Given that it’s been a quarter century since the last mainline Fatal Fury entry, there haven’t been a ton of new developments for the franchise in the way of characters and such. That’s changing with the coming release of Fatal Fury City of the Wolves, which not only brings a revamped visual and gameplay approach to the series, but also fresh faces.
One such fresh face we already know about is nerdy newcomers Preecha, a pupil of series staple Joe Higashi and one of the starter roster members of City of the Wolves. Rooflemonger got some hands on time with Preecha at Summer Game Fest this year, and has produced a whole video detailing just about everything we know about her thus far.
With perhaps the most recent example being Street Fighter 6’s A.K.I. from Street Fighter 5’s F.A.N.G, we’ve seen pupils act as successor figures in fighting games many times in the past, and so one of the first questions franchise fans will surely have is whether or not Preecha is something of an evolution of Joe Higashi.
While both contenders root their fighting style in Muay Thai and utilize wind-based attacks, Rooflemonger assures us that Preecha’s overlap with Joe is almost entirely cosmetic in nature.
Preecha simply explodes with personality as SNK developers have clearly gone the extra mile to show off themes and quirks in both obvious and more subtle ways. She’s a nerdy scientist, which is evident both in her basic visual design as well as the naming of her attacks (“Sine-Cosine” and “Hyperbolic Kick,” for instance).
You may not see it the first time she performs them, but some of her attacks have small animations that underscore her personality. Some of her maneuvers are so powerful they ignite her fists, something extremely common in fighting games, but unlike most everyone else in the genre, Preecha actually has to desperately wave the flames out when this happens, reminding us of the “scientist whose latest experiment may have gotten slightly out of control” trope.
She also has to re-adjust her glasses after many of her more intense maneuvers, again pointing to her endearingly awkward character design.
Of course, the majority of Rooflemonger’s video concerns one of the content creators superpowers: showcasing and elaborating on the potential of the character’s move arsenal. Meet and learn all about Preecha in the full video below and be sure to let us know what you think of this new Fatal Fury addition in the comments afterwards.
Want more new City of the Wolves action? Be sure to check out this gameplay and mechanic showcase from Maximilian next.
