As we all know by now, Ken has arrived in South Town for Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves this week with everything intact. Arcade mode and Episodes of South Town plots, and soundtrack songs from Capcom’s sound libraries for City of the Wolves jukebox use, at the ready. His 6-series kit is also here and nearly full of what makes Ken pretty dangerous. Four attack buttons are not stopping Ken from bringing the heat. It’s SNK’s time to start the Capcom collaboration on their end.
Ken’s motivation for coming to South Town hinges on JP attempting to recruit fighters for the new Shadowloo. Ken gets a tip on this and tries to find him to settle the score of the Nayshall incident. All roads lead to the second King of Fighters: Maximum Mayhem tournament for the former US Martial Arts Champion. What was the real surprise is what happens at the end of a certain ending, now in City of the Wolves.
Thanks to Marvel’s MCU movie juggernaut, SNK decided to follow suit with their very own post-credit scene. Ken and Terry are discussing the possibility of bringing a group of fighters to Metro City sometime. Terry is planning on stopping by. Terry starts to list off some of Fatal Fury‘s past, including some notable nods. Wrestler Tizoc pitted against Zangief. Ryu vs the Kyougoken Karate folks, which is a point to Ryo, Marco, Robert, and any of the Art of Fighting bunch. Juri and the Taekwondo guys are going at it – possibly Kim Kaphwan and his boys taking on the Feng Sui engine adept. Even Rock and Luke were thrown in as the new blood. This is a Dream Match situation. The events of City of the Wolves seem to be a prequel to Street Fighter VI.
Ken’s line here is telling. “Damn, man. Staring you guys down again – it’s gonna be pure chaos”, he says. This itself could be just SNK recalling that they did this before. Perhaps the references were hints to who SNK would consider roster picks for their version of SNK vs Capcom 3.
The SNK Side of Capcom and SNK
SNK had their hand at creating an answer to Capcom’s Capcom vs SNK of 1999 and 2000. Two of these, Match of the Millennium and SVC: Chaos. Both titles brought in fan favorites with a more obscure roster pick in the latter. Warzard’s Tessa and Metal Slug’s Mars People are roster makers in SVC Chaos among the 36 playable fighters. The small but mighty Match of the Millennium brought in 3 vs 3, Single, and Tag Team, fighting on a portable screen in the form of Neo Geo Pocket Color. Meanwhile, SVC Chaos played things a bit more safe and spun out single vs fighting with a bit of a strange feeling during the Playmore era. SNK also created a card-based fighter. Surprisingly, all SNK and Capcom collaboration titles are back on consoles as if we never left the 128-bit era.
Now, since we have the new SNK back in charge, perhaps it’s time to capitalize on the rush that is the fighting game genre now. If we learned anything from City of the Wolves, it’s that no video game project can be considered dead and gone completely if the demand is there to resurrect it.
SNK and Capcom have stated that they were open to working together in past Evo interviews. With Shinkiro still around with Capcom and bringing about a new kind of SNK influence, also, as well as these last few collabs’ successes, the possibility of seeing a third potential SNK vs Capcom game might not be too far off. Maybe a couple of years? Chun-Li is also due to come to City of the Wolves, too. This could hint at more.
