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This guide is yoursuccinct,one-stop-shop for every mechanic inFatal Fury: City of the Wolves. While the game itself does provide you with a legend for everything, and even has a mode where it will demonstrate these mechanics, where it occasionally fails is putting it all together for players.
My goal with this guide is to give you a breakdown of each individual mechanic so that you can jump to a quick explanation when reading any of our other guides, but also to put it all in context for you, as it can be easy to get a little lost in the sauce and lose track of which mechanic does what.
S.P.G.
Before battle, you’re able to select the S.P.G segment of your health bar. Thiswill grant you the ability to performREV Blows as well as the Hidden Gearsuper attacks. Additionally,you will deal more damagewhen you are in the S.P.G. form.
S.P.G. Placement Tips
Having access to the REV Art off the bat will often help you win exchanges early. However, it makes it harder to make use of the Hidden Gear. Meanwhile, if you place it in the back third,it becomes something of a come-back mechanic. Which is nice, but it also means that you may be ceding momentum to your opponent. Obviously, middle of the bar is the very definition of the half-way solution.
One thing to keep in mind is that every character has access to combos that can removemorethan a third of your health bar. So,if you place the S.P.G anywhere but the front, you are not guaranteed that you will be able to access it.
REV Blow
[While S.P.G. is active] HP+HK
Pressing the heavy punch and heavy kick buttons simultaneously willprovide you with a new attack. Every REV Blow in the game hassome level of invincibility. That makes it an extremely powerful attack when dealing with opponents who are controlling space with their normals and utilizing a number of pokes. This attack willonly be available while your health is in the S.P.G thirdof the health bar. Youcan use the REV Blow in the airas well for a new airborne attack.
Hidden Gear
[While S.P.G. is active] ⬇️↘️➡️, ⬇️↘️➡️ REV
Finally, the S.P.G. mode will give you access to your Hidden Gear super attack. This super attack is the glossiest, flashiest, andmost damaging superin your arsenal. It will cost you both your super meters, but it will alsocompletely refresh your REV gauge. So, if you are getting close to overheating, landing this super can be a major momentum shifter.
REV Guard
REV
A REV Guard is City of Wolves’s version of a Push-Block, which you will be familiar with if you’ve played the Marvel Vs Capcom titles. This block will create distance when used to defend an attack. Additionally, it nullifies any chip damage. You can hold the REV Guard, however, using it will cause your REV Meter to increase. So, the longer you hold it, the higher your REV Meter will climb.
REV Accel
REV Accel is the act of canceling one REV Art into another REV Art. So, as an example, Terry can cancel the REV version of his Buster Wolf into the REV version of his Power Wave. The timing for these cancels is always on hit. So, you need to input the command for the second REV Art the moment the first is landing. REV Arts that hit multiple times can be canceled on any of the multiple hits.
However, to perform a REV Accel you need a valid move to cancel into. So,Salvatore cannot perform a REV Accel after landing his Sky’s Beat, as he will be airborne, and he doesn’t have any specials that can be performed in the air. Tizoc, on the other hand, has his Icarus Crash, which is an aerial grab attack. So, he can perform a REV Accel cancel out of his Olympus Over flying elbow attack into that Icarus Crash air-grab.
Breaks
HP + LK or REV during select Special Attacks
Breaks are a type of cancel that is limited to select Special Attacks. It will cause the attack to end prematurely. This can be used to make unsafe special attacks harder to punish, as a fake-out, or to open up extra combo routes.Breaks need to be performed early. It is easy to think of a break-cancellable Special Attack as existing in two parts: the breakable first half, and the unbreakable second half. Once you move past that first section, you lose the ability to break.
Feints
HP + LK or REV
A Feint will see your character perform the beginning portion of an attack without following through.The primary purpose is to confuse your opponent, and potentially convince them to commit to something like a jump or a counter (leaving them vulnerable to a follow-up attack by you).
Certain Breaks can act as Feints, such as Tizoc’s Poseidon Wave Break.
Just Defense
⬅️ or ↙️ the moment before impact
A Just Defense is a block that you perform the moment before an attack hits. A green aura will appear all around your character if you successfully perform a Just Defense, as a reward, you willheal a small amount of health, you will receive no chip damage, and you will recover quicker. you’re able to perform multiple Just Defenses in a row to fully nullify multi-hitting attacks. Additionally, while there is no air guard in City of the Wolves,you can Just Defense in the air.
If this sounds like a Third Strike parry, that’s because it operates very similarly.
➡️or ↘️ the moment before impact
A Hyper Defense must follow a normal block
The Hyper Defense is identical to the Just Defense except it is performedafteranormalblock and is something you perform by pressing the direction toward the opponent. So,if you block the first attack of a multi-hitting attack, you can then perform Hyper Defenses by tapping forwardtoward your opponent as the following attacks land - or down-forward if the attack is low.
Guard Cancel
This is an attack that follows a Just Defense. The window is extremely tight, but will let you use an attack as a counter. You can Guard Cancel any of the following attacks…
Needless to say, you will need to move your fingers absurdly quickly to hammer out a Redline Gear or a Hidden Gear attack. You only have a few frames to input the attack after the Just Defense. However, if you do manage to input the command quickly enough, they will come out quicker than they typically would.The easiest move to use during a Guard Cancel is a REV Blow,but that does require that you have the S.P.G. mode active.
Counter Hit Vs. Wild Punish
Oddly enough, City of the Wolves actually has two types of counter-hit states. The standard Counter that you’ll find in every fighting game is still here. Which means that if youstrike your opponent as they are committed to an attack, you’ll land a “counter hit”. Counter-attacks recover quicker, making certain combos possible that ordinarily wouldn’t be.
A Wild Punish, on the other hand, is activated by landingan attack while your opponent is in their recovery frames. All moves have three phases: start up, active, and recovery. The startup frames comebeforean attack is able to deal damage, the active frames are when the attack is out and capable of dealing damage, and the recovery frames comeafterthe damage dealing part of the attack.
So, Marco’s Kouhou uppercut attack is in its startup phase when he kneels down and prepares to launch upward, its active phase when his punch is ascending, and its recovery frames when he is falling back to the ground.
Hitting a Wild Punish requires hitting a small window. If you manage to do it successfully, you will be rewarded handsomely. Not only will you recover much quicker, but your opponent will be popped up high into the air.The Wild Punish is a much more powerful counter,and, as a result, will allow for the most damaging combos in the game.
