One year after Fatal Fury, SNK has revised its tables and is preparing to show a new rival for Capcom's Street Fighter II. Fatal Fury 2 was released in December 1992 in arcades: few days later, Capcom publishes the second upgrade of its saga, Street Fighter II' Turbo, succeeding to prior 'Champion Edition'. SNK on its side, has been mourning the first Fatal Fury and goes on completely new foundations for this sequel. Action of FF2 takes place worldwide - like in SFII - and twelve warriors make up the table with a lot of newcomers. Capcom doesn't change much its winning recipe and offers in this new version a few light improvements for the gameplay and graphics, but above all an improved game speed. If the cartridge size has little changed since Street Fighter II (72Mb /62Mb), proving the few amelioration from one game to another, Fatal Fury 2 weighs almost twice its senior (106MB against 55MB). Technically, SNK's Neo Geo hardware is slightly better than Capcom's CPS and the editor knows it: CPS-II is scheduled on the following year.

Capcom's side, no real changes concerning graphics for this Turbo version. Some new colors here and there... the graphical tweaks are really succinct and were only made to provide some variety. What was sublime and innovative in 1991 is still remarkable, but 1993 is coming and the company still uses the two years-old set of graphics. Fatal Fury 2 packs as much backgrounds as its competitor, but these are fresh and new. The stages in SNK's  game are nice and intelligently varied. We travel from the rooftops of Big Ben to Barcelona's arena, Jubei's japanese garden and Mount Rushmore, also through the canals of Venice... Plus, the colors change from one round to another like in Fatal Fury (morning, evening, night). On the other hand, the characters are finely drawn, large, colorful, and offer great relief. A good work, having FF2 shortly ahead of its rival on the graphics.

Fatal Fury 2    96                       94   Street Fighter 2 Turbo

Fatal Fury 2 is dynamic, the smoothness of characters moves has much evolved since the first episode, making the action look way better. The game speed is a standard in 1992 and even quite fast for the time... but here, the 'Turbo' of Street leaves the competition behind! The pace is very high, making fights intense and taking. Capcom didn't add steps of animation to the fighters' moves, but they already had a numerous animation steps and were very fluid. Now, these are super fast! The SNK production features more dynamic backgrounds and many details... but that does not offset the advantage taken by Street Fighter II 'Turbo on the character's animation, and the speedy feeling during combats.

Fatal Fury 2    90                      95   Street Fighter 2 Turbo

FF2 features almost 100% new melodies: some tunes are original and successful (Jubei, Laurence, May), some others fabulous, like the Krauser's Dies Irae or just Terry's famous theme. SFIIT didn't have much to do: musics of Street Fighter II are taken back as it has been done before with 'Champion Edition'. The sound quality is much lower than the Neo Geo's, but some characters themes are simply legendary (Ken, Ryu, Guile, M. Bison). The excellent sound effects from Street Fighter II' are reproduced in full without any improvement. These are powerful and well chosen, but the quality of the CPS sampling is aging. If the sound effects and the heavy vocal digits send  good vibes, quality is mediocre and not much work have been done compared to those of Fatal Fury 2. This is perfect in this regard: the sound effects are top notch quality, just like the musics.

Fatal Fury 2    93                      88   Street Fighter 2 Turbo

Street Fighter II 'Turbo takes exactly the same roster as the previous game: twelve selectable characters. To be clear, this is still the reference back in 1992. No other fighting game were offer as many fighters with such a range of moves. The unspeakable bonuses are of course kept, and the difficulty has been slightly increased. Fatal Fury 2 has made huge progress on the replay value: from three selectable characters, the number is increased to eight. The main heroes (Joe, Andy and Terry) are back, as the huge wrestler Raiden who's now re-named Big Bear. The rest of the roster consists of newcomers. Four Bosses await you, like in Street Fighter II (before they became playable). More moves, more characters, and new bonus stages... and SNK title is about as difficult as its competitor. Despite these significant progress, SFIIT still forge ahead with its four more characters.

Fatal Fury 2    88                      94   Street Fighter 2 Turbo

SNK has opted for changes: the four buttons on the stick are now used. Two for punches, two for kicks, plus combinations. C+D performs a power attack, A+B allows to switch between game planes. This feature allows among others to dodge a projectile or a long-range attack, but also to attack the enemy from far away, or just manage the space between fighters. We can also dodge with backdash or even walk while crouching, and perform a counter attack: while opponent is attacking, guard, then do -> + A. Speaking about moves, let's take some examples: Joe features fifteen basic attacks, two throws, and four special moves. Capcom's side, Ryu has a panel of about twenty basic attacks, two throws and four special moves. This is pretty close, especially since playing with four buttons is more intuitive than six: Capcom maintains the three punch buttons and three kicks. Ryu and Ken can now perform the Air Hurricane Kick, Chun Li can throw a fireball and Dhalsim teleport. But speaking about imrovements, the game from SNK does best. Like in Art of Fighting, each character has a special attack called 'Fury', triggered via a combination, only when your life bar is low: this option allows to reverse desperate situations, and spices up the fights! This setting returns to even the rivals about technical depth, but Capcom takes advantage on a crucial part: the combos.

Fatal Fury 2    87                      95   Street Fighter 2 Turbo

Fatal Fury 2 performs vast improvements since the first game. More beautiful and varied graphics, totally new animations, new soundtrack, roster enhanced from three to eight characters, new controls considerably better... Street Fighter II' Turbo on its side, provides less updates since the Champion Edition: increased speed, few new moves, more accurate gameplay, new colors. While the realizations of our two competitors are almost equal in excellence, Capcom's hit keeps a little advance on life and gameplay: four more playable characters, a well-oiled combat system with combos and great mechanisms. What will happen in 1993, when the next games of those rival series will be released? Will SNK make it to surpass its competitor? Don't miss this dream match: Fatal Fury Special VS Super Street Fighter II !