Fatal Fury Special — stories left

Development was carried out by SNK; the producer was the company's founder Eikichi Kawasaki, the main planner was Takashi Tsukamoto, continuing from the previous 2 titles, and the music was by Toshio Shimizu, Yasumasa Yamada and Yoshihiko Kitamura.

In the feature "The 7th Gamest Awards" (for 1993) in the game magazine Gamest, the arcade version took No. 2 in the grand prize category, No. 2 for the Best Fighting Game Award, No. 1 for the Best Graphics Award, No. 2 for the Best Presentation Award and No. 2 for the Best VGM Award.

In the feature "The 7th Gamest Awards" (for 1993) in the game magazine Gamest, it took No. 2 in the grand prize category, No. 2 for the Best Fighting Game Award, No. 1 for the Best Graphics Award, No. 2 for the Best Presentation Award, No. 2 for the Best VGM Award, No. 9 among the hit games of the year and No. 8 for player popularity, and in the Best Character Award "Geese Howard" took No. 3, "Duck King" No. 16 and "Hiyoko & P-chan" No. 19.

Game magazinesIn the "Cross Review" of Famitsu it received 7, 6, 6 and 5 for a total of 24 out of 40, and in the "Game Report Card" based on reader voting in Family Computer Magazine it was rated as follows, 21.5 out of 30.

In the "Cross Review" of the game magazine Famitsu it received 6, 6, 6 and 4, for a total of 22 out of 40.

In the "Cross Review" feature of the magazine Famitsu, the four reviewers gave 8, 8, 7, and 6, for a total of 29 out of 40. In the "Game Report Card" reader poll run by PC Engine FAN, it scored 22.3 out of 30, as shown below.

In the "Cross Review" feature of the magazine Famitsu,the four reviewers gave 7, 5, 5, and 4, for a total of 21 out of 40. In the "Game Report Card" reader poll run by Mega Drive FAN,it scored 20.4 out of 30, as shown below.

All four reviewers for Electronic Gaming Monthly (EGM) referred to it as "one of the best tournament fighting games out there" (with insignificant changes in wording between each reviewer).

GamePro gave the Game Gear version a rave review, stating though it has fewer characters and vastly inferior graphics and sounds compared to the Neo Geo version, it "is arguably the best handheld fighting game ever released" due to the responsive action and the inclusion of "extra elements you never thought you'd see in a handheld fighter".

GamePro declared the Sega CD version "yet another Neo Geo arcade game that's been poorly converted for a home system".

All four reviewers of EGM complained about the severe echo effect in the audio of the SNES version, and two of them said that some of the moves are hard to pull off.

He stated that the game itself is good compared to other Neo Geo fighters of its time, but would probably not appeal to modern players who are not already familiar with the Fatal Fury franchise.

In a 1996 retrospective review, Maximum commented that Fatal Fury Special "tweaked the gameplay of Fatal Fury 2 overly very superficially, and the main selling point lay with the number of combatants".

In the Gamest Mook The Best Game 2 (1998) it was chosen as one of "The Best Games", recognised as a classic, outstanding, brilliant title, and in the book the writer C-LAN rated it positively, saying that the concept of combos introduced from this game onward improved the scope for turning matches around, so that "the content of matches gained light and shade".

GamePro praised the variety of characters, the addition of new moves for the older characters, the combos, the detailed graphics, and the humorous touches to the backgrounds, though they felt the ability to jump between the foreground and background tended to be an annoyance.

They praised the new characters, the improved backgrounds and animations.

They also criticized the special moves which are activated when a character is near death as a "cheesy way of evening things out between players of varying skill levels.

However, they praised the more hectic pace of the game, and gave it 3 out of 5 stars.

The bonus stages were also removed out of consideration on the part of the developers, who wanted the game to progress more smoothly.

Fatal Fury Special, known as in Japan, is a 1993 fighting game developed and published by SNK and originally released for the Neo Geo arcade and home platforms.

The third installment of the Fatal Fury series, it is an updated version of Fatal Fury 2 (1992), adding four CPU-only bosses as playable characters, featuring three characters from its predecessor, and introducing combos while further balancing the gameplay.

In Japan, Game Machine listed Fatal Fury Special on their October 15, 1993 issue as being the most-successful table arcade unit of the month.