Fighting game fans have been enjoying the recent SNK renaissance, with King of Fighters 14, 15, and Samurai Shodown all coming out to rave reviews. It’s all coming full circle soon, as Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves is set for release in a few months, coming to PS4, PS5, Xbox Series, and PC on April 21, 2025.
With all this rightful hype for SNK, we feel it’s important for the company to release this forgotten gem in the series: Real Bout Fatal Fury Special: Dominated Mind.
That title might be a mouthful, but Dominated Mind is a game that was only released in Japan for the PS1. Naturally, because Dominated Mind is a Japanese exclusive, this writer ended up emulating this game. No fan-made English patch for the game exists at the time of writing, but it’s easy enough to go through the Japanese version. While the menus are in Japanese, all the characters' names are in English, so it’s somewhat playable.
Dominated Mind introduced players to a new protagonist in Alfred, a pilot who wants to venture into South Town for adventure. Fan favorites like Terry Bogard, Joe Higashi, Andy Bogard, and Mai Shiranui are also in the game, as they take on a new boss named White. Judging by his design, this villain is inspired by A Clockwork Orange, and he’s one hell of a boss to try beating.
Alfred isn’t the only new thing about this installment. Playing through the game, this is a very interesting entry in the series, as it veers away from what made Fatal Fury unique compared to other fighters. The game removed SNK’s classic lane system for a traditional one-on-one fighting experience.
On paper, removing a feature like that would incur some fan wrath, but it feels pretty great. As someone who played some of the Real Bout Fatal Fury arcade releases on Switch, I never really enjoyed the lane system. Just being able to block, jump, and use special attacks is enough for me, so this is a change I celebrate.
Luckily, the core fighting is pretty great, so fans of SNK, Capcom, and any other publisher will enjoy this entry. It sticks with the series’ button layout – three attacks and a taunt via the face buttons, with special attacks done through diagonal motions – so fans of the genre can easily pick this up.
I had no idea this game existed until Thorgi’s Arcade decided to do a retrospective on the Fatal Fury series. Upon discovering this, I can say with no doubt that this is an underrated fighter that deserves more love. The fact that this game doesn’t have an English release is a shame since there’s so much going for this title.
Considering all the hype surrounding Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves, a timely port would get plenty of attention. Just put Mai Shiranui and Blue Mary on the cover, and that will sell millions of copies.
SNK has re-released some of their games in the past, so we’d love to see a proper English port of Fatal Fury: Dominated Mind. We don’t need one of those fancy “Global Match” releases, as most fans would be happy having a port where they can read the menus. Granted, going the “Global Match” route would also be great, but let’s not get greedy.
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