The Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves beta has been a complete dud, and that sucks. The core gameplay seems rather fun, with varied deep mechanics that could make SNK's latest fighting game a smash hit. Sadly, everything else surrounding this beta has soured my expectations and worried me ahead of release.
City of the Wolves offered players the chance to mess around with a total of eight characters from the base roster. It included series mainstays such as Rock Howard, Terry Bogard, and Mai Shiranui, alongside newcomers like the surprisingly popular Preecha. Giving players access to online, ranked, and custom lobbies, alongside a nifty tutorial mode to get them started.
click to enlargeRather than being one massive fail, the COTW beta suffered from death by a thousand cuts. First off, the matchmaking was frustratingly slow. It could range from a few seconds, if lucky, to outright minutes, only for the game to pair you with someone in seemingly an entirely different continent with over 250ms which rendered the match unplayable.
Your second-best option was to join a custom lobby (yes, casual matches were all but dead from the very beginning). For the most part, lobbies worked wonderfully, if you could join them. It might be an anecdotal situation or perhaps not a known widespread issue but I had at least two instances of being unable to join a lobby for no apparent reason.
One occurred while I tried to join streamer Brian_F's lobby to get some games after repeatedly getting paired with the same player and their 300ms connection over and over again while queuing up ranked.
Navigating the UI was also another nitpick fans had. Even as someone whose recent experience with a fighting game is Street Fighter 6, with Capcom creating an absurdly obtuse and overtly complicated menu system for its flagship title within the genre, I can add my voice to the choir complaining about COTW's user interface.
Despite its initial stylish presentation, it feels clunky and laggy to navigate. Once you leave the main menu, the rest of the menus feel uninspired, almost like you're looking at placeholder designs. You wouldn't think City of the Wolves is set to come out in less than two months.
Finally, the big elephant in the room: training room not being available in any way, shape, or form. When the SF6 betas dropped, for instance, Capcom at least had online training mode while you were waiting for a cabinet match in the Battle Hub.
Players booted up a less populated server and could practice to their heart's content. Sadly, having a training room enabled a few ill-intended users to crack the beta, getting to keep access to the mode and all the beta characters months before release.
Whether that's the reason SNK opted against having a dedicated training mode is merely speculation. Fact is, some players already cracked the beta and gained access to some sort of practice functionality regardless.
SNK has stated they are willing to try a second open beta before release. Considering the game releases in late April, it would have to happen in the next few weeks, giving the devs a small window to fix some of the issues players have reported.
Still, with all these problems, I strongly believe City of the Wolves is already a fantastic fighting game at its core. The beta left me wanting to learn more about the defensive and offensive mechanics the game has to offer.
From feints and brakes to make better combo routings to timing my defense in order to take advantage of Just and Hyper Defense, there's so many tools to play around already that makes me wish SNK fixes everything else surrounding City of the Wolves.
Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves releases this upcoming April 21. It will be available on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and PC (via Steam).
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