After having played Waku Waku 7 I wanted to try another fighting game that was under the SNK label, since usually, this is a company whose video games have a spectacular graphic level, and they recommended me the game that I will review today. I must say that just seeing some images of the art of the game immediately caught my attention and when I played it I could realize that it was a very entertaining fighting game, and of course, visually impressive.
With regard to the history of Garou: Mark of the Wolves, in this case I'm not going to mention it since this game is a sequel that happens 10 years after the events of Real Bout Fatal Fury, and this is a game that I haven't played yet and therefore I don't know its history or characters and as I said in the review of Waku Waku 7, the history in a fighting game is a bit dispensable, so let's go straight to the graphic aspect:
As I said at the beginning, my main attraction with Garou: Mark of the Wolves was their official character art, because they presented really good designs, very anime style, but with a stylization in their designs really good, their lines looked soft, but solid. After that and having played, I realized that Garou: Mark of the Wolves, is a game with a very impressive graphic level. The character design besides being very original, visually are impressive, with relatively large size sprites, so they allow this game to have incredible details, plus they have a color palette that highlights each of the characters available in this game.
But as far as characters are concerned, the art of each one of the games is the best, the quality of drawing that each character represents is beautiful and with that anime style that is so characteristic of many games, in Garou: Mark of the Wolves, it makes it look quite superior to other fighting games.
But if we talk about something visually impressive, the scenarios of this game, stand out and by far. The detail of many of the scenarios in which we can fight in this title is incredible, so incredible that you can search the internet for these scenarios and use them as wallpaper because of its beautiful drawing and amount of detail. You can really see the commitment and effort that SNK put into this video game, a marvel in terms of graphics.
The music of this game accompanies its excellent graphic level, ie the soundtrack that we can hear throughout this game and in each fight is very good, music and melodies with the typical compositions of a fighting game, but high quality. It is the type of music of fast rhythms, of action, that is to say music to put us in agreement to the situation in which we are, which is: a wild fight against our enemy. Each character has its own musical theme, which was composed according to the personality and characteristics of each of the characters available in this game, so that they fit very well with the above, likewise the voices of each character are very well interpreted, the voice actors did an excellent job to give charisma and personality to their characters.
Not being an expert in 1vs1 fighting games, as far as gameplay is concerned, Garou: Mark of the Wolves seemed to me to be an easy to learn game with quite simple, but effective, mechanics. The fights are fun, and performing combos is quite easy compared to other games of this genre I've played. Due to its excellent flow of movement Garou: Mark of the Wolves is a very addictive game, even more so than Waku Waku 7, which, like this one, is quite good. Of course, each character in this game has its own fighting style, attack patterns and attack combinations, and all the characters are relatively easy to use and learn to use, because Garou: Mark of the Wolves keeps the mechanics pretty simple, however, that doesn't make it a bad game, because, is one of the fighting games, along with Waku Waku 7 of which I have had more fun playing.
Garou: Mark of the Wolves, as I mentioned before, has a good amount of characters available, in total there are 14 and they are:
- Rock Howard
- Terry Bogard
- Kim Dong Hwan
- Kim Jae Hoon
- Marco Rodríguez / Khushnood Butt
- Gato Futaba
- Hotaru Futaba
- Bonne Jenet
- Hokutomaru
- Tizok / Griffon
- Kevin Rian
- Freeman
- Grant
- Kain R. Heinlein
Garou: Mark of the Wolves is a wonderful fighting game, not only for its simple but effective mechanics, but for all its splendid graphics. Without a doubt SNK is a company whose video games are visually impressive.
I love Terry Bogard's costume here. Way better than that cheap truck driver uniform.