The Best Fatal Fury Characters Ever

Since its debut in 1991, Fatal Fury has been one of SNK’s flagship fighting game series. Positioned as a rival to Capcom’s Street Fighter games, this series of 2D fighting games dominated both arcades and SNK’s Neo Geo line of consoles. By the end of the ’90s, however, the series had run its course, and was discontinued in favor of its more popular spin-off The King of Fighters.

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Despite only lasting a decade, however, Fatal Fury has created its own line-up of iconic characters who continue to be staples of The King of Fighters and SNK to this day. These stand out as the most popular characters the series has introduced.

10

Rock Howard

Following in the footsteps of Street Fighter 3 and Tekken 3, Fatal Fury launched its own soft reboot in the form of 1999’s Garou: Mark of the Wolves. Set a decade after the events of the first Fatal Fury game, you’re introduced to Rock Howard, the son of longtime series villain Geese Howard. After his father was killed by Terry Bogard, Rock was adopted by the latter.

Rock’s fighting style is a hybrid of his biological and adoptive fathers, but he also has a handful of unique moves of his own. He also becomes the primary representative of Mark of the Wolves in future SNK games, such as Capcom vs. SNK 2, the KOF Maximum Impact subseries, and two mainline King of Fighters entries.

9

Billy Kane

As the closest ally to series baddie Geese Howard, Billy Kane has been a regularly recurring rival to Terry and his friends. The cocky Brit is always seen with his famous red staff in hand, and he has tons of tricks up his arsenal wielding his favorite weapon.

By the time of Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves, Billy has taken over Geese’s criminal empire, and while he may be less of a key player in the story than he used to, his hatred towards Terry shows no signs of abating.

8

Ryuji Yamazaki

Sadistic criminal Ryuji Yamazaki made his debut in Fatal Fury 3, where he is the game’s sub-boss. While he usually works alone, he has occasionally been willing to be a hired gun for other SNK villains. But as has been proven time and time again, even they can’t trust someone as insane as Yamazaki.

He quickly become a fan-favorite after his first appearance, and is a regularly recurring character throughout the King of Fighters series and SNK’s many crossover games with Capcom. Plus, he has a reputation for being one of the most overpowered characters in fighting game history.

7

Blue Mary

There’s a lot more to Blue Mary than just being a bubbly blonde love interest to Terry Bogard. That’s because she is also a highly skilled secret agent who has a fighting style heavily influenced by professional wrestling – Russian sambo wrestling, to be specific.

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Her popularity led her to regularly appear in the King of Fighters games after Fatal Fury went on hiatus. Simply put, whenever there’s a big mystery that needs to be solved, Mary will be on the case.

6

Andy Bogard

After his father was killed, Andy trained to become a ninja under the legendary Hanzo Shiranui. During his training in Japan, Hanzo’s granddaughter, the kunoichi Mai Shiranui, fell in love with him.

In both Fatal Fury and the King of Fighters games, Andy was always by his brother Terry’s side, with the two typically making up the Fatal Fury team alongside Muai Thai fighter Joe Higashi.

5

Joe Higashi

Joe Higashi is a champion Muai Thai fighter who was once challenged by Andy Bogard to a fight, which the latter won. Since then, he became the best friend of Andy and his brother Terry, and the three of them have always teamed together throughout the history of SNK video games.

Like most Muai Thai fighters, Joe specializes in using his elbows and knees for his attacks. His signature move is the Hurricane Upper, which, as its name suggests, is an uppercut powerful enough to summon a small tornado.

4

Kim Kaphwan

Idealistic Tae Kwon Do champion Kim Kaphwan was introduced in the second Fatal Fury game as a rival to Terry. Since the events of that game, they became close friends, though they still have a competitive rivalry behind the scenes.

Where he really shines is in the King of Fighters games, where he has been in every mainline game to date. There, the modus operandi was to use Tae Kwon Do to help rehabilitate former criminals, to varying degrees of success.

3

Mai Shiranui

Not only is Mai Shiranui the most popular female character SNK has ever created, but she is one of the most recognizable charcters in fighting game history, and for good reason. The granddaughter of Hanzo Shiranui, the sensei of Andy Bogard, she fell in love with the American ninja-in-training.

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She appears in every King of Fighters entry, usually as part of the games’ all-female teams. Furthermore, she is one of the go-to crossover characters for SNK, appearing in two Dead or Alive games and in Street Fighter 6.

2

Geese Howard

The main villain of the original Fatal Fury is Geese Howard, the leader of a criminal empire who controls the city of Southtown as a mafia boss. After orchestrating the murder of rival martial artist Jeff Bogard, Geese finds himself in the crosshairs of Jeff’s sons Terry and Andy, and is killed by the two in a similar way as he did to their fathers.

As many fighting game fans know, you can’t keep an iconic villain like Geese dead forever. He returns to both Fatal Fury and King of Fighters, both canonically and unofficially. He even makes the leap to Tekken 7, where he fits in perfectly given the King of Iron Fist’s darker tone compared to SNK.

1

Terry Bogard

If there’s any character synonymous with Fatal Fury, it’s Terry Bogard, the longtime series protagonist, the only character to appear in every Fatal Fury entry, and one of a handful with perfect attendance in the King of Fighters games.

Originally motivated to get revenge on their murdered father, he, alongside his brother Andy and best friend Joe, became staples of SNK throughout their three decades in the spotlight. With countless guest appearances from Street Fighter 6 to Super Smash Bros. Ultimate on his resume, his momentum isn’t slowing down any time soon.

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