with a super move he will run towards his fallen opponent to check up on them.

Jae Hoon uses similar moves to his dad, but with the distinction of having flame effects to them. Game play wise, Jae Hoon is a good and easy to use non-projectile character, whose combos do decent damage although I find that his mobility to not suit me a lot. His TOP is the axe kick ‘Neri Chegi’, which stuns on Counter Hit. Jae's win emblem is a flame.

Jae Hoon’s stage appears to be a market place or Korean neighborhood with banners and various people in martial arts gis watching the fight. If Jae Hoon is fighting anyone but Dong Hwan, then Dong will appear in the background. Taunting will cause something in the background to occur.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4E26jj-I_LU
Jae’s theme is titled ‘Too honest’ which may as well be the Kim family anthem. It has some really beautiful guitar in it reminding me of Kim Kaphwan’s Wild Ambition theme and his FF2/Special theme for some reason.

Kim Dong Hwan is the older brother of Jae Hoon, and whose personality is the complete opposite. He much prefers to have fun and goof around and is a lot more cheery than his younger serious brother, albeit rather cocky.

Where Jae Hoon is fire, Dong Hwan is Lighting (a lightning bolt is his win emblem). Dong also uses some moves of his father’s and has much better footsies than Jae Hoon IMO, as many Dong Hwan players utilize his high jump, dive kick and pressuring with Dong. Dong’s TOP attack has him hop and spin his body towards his opponent, but like many TOP attacks, the recovery is terrible.

Dong’s supers are an overhead thunder kick and a dive kick super. The LP dive kick super will juggle and can even be combo-ed to another one if your timing is good.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5s5xprzPBU
Dong’s theme is Loose Genius which is a fast paced theme that reflects Dong Hwan’s personality. Dong is fought in front of a casino at Night time, and in the background a short obese man wearing glasses is seen, who may or may not be Cheng from previous games.

Gato uses Chinese kenpo and participates in Kain’s tournament in search of the man who killed his mother. Gato is a quiet but cold and ruthless fighter whose style focuses on crushing his opponent’s body.

Game play-wise Gato is one of the best in the game, and his Punch super has one of the fastest start-ups in the game as well, such that he can combo into it from various attacks.

Part of Gato’s popularity comes not only from being one of the best characters in the game, but also for being a badass kung fu guy who snaps your neck with no fucks given. It’s sorta the same with why Gouki is popular.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUOVmQb1Bj8
His theme is ‘Heartful: A Groan’, which is orchestral and invokes the discipline of martial arts. Gato is fought by a waterfall and his win emblem is a Fist.

Hotaru Futaba is Gato’s young sister, who he abandoned in search of his father. Her fighting style is lighter than Gato’s violent style, and fits well with her non-violent personality. Based on one of her intros she is loved by animals. Hotaru is accompanied by her pet sable, Itokatsu, who recognizes Gato during their fight intro.

I don’t have much to say about Hotaru’s design TBH, as she didn’t strike me as being anything remarkable. Game play-wise she would be ranked mid tier, but has some useful tools. Her win emblem is a Ribbon, and her TOP attack has her do a back flip which can juggle opponents.

Hotaru’s stage is oddly titled Philanthropy Belfry, which I am certain is a mistranslation, as her stage takes place in the belfry of a church. Taunting will cause something in the background to occur as well. Her stage also transitions from day to night, and replaces the birds during the day time with bats when it’s night time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gat7wapuhW0
Hotaru’s theme is titled Fullmoon: Heartful which is a lighter and cheerful theme unlike Gato’s which is bolder. I really like the flutes used in her theme.

 

[Tizoc]

Hokutomaru is Andy’s apprentice sent to participate in Kain’s tournament as part of his training. Hokutomaru’s VI is Junko Takeuchi who also voiced R. Mika and Naruto Uzumaki.

The youngest character in the game and also the shortest, but that doesn’t have much effect on his hit box. Hokutomaru is one of the fastest characters in the game, and has the most chains, some of which are cancelable, others uncancelable and some even lead to Feints or a funny pose.

Hokutomaru’s mannerisms are that of a child, but design wise he resembles a monkey (his theme is even titled ‘Ninja? Or Monkey?’), down to even doing a monkey like dance & scratching the opponents face like a monkey for his throw.
One of his intros has him angrily yell at his opponent like a child further showing his childish personality & behavior.

It is a known fact that what makes a badass ninja is wearing a scarf, badass hat or a cape (or all combined), Hokutomaru has a cool red scarf thus making him a badass ninja. Hokutomaru also wields a wooden sword which packs quite a punch when he uses them in his special moves.

Hokutomaru’s special moves reflect the tricky-ness of monkies and how ninjas are masters of misleading and confusing their opponent.
Hokutomaru is a fun character to play as and while he seems easy to get into, may be hard to master.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GoJ_SsXUAbc
Hokutomaru’s theme starts off by giving a dopey/happy go lucky sense to it, but then builds up to be more dramatic, perhaps to invoke that Hokutomaru is more skilled and is improving on his journey through the tournament.

His stage takes place at a road intersection during rush hour where an accident has occurred. His stage has various cameos and shout outs to SNK series, but the most prominent is Kaede and Moriya appearing among the crowd. The traffic accident is obviously caused by Hokutomaru even though he’ll put the blame on someone else. Taunting in this stage will also have a background event occur.

Khushnood Butt Rodriguez is half a Brazilian and half Pakistani Karateka, he lived most of his life growing up in Brazil. With many unable to pronounce his name they just called him Marco, but he takes great pride in his name. He would eventually start learning Kyokugen Karate from Ryo Sakazaki and participates in the tournament in hopes of making Kyokugen Karate popular.

The first half isn’t really true, but is IMO one of the best name change in an English release. The character was named Marco Rodriguez in the Japanese release, from what I’ve read over time the name change was to prevent an issue with a Ricco Rodriguez an MMA Fighter, though neither even resemble one another. Maybe they thought the name was generic and decided to change it? We may never know…

As far name changes go, Khushnood Butt is the strangest name you could give for a character. The words themselves are common Pakistani names, though I don’t recall ever seeing them together, but non the less, SNK opting to change him into a Pakistani Karateka is an odd by impressive move mainly because how many Pakistani characters are there in a fighting game, and NOT be a stereotype of sorts?

Butt’s design is very straight forward yet at the same easy to like. Foreign martial artists are a known trope in Japanese anime and manga. SNK decided to give him a kickass pompadour, cuz pompadours are cool, his Karate gi is white but what stands out is his stance which appears as typical karate stance.

Some of Butt’s attacks involve using his fingers, heel or elbow to hit his opponent and his grab has him do a headbutt.

His round victory pose has buff up shredding the top half of his gi showing off his manly chest, yelling ‘Kyokugen FIGHT(O)!’, as if to promote that Kyokugen Karate will make you tougher and manlier than ever!

His match victory pose has him pull off a big ass board which is the Kyokugen signboard as another method of getting more people into Kyokugen.

You gotta give props to a man who can carry a big ass board in his pants while busting your shit up to promote the strongest fighting style in the world~

He has 3 basic moves that’ll remind players of the typical SF Shoto character-
His projectile attack does more damage the closer you are to the opponent, as a nod to Ryo’s short range Ko’oh-ken.

His uppercut attack is Break-able, but seems to be hard to pull off for some reason. The way I do is to hold Down-Forward when pressing A+B.

His flying kick attack has two versions: LK has him fly horizontally and do two kicks much like Ryo and Robert’s Hien Shippu-kyaku, whereas the HK ver. Has him jumping knee to the air and do an aerial heel kick.

Butt’s others moves are a counter move, where he dashes forward and the button pressed will determine whether he will counter Mid/High or Low. The dash in gives him invincibility but the counter itself may not connect with an opponent’s attack due to the dash. If the counter triggers the opponent is juggled.

Butt also has 2 charge attacks: By holding C or D, he will charge for a powerful charging punch or flying kick. Either attack has 3 levels: Lvl. 1 is just the attack with no special effects, Lvl. 2 will have a blue aura, whereas Lvl. 3 will have a red/yellow aura.

His TOP attack is the Zanretsu-ken which if timed correctly can juggle the opponent.
His super moves include the coolest Haoh Sho Ko Ken animation at the time (LP ver. Is unfortunately slow making it useless), and a mutlihitting uppercut which is another of the fastest supers in the game.

Butt also has a 3rd P. Power, the Ryuko Ranbu but is different to the Sakazakis, in that once inputted Butt will immediately start attacking (think Joe’s ranbu super). Mashing C will change the number of hits and damages it does, with the strongest version having him fire a bunch of projectiles before finishing with an uppercut and heel kick. This one can be juggled into but good luck mashing C fast enough for it to come out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcuZWmo5b1I
Butt’s theme is titled ‘From PakistanBrazil’, and I find that portrays Butt’s hard work in Kyokugen and its promotion as being an ongoing battle with its ups and downs.

Butt is fought in the woods outside of Second Southtown, from the state of his ‘residence’, it would seem that the Sakazaki’s curse has passed on to him as well, unless living in such conditions is part of his Kyokugen training. You can also see various animals hanging about in his stage. Taunting will cause something to occur in the background in this stage as well.

Overall Butt is one of the best and easiest characters to pick up in Garou. He also has some effective and damaging combos, the kind that can wow a crowd in finals. He’s one of my fav. Characters in the game and its unfortunate that SNK hasn’t brought him over to KoF, yet gave some of his moves to Mr. Karate.

Kevin is a police offer in Second Southtown, always seen with his kid partner Marky. Marky is the son of Kevin’s former partner who was killed by a serial killer (Freeman), who Kevin looks after after his father’s death. Kevin is confirmed to be a distant relative of Blue Mary, though whether his last name is misspelled and intended to be Ryan is unknown.

Being a police officer in the Fatal Fury series, let alone Southtown, seems to set you against lots of crazy and dangerous people. To be on the safe side, Kevin delivers swift justice by blowing people up: He grabs you, you go boom. He knees you in the gut, you go boom. He jumps slamming his fist on your head, you go boom. He swings his arm at you, you go boom. He kicks you in the face, you go boom.

You could make a music video of ‘Here comes the boom’ with scenes of the opponent going in flames from Kevin’s attacks.

Design wise, Kevin wears typical police gear with his gloves having the word ‘Police’ on them, though I don’t know what the bullets are for unless they are what causes all the explosions he does. An overall easily identifiable character design, but one that manages to stand out among ‘cop’ characters in video games.

Kevin is fun to use, but not go up against as he is among THE best characters in the game, thanks in part to his fast Light attacks and his Break-able move giving the opponent little time to react outside of a Just Defend. It also doesn’t help that his combos can cause big damage especially if he has meter, and Kevin can ALWAYS have meter as he can use one of his (cancelable) charge moves to quickly build his super meter.

One thing I like is how when you fight Kevin in Arcade mode or are playing as him during Arcade mode, Marky will appear in the background of the stage. If you taunt he taunts, and he’ll react to what happens to Kevin or what he does during the match. Sort of like Dhalsim’s wife in SFA2, only in Garou Marky will follow Kevin around the stage you’re fighting in. When Kevin wins the match, Marky walks up to him, they salute each other and do the Arnold Handshake! Really shows how close the two are.

Sadly playing on Versus seems to omit Marky from stages which is something I hope would be altered if it ever gets released on PSN or Steam.

I personally enjoy using Kevin as he has some neat combos especially in the corner. He’s perhaps the ONLY character who has a 90% damage combo with supers without TOP (his TOP attack has him do a rolling tackle that damages opponents and knocks them down), but pulling it off requires timing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssW77MMYFeU
Kevin’s stage appears to be a military base, and the stage transitions from Night to sunrise. His theme is titled ‘Wilderness Policeman’, which has a western style to it, or invoking the end of the day after a huge case is solved.

My namesake~ Here’s a little tidbit before I get into this character:
Back when I discovered Garou, I would use their character names as my internet user names. Over time I ended up just sticking with Tizoc.

Tizoc aka Griffon Mask, is the game’s grappler. TONKO’s artwork for him has him slimmer and being a tall wrestler with a red hawk mask, yet in-game he is a giant muscular wrestler.

Tizoc is based off Tiger Mask, but the wild feline motif is taken by King from Tekken, so SNK decided not to go that wrote. Funnily enough, Tizoc resembles a character from an NGPC wrestling game who wore a bird mask and was red, whether they’re the same character or SNK liked that design is unknown.

Now Tizoc’s look does a few things right design wise: His default color is red, imagine if he had any other color, it just wouldn’t seem right. Red has various meanings, but one is to ‘stand out’ or show off, and in Tizoc’s case it does just that. His mask was given a feather mane, which just makes his overall design cooler.

The character was popular and cool looking enough to be added to KoF 2003 and XI, but I prefer his Garou ver. more even, if he is the worst character in the game (hell Twelve from SF3 could beat him).

Yes Tizoc in Garou is the weakest character in the game, although he has decent pokes, he hardly has any combos and closing the distance is tough against characters with high mobility. It’s this that has often made me drop the character in favour of Grant mainly as he has better mobility and can deal decent damage.
…and yet I always come back to the big guy, as I seem to ALWAYS use the grappler in any fighting game I play.

Some of Tizoc’s moves are common wrestling attacks: Lariat, elbow drop, jumping Frankensteiner grab & a Drop kick (his TOP). He has 2 throws, his main 360 grab which has short range, has him grab the opponent, jump into the air while both of them are spinning and slam the opponent’s head to the ground. If you’ve been playing SF4 for a long time, the range on his grab will seem hell of a lot smaller than Gief’s. His other one, is a command grab with slow start-up that has him toss his opponent to the other side of the screen and allowing you to follow with an attack. He also has an air grab which can be TKed.

His supers are a 720 grab (with Punch), and a rushing punching attack (performed with the kick button). The LK super is shit, like THE worst super in the game, it has no invincibility, can’t be combo-ed into effectively, and its overall damage is unimpressive. Seriously if you’re in range, you can beat the LK super with a light punch.

You can’t combo into his 360 grab or any of his grabs for that matter, which is something I like about grapplers. IMO a grappler’s main grab shouldn’t be combo-able unless in certain situations, but that’s for another time. This
In KoF he is depicted as an up and coming new wrestler, yet in Garou he decides to quit and the tournament would be his last.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtxtWdP7wbY
His theme in Garou is titled ‘Invincible Mask’ which has all the makings of a wrestler’s entrance theme song. He is fought in a wrestling ring, and taunting will cause something to occur in his stage. If Tizoc performs his grab super the screens in the background will start showing various frames of his super.

A badass wrestler design, but a weak and hard to win with character, but that doesn’t mean he can’t be fun to play as (just frustrating…) and like many low tiers in fighting games, winning with them is an awesome moment, ESPECIALLY if you Just Defend into Grab super (while in TOP).

Freeman is a serial killer who killed Kevin’s partner. Nothing about his past is known making him a complete mystery. Many fans are reminded of Iori when looking at him and his attacks, some even going so far as comparing XIII Iori to him. At the start of the match he appears wearing a mask and cloak similar to what King wore in Art of Fighting.
Looking at his sprite his slow breathing and shaking upper body give off the feeling that something just isn’t right with this dude, in addition his body build is slim which reflects in the animation of his moves.

The majority of Freeman’s moves involve quick and fast strikes with slashing attacks. Looking at the animation of his moves, he moves his body in a way to allow him to dodge attacks, while I can’t say if this is reflected properly in-game, it gives an idea of how he would kill his targets; let them attack you, dodge and strike. His TOP attack has him do a vertical slash which works as a decent anti-air.

Freeman’s bio states he likes Heavy Metal and the names of his moves are all based on heavy metal bands.

Freeman’s stage is a dark alley under a train track. The animation of the train moving atop is well animated with how the lights show up. If you’ve got a keen eye you can see someone scavenging for things from the nearby trash can. The name of his theme is ‘All over with blood’, which invokes a battle against a monster to me.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-HhWRr8xtE

I don’t feel like I have much to say about him other than he’s a decent character to use, but in the right hands he can be devastating with his pokes.

Bonne Jenet is a modern day pirate and leader of the Lilien Knights (Note that Jenet and Lilien are actual names, though I’m just gonna assume SNK never knew that =V). She participates in the tournament in order to steal from Kain’s mansion.

Jenet actually comes from a wealthy family, but prefers stealing from others rather than use her own family fortune.

There aren’t many ‘pirate’ characters in fighting games, and the ones that are just look like typical pirates. In Garou, Jenet was designed wearing a dress fit for parties but with a skull design and with a rose tattoo. It’s obvious that she’s the fanservice character of the game filling in Mai and Mary’s role from the previous games.

Jenet has the funniest super in the game: Pressing A, B, C quickly when Just Defending will have her counter by taking off her stiletto and beat the ever loving hell out of her opponent with it. In the end she actually apologies for losing her cool like that.

While I don’t play her much she’s one of the best characters in the game, and her cheerful personality is very appealing. One of her supers is called ‘Many many torpedoes’, where she flies at you horzontially kicking you, but her kicks will look like actual torpedoes! Her TOP has her do a backflip, that if connects, she follows with a dive attack yelling ‘Rolling ****er!’

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18gYFEh2duw
Jenet is fought at the Blue Wave Harbor, where the Knights docked their sub as they begin their mission to steal from Kain. It has some funny stuff going on in the background like a couple getting messed up by the sub’s appearance. Her theme is titled ‘Bad girl’ and has a bit of a jazz feel to it and to me feels more up-beat than Mary’s traditional theme.

To say that Grant is one of the most badass SNK characters, let alone character designs is well put, but there’s more to his design than what we see.

First off his mask, why does he wear a mask? I remember reading this from the SNK-Capcom forums but sadly I don’t remember it correctly, and hope someone can correct me, but it went something like this: there’s a Japanese myth/legend/folklore that those who excel at martial arts and kill others would eventually be consumed by their bloodlust and become demons, and what does Grant’s mask resemble?

Secondly is his cape, few can rock a cape like he does and his animations in the game make great use of it, such that it make it appear as if they are demon wings. I’d say SNK utilized the concept of a cape and it’s visual use superbly with Grant:

The trailing cape also had practical uses, giving the illusion of movement and speed to static images

Put simply Grant may as well be more of a demon than Gouki at the time, heck his stage is colored and designed to give off a hellish atmosphere.

In his animations, Grant’s strong attacks look as they hit hard, like his Far Standing C, as if he’s putting his whole weight into an attack, and it shows, thanks to the hit effects and how both characters’ sprite freeze for a split second from getting hit by Grant.
Gameplay-wise, Grant has about as few combos as Tizoc, but mainly relies on linking his Standing and/or Crouching A into his Kick super, this is a hell of lot easier to do than in SF4. His TOP has him charge forward and do a 3-hit combo.

Grant’s stage appears as if it’s holy ground for fighters only to test their might. There are 2 lit toches and masks surrounding the walls. If fought in this stage, Grant crouches and powers up as his intro. This is Grant telling you not to hold back…on the one hand, on the other it’s pretty much ‘you came to the wrong basement mother***er!’

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v88XaV-7LpA
Grant’s theme is titled Destruction Maniac, which sounds like a jRPG game’s end boss theme. The tune expresses the demonic appearance of Grant, giving the feel that you’re fighting a demon.

What’s with SNK and suits? Geese was first shown during FF1’s cutscenes wearing a black suit, one of his most popular artwork has him wear a suit, Rugal from KoF wore a fancy suit, Kagami from Last Blade has a fancy suit, and now Kain was designed with a suit…and THEY ALL CAN BEAT YOUR ASS AND STILL LOOK GOOD IN IT.

Kain is the final boss of Garou MotW, he appears as a blonde log haired gentleman in a white/light blue-ish suit. Kain gives off as a figure of authority, and is very close to Grant, heck you could say Grant is go to guy for dealing with idiots who would give Kain a hard time.

Gameplay-wise all of Kain’s special moves are charge attacks, and thanks to Garou’s lenient input, you could hold Back, then Dash Forward and press Punch, and his projectile attack comes out!

Kain only has 3 special moves: a projectile attack with Punch (HP is vertical projectile), Kick has him do a body charge (HK can be ‘Break’ed but I can’t recall any good use for it), his 3rd special is an up-kick anti-air which can be Break-ed. His TOP is a Slash Kick like Joe’s and is a great combo finisher.

His supers include throwing out a multi-hitting sphere projectile with the Kick button, LK moves fast and does OK damage, whereas HK does a little more damage, but is slower, wobbles up and down yet has fast start-up. His Punch super has him summon a projectile from above to hit in front of him. LP does about as much damage as LK Super, but his most damaging super is his HP which has 3 projectiles fall in front of him.
Kain can juggle opponents by doing a follow-up to his Universl Anti-Air- By pressing C after it hits (or gets blocked), Kain will juggle his opponent. The 2nd punch can be canceled into supers, but if you do a Feint after the punch connects you can even follow with his LK Body charge move!

Kain is unique in being the one character whose grab juggles opponents. At the corner you can follow up with his up kick for extra damage, or use his HK Super.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7By10VHjeSI
Kain’s theme is titled Dignity Palace, and unlike majority of the themes in Garou, his is very slow paced and doesn’t change its tempo or tune until some seconds later. The main tune in his theme has a despair feel to it, expressing his cold and hated view of the populace of Second Southtown.

The only animation I can think of in Kain’s stage is the slow wind rustling in the foreground, but the stage itself is one of the most beautiful in Garou. One either side is a big bird statue, while in the middle are steps that lead to the interior of Kain’s mansion/palace. From the stage’s viewpoint we can see a big portrait of a woman who is Kain’s sister and Rock’s mother.

Kain can be a fun character to play, and unlike Guile from SF, he can feel more rushdown thanks to the charge time being short in Garou. Beginners can pick him and then steadly work their way to getting good with Kain.

If you line up the cast you can see how everyone varies in size and body build for the most part, which falls well in line with good character designing for a fighting game.
I don’t know what else I can say, in closing, but I do hope this game can get a bigger scene if SNK would finally give it a proper release, but if you’ve been interested in playing Garou from reading this well…go for it, and let us know what you think, but it’s a game you’ll prob. want to spend a few more hours for it all to fully sink in.

 

[crimzonflame]

15 years? Where did the time go?

 

[BadWolf]

Beautiful game with wonderful gameplay.

Terry has to be one of the slickest redesigns ever.

 

[Coffeeling]

nitpick: SF4 longest charge times are 55f. Some are as low as 42f. SF3 does with 45f IIRC, KOF13 has 30f.

^^'

 

[Khrysler Jerikho]

Jenet T_T

 

[Laconic]

All this thread does is serve to remind me that SNK is 14 years late on delivering a sequel.

 

[Exr]

Great post Tizoc. Garou is amazing and I still play it every now and then, just wish I had people to play against. Still waiting on that sequel....someday....

 

[reminiscingLemon]

I would love a Capcom Vs Snk 3 which just had third strikes cast vs Garou's

 

[BadWolf]

All this thread does is serve to remind me that SNK is 14 years late on delivering a sequel.

MOTW bombed, hard.

It would be very risky for the current SNK to suffer something like that.

 

[Ganondorfo]

Lol, I remember back in the day people calling it the best 2d fightinggame of all time, is this true?

 

[Fersis]

Incredible thread Tizoc, props to SNK for such a work of art.

 

[Freedom = $1.05]

BUSTAWROLF

 

[BadWolf]

Lol, I remember back in the day people calling it the best 2d fightinggame of all time, is this true?

It's certainly one of the best to date, at the very least.

 

[Arkanoid]

That was one hell of a write-up.
With KOF98UM and KOF2002UM coming to Steam soon there might be some hope to eventually see Garou....... right??

 

[Garou]

I like this game!

 

[Astarte]

Holy shit tizoc you put in work! I wish I spent more time on this game, but some guys convinced me that it 'wasn't worth playing a dumb ripoff game'. I'm pretty dumb.

 

[Sakujou]

It's certainly one of the best to date, at the very least.

this, capcom vs snk 2 and 3rd strike are for me the best fighting games of all time.

i cant get into blazblue because it feels too complicated and too fucked up for me.

i so totally dig to the styles of the three mentioned games. love the announcer from cvs2, love the graphics from makr of the wolves, love the music from 3rd strike.

best shit ever produced in 2d.

EDITh and kudos to OP.

and yeah, time sure flies by

 

[gigantor21]

One of the best games of all time, easily. I can't believe it's been so long already...

MOTW bombed, hard.

It would be very risky for the current SNK to suffer something like that.

Source? I'd love to see sales results for their older games.

 

[Leafhopper]

I didn't even see who created the thread going in but if it wasn't Tizoc I would have been sad.

I love Garou, the TOP system was unique and added another layer of how important your health is. It is like the Third Strike of SNK games. (That's a compliment!) Too bad it didn't have the success of Third Strike.

It's also a game that I feel every character is viable. Really damn fun. Hoping it gets a Steam release like the Metal Slug and KoF games are getting on there.

 

[barit]

One of my favourite fighter of all time. Love the music, SFX and animations. Sadly I only could play it on PC with a shitty controller. This and Samurai Shodown 5 are the best

 

[Sapiens]

All this thread does is serve to remind me that SNK is 14 years late on delivering a sequel.

There's probably some 30% complete version sitting on a zip drive in some closet in japan (or a dump), if that makes you feel any worse.

 

[roknin]

Great write up, and I figured you had the name Tizoc for that reason.

Weak as he is, I still used him as a secondary. B. Jennet and Jae Hoon were my mains, though.

Man this game was brilliant.

And 15 years.... Gawd I'm old lol

All this thread does is serve to remind me that SNK is 14 years late on delivering a sequel.

I'm sayin'!

 

[grendelrt]

Dont forget dat soundtrack

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXiUbe0Fhr0&list=PL7FB676AD375AEF3D&index=4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWaBPgVRTy8&list=PL7FB676AD375AEF3D&index=2

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWj8Cb7yieY&list=PL7FB676AD375AEF3D&index=1

 

[BadWolf]

There's probably some 30% complete version sitting on a zip drive in some closet in japan (or a dump), if that makes you feel any worse.

In case he and you want to feel even worse, from the wiki:

During the fan event 2005 KOF-party, illustrator Falcoon mentioned that the game's sequel was around seventy percent complete for the Neo Geo by the SNK team. Falcoon also confirmed that one of the new characters meant to appear was a student from Joe Higashi, a character who starred in all of the Fatal Fury games.[8] In July 2006 SNK reported that they were still working on the sequel, saying that they will use modern high-resolution graphics instead of the resolution quality level seen in the original game.[9] During an interview in March 2008, SNK USA developers commented that there was not any concrete schedule of demands for the game and that they plan to make the sequel with some new technology.

 

[Shin]

Jenet T_T

Haha I came here for this, one of the best designs IMO.
Totally love the character, the game itself is really good as well.

 

[Phhhh]

Probably my favorite fighting game of all time.

Thank you for the trip down memory lane.

 

[Parakeetman]

This seriously was one of the BEST games back in the days of the NeoGEO I literally bought a system again just to play this. Used Gato most of the time back then. Still am kicking myself in the ass for having sold it all way back when.

 

[Laconic]

In case he and you want to feel even worse, from the wiki:

Kenshiro May Cry. ;__;

 

[Aaron D.]

Thread title = One of my KMFDM faves.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqxAXsWe2Ro

 

[Defuser]

It's damn sad MotW 2 never seen the light, SNKP is never gonna touch it again. And Rock never made it to KOF which makes it double sad(MI2 doesn't count). Tizoc,Hotaru,Gato,Jenet and even MoTW terry made it but why can't Rock?

 

[Hayama Akito]

My second favorite Fatal Fury game (FF Special will be always in my heart).

 

[snow in jamaica]

i like that there's a character named butt and another named dong

 

[shuri]

Khushnood Butt Rodriguez is the best name ever. Tonight I shall play my mvs cart

 

[Gameboy415]

My friends and I played the hell out of MOTW on Dreamcast back in college - it's one of my favorite fighting games ever!

It's a shame the planned sequel never panned out..

 

[threelights]

Only SNK fighting game I've played. It's amazing, I love playing as Gato.

I like the overall style and animations as much as I like 3rd Strike, it's pretty good.

 

[Krejlooc]

Extraordinarily rare that this isn't in my neo geo.

Lol, I remember back in the day people calling it the best 2d fightinggame of all time, is this true?

Definitely a top contender. This is SNK's Street Fighter 3.

 

[Silky]

"IkuzoIkuzoIkuzoIkuzoIkuzoIkuzoIkuzoIkuzoIkuzoSHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"

"Pompe~"

 

[PrivateRyan]

*searches 'Children'*

*approves*

Whenever we were playing on that stage, we had someone else turn the volume up for the 'chorus'. So good.

But yeah, loved this game. Loved Tizoc even though I was awful with him and found Gato a little bit too good. All the characters are fun to use though, not often I can say that about a fighting game.

 

[Newboi]

I would love a sequel to MoTW! It's definitely a worthy rival to SF3:3S.

 

[Danny Dudekisser]

What? No way. This isn't even close to 15 years old. It just fucking came ou....

Jesus, it's 15 years old.

 

[Skilotonn]

Excellent thread Tizoc.

This game still looks amazing to me to this date, and I still have my DC version. I had long decided not to buy any more 360 games because of my huge backlog, and I was sooooo close to buying MotW for that SNK sale.

Loved the Just Defend system, and it was the only groove I used in CvS2 because of it as well.

I just all around loved the vibe of the game, it sounded, played and did nothing like any of SNK's other games at all, I just loved it for that, not even looking into the gameplay engine and all that. Including the soundtrack.

 

[leakey]

My karate may be green, but my heart is ripe for picking

 

[Orochinagis]

BIIIIIIIIG FAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALLLL!


Best super ever in this game

 

[correojon]

Great game and great post, I enjoyed every moment reading it

This and The Last Blade are the fighters with the best atmosphere I´ve played. Great story, great chars, awesome gameplay...this game has it all.

The only negative point is it replacing Andy for Hokutomaru. I always picked Andy in SNK fighters and missed him Anyway Rock, Terry, Dong Hwan, Jae Hoon and Freeman were very cool! Specially Terrys redesign is superb.


I don´t know if this is intentional or not, but "Dong Hwan" sounds in spanish like "Don Juan", which is something like "Casanova" and I think fits the personality of the character.

We need a new Garou already! Rock´s story seemed to end in a cliffhangery way...we´ve waited long enough!

 

[Dascu]

To me, this game has the best cast of any fighting game. And that piece of artwork for Grant is stunning, easily my favourite fighting game antagonist.

 

[sixteen-bit]

Too bad e never got that sequel they started developing.

 

[Dlent]

Rest In Pachinko, Garou. The only possible complaint I could have about the game is that you have to let the stick return to neutral before you can short hop. An amazing game all around and a bloody pity that it never got the sequel it deserved.

 

[LiveFromKyoto]

Great OP! This was definitely the apex of the Neo Geo, the point where SNK took it about as far as it could go. It's staggering to compare it to the first Fatal Fury game and realize they were both on the same system, and were both state of the art for their time. Something was definitely lost when we moved away from cartridge technology.

I had the Dreamcast version and played the heck out of it. I think on balance I might have enjoyed it more than SF III, it's a shame it never had a chance to develop a wider competitive scene. It definitely deserves to be brought back in some form, the gamely just felt so damn good and smooth, but with plenty of sense of impact. Up there with SamSho II & KoF 98 as the jewels in SNK's crown, the proof of their absolute mastery of the fighting game.

 

[Boss Doggie]

Essentially my favorite SNK game, still unmatched today. I'm surprised they never put the TOP system in their other games, shit was amazing.

Also has the best Kyokugen practitioner ever.

Zangief wrestles with bears? Pfft. Marco/Butt practices with one who knows how to throw Kaohken!

I STILL WANT MY CLOSURE ON ROCK HOWARD DAMNIT!