Turn-based role-playing game (RPG) Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is easily an early game of the year contender. It has some of the best visual execution and artistic design I’ve ever seen, some of the most beautiful environment and world building I’ve immersed myself in, and also some top-tier, multifaceted combat that has changed me from a skeptic to a turn-based convert.

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 deftly carves out its own style despite the clear influence of JRPGs (Japanese role-playing games) that it so readily wears on its sleeve, but not once does it feel like it’s purely imitating other games, or tamely reimagining established elements.

Instead, it delivers a sublimely sombre story with fantastic performances, in a world full of breathtakingly beautiful environments, that has some exhilarating, slick, and rewarding combat that is fantastic to get your teeth into.

There are a few wrinkles along the way that affect some elements of the game such as dialogue, progression and navigation, and the overall pacing a little, but this effort Sandfall Interactive’s small team of developers is as good as some of the best RPG games, and is definitely an early contender for game of the year discussions.

A world worth fighting for

As I have touched upon, there are three core elements of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 that combine to create its brilliance.

The first is the immensely high-quality and breathtaking setting, environments, and art direction. The entire game is a visual treat, with every map, level, environment, and locale designed with intelligence, but also aesthetic brilliance.

Each and every place in the game is itself a staggeringly beautiful environment. From Giants Causeway-esque volcanic rock coastal areas, to strangely underwater (but not actually underwater) zones and huge mountainous areas where each cliff is a face, to icy stalactite riddled caves and all kinds of lush landscapes in between, there’s never a dull moment.

Navigating is a simple joy too: you can seamlessly switch between characters with the press of a button, and Lune’s smooth gliding movement (the character’s alternative to sprinting) is one of the many simple things that Clair Obscur does tremendously.

This environmental excellence even extends to the overworld used to navigate between the main areas of the game. Much like the map, it has a wonderfully painterly quality to it, and you can move your characters around from a different perspective, almost like miniatures on a tabletop game.

You can engage in battles in this overworld-come-map too and navigate it like almost any other part of the game, while also deploying your camp - your expedition’s hub area where conversations and upgrades happen.

Each main area in the game is largely linear, with some tucked-away ends with rewards for those who explore. You’ll come across expedition flags regularly, too. These remnants of expeditions past act a little like bonfires from Souls games: you can heal your party, tinker with skills and attributes, and replenish your supplies at the cost of spawning defeated enemies.

Everything is further enhanced by the wonderful acting and voice work provided by the game’s cast. Dressed in the dark fantasy Belle Époque aesthetic, stars such as Charlie Cox, Ben Starr, Jennifer English, Kirsty Rider, and Andy Serkis give emotive and powerful performances.

The design of non-player characters (NPCs) and foes contributes to the overall level of artistic brilliance, too. The former are quirky beings named Gestrals, who appear as if they’ve been designed around Salvador Dali’s impressions of living paintbrushes, and the latter come in a variety of forms that beautifully complement the areas in which you find them. There’s some repetition here and there, but generally, each was a joy to face - though a lot of that joy comes from the combat, more on that below.

All in this wonderfully stylish execution and presentation has a cinematic quality at times, and it sometimes feels like you’re playing in a stylish film from French cinema. It’s an incredibly imaginative and unique setting, and with such strong placemaking, it will be a game world that stays with me.

Masterfully crafted combat

More than anything else, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33’s combat is quite possibly the biggest accomplishment in the entire game - despite my heaped praise above.

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 has what I’d call ‘active turn-based combat’. Built upon the staple turn-based action found in JRPGs, the game adds a small tweak - a tweak that was one of the main things that drew me in initially.

This affects the ‘passive’ part of turn-based combat - i.e. between turns or as enemies engage make their moves, and inserts active actions like dodging and parrying. There are also quick-time events (QTEs) in your moves to enhance the impact and power of your attacks.

This not only means that you can still influence both attack and defense throughout each turn, but the execution of these also elevates the combat masterfully. Foremost because the parries, dodges, and QTEs are all extremely well balanced and can be game changers once you’ve mastered them. They aren’t always essential, and they are hard to time perfectly, but when you nail them, it can turn a losing encounter into a winning one in a split second.

Within each battle, your characters can perform a basic attack to gain one action point (AP), fire their free aim weapon at the cost of one AP per fire, use a potion, or execute one of their many skills, should you have enough APs available.

The points requirement can be an obstacle, but you can swiftly gain APs by dodging and parrying perfectly. This places extra importance on the combat’s active elements, though thankfully, it never feels like you’re being forced to play a specific way.

And there’s also a whole lot more to the combat than APs, dodging, and parrying. An incredible amount more, and the game offers plenty of cogs to its combat wheel that can be a total blast to experiment with as you form impactful loadouts and combinations.

For example, as well as their own weapon types - that you can, of course, upgrade as you go - each character has their own unique skill tree with a variety of options that do different levels of damage for different amounts of action points. There are also Pictos (a sort of rune that can be equipped to offer boosts), three of which can be equipped by characters in their loadout at any one time.

Lumina points can also be applied to characters, which enables them to make use of Pictos equipped by other party members. Then there are also base attributes which can be boosted with each level-up, and that change in importance depending on the characteristics of the weapon you have equipped.

While each character has a host of skills to use, none ever feel unobtainable as the game isn’t shy about giving you plenty of the items that let you reset attributes and skills. I ended up with nearly two dozen of these left over at the end of my playthrough, despite having used a fair few.

So if you really like skill swapping and experimentation, then you’ll be well served here and you’ll be rewarded for getting to know each style, especially as grander skills open up later in the game. With so many systems to get stuck into, there’s a chance that they may be overwhelming - especially given their unique names and terms - but I appreciate the freedom to create your own style.

Combine this with each party member being very different and can be played in a multitude of different ways due to all of the above, and the options you have are wonderful.

Some of my favorite moments of the combat are when it feels like a chess game - perhaps even after a failure or two first planning multi-character moves in advance to make the most of buffs and a good sequence of blows on an enemy. However, I have also really enjoyed being able to react, relying on parrying and dodging to overcome an unforeseen challenge, reacting on the fly.

A superbly sombre story

Forming the bedrock for the wonderful combat and beautiful lands is the extraordinarily gripping story. You play as a party of expeditioners embark on a mission to eliminate the ‘Paintress’ and her effect on the island of Lumière, which means that every year, people above an ever-decreasing age perish is what’s referred to as a Gommage.

Following each Gommage, the populace sends out an Expedition to try and slay the Paintress, with each previous to the 33rd attempt being unsuccessful. Finding out what happened to the past expeditions through lost journals adds further depth to the worldbuilding, pulling you in and ensuring you want to find out more and more.

I was locked into the narrative extremely quickly, with the actors' performances combining beautifully with the setting and the pacing of the setup. There’s no barrage of lore here, though: it hooks into you right from the off. And as the story progresses, you get to know the characters more, get invested in their relationships, and see and meet a variety of interesting parties that all play a part in the narrative.

I’m eager not to reveal any spoilers, as it is riveting throughout and wholly unique in games I’ve played. It’s immediately intriguing, always engaging, and perpetually sombre, dark, and melancholy - though never quite truly bleak. It’s not so relentlessly miserable that it would make folks turn off, but it’s never very far from relentlessly melancholy.

That’s not to say it’s totally without fault, as some minor frustrations are present.

Dialogue can be a bit disjointed at times, and there are multiple instances where you need to press X to say “Yeah”, for example. This is on top of some more baffling omissions, such as having no journal for quests or minimap, and not being able to quickly compare weapons in character menus or when trading. There are also times when areas drag on a bit, or multi-cutscene narrative moments go on for a while.

Those minor qualms aside, and they are very minor, never impacting on my experience enough to put me off, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is a wonderful, beautiful, sombre, exceptional game that I can’t recommend highly enough.

Should you play Clair Obscur: Expedition 33?

Play it if...

Don't play it if...

Accessibility

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 has a smattering of accessibility options that can be tinkered with. The headline is the three difficulty levels present, which you can switch between at any time to find the right challenge for you.

There’s also an auto quicktime mode for executing attacks during combat, which can certainly take some of the stress out. However, there’s no such mode for defence, which feels like an, albeit very specific, oversight.

Elsewhere, there are customisations for subtitles and good colorblind options, along with camera adjustments, but there are no control customization options available by default.

How I reviewed Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

I played Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 for more than 40 hours, completing the main storyline (in about 30 hours) as well as visiting every corner of the map I could and carrying out a host of side quests.

I reviewed the PlayStation 5 version of the game on my two PS5 setups: a PS5 Slim combined with an Acer X32QFS gaming monitor and a Yamaha SR-C20A soundbar; and a PS5 Pro teamed with a Samsung Q6F 55-inch 4K QLED TV and Samsung soundbar.

When using a headset, I opted for a SteelSeries Arctis Nova 7 on the PS5 Slim, and a set of Sennheiser HD 550 headphones, or a SteelSeries Arctis Nova Pro Wireless headset with my PS5 Pro. I used a regular DualSense Wireless controller with both machines and played many hours of the game on my PlayStation Portal, too.

I tested the game thoroughly in both its graphics modes, Performance and Quality, and preferred the former, playing the vast majority of the game in it. The smoothness of the framerates - and extra quality on PS5 Pro - made for a slicker experience, especially in the exhilarating combat, but whichever mode you choose, you’ll be treated to an absolute spectacle, visually.

First reviewed April 2025

The first tape of DON’T NOD’s latest narrative adventure, Lost Records: Bloom & Rage, ended on a particularly heart-rending cliffhanger. Kat, the beloved firecracker of the titular girl group, has been hiding an illness and isn’t likely to make it through the year. After two months of waiting, Tape 2 picks up almost immediately after this climactic information is revealed, with the once inseparable girl group now splintering as the weight of the real world starts to seep into their surreal summer.

Ever since I rolled credits on the first half of Lost Records, I’ve been anxious to unpack the remaining hours of this time-bending coming-of-age story, which highlights heady themes like rebellion, girlhood, and grief. Not just because I wasn’t ready for the story to end, but because DON’T NOD’s ambitious narrative had a lot of big questions to answer, and I wasn’t entirely sure how or if they would bring it home.

I was also keen to get back behind the lens of protagonist Swann’s video camera to record and relive more memories, which is by far the game’s most compelling mechanic.

Unfortunately, single-player game and follow-up, Lost Records: Bloom and Rage Tape 2, doesn’t fully investigate the most exciting motifs Lost Records laid up in the first half, and the addition of janky new modes of gameplay don’t play nice with the previously curated vibe. Still, even with Tape 2’s rough edges, Lost Records: Bloom and Rage tells an important story that celebrates the complexities of female friendship in a sincere and meaningful way.

The kids aren't alright

If Lost Records: Bloom & Rage Tape 1 concerns the slow burn of blossoming friendships, this second part is more about raging violently against the machine. The hazy palette that dominated Tape 1 has been swapped for a darker, more brooding set of hues that create a shrouding atmosphere.

The local watering hole is now adorned in chauvinistic graffiti, and Swann’s clutter-filled room is half empty and ready for her big move out of state. This tone shift feels wonderfully emblematic of the second tape’s narrative pivot – I felt the Summer slip away and a cold Autumn breeze roll in in its place.

As the girls struggle to negotiate their positions in the past, their adult counterparts wobble in the present, too. Unearthing their memories of Kat introduces a new tension in conversation that feels difficult to navigate from both a gameplay perspective and an emotional one.

Swann, Autumn, and Nora appear ready to thaw their frozen feelings, though how they choose to cope seems oppositional from one another, and I found myself enthralled by the complexity of their characters, even though I was constantly walking on eggshells when picking a conversational response.

However, it’s not just the mood that’s changed as the gameplay in Tape 2 has evolved in tow – with mediocre results. Sadly, Swann’s profound camcorder documentation projects take a back seat and are replaced with fetch quests, minor puzzles and a surprising bout of forced stealth, which all feel strangely out of step with a game that was previously story-first and better for it.

Searching an area for a screwdriver or using your wits to intuit the owner of a toothbrush felt like passable additions. On the other hand, sneaking around a house at night and dealing with janky sightlines was much less interesting.

These mechanical changes align with Swann’s deflated mood, but I persistently missed the nostalgic, game-defining act of whipping out my camera in search of collectable memories I could remix and watch back later.

There are still a handful of camcorder moments to encounter, they just don’t feel essential this time around, which is a real shame. I didn’t feel that exploring every nook and cranny would necessarily teach me anything new in Tape 2. It was as if I’d done my due diligence already with the first half, and these final hours were more about rewarding my previous attentiveness than giving me some fresh narrative meat to chew on.

The adults aren't talking

Even with the inclusion of new mechanics, Lost Records: Bloom & Rage Tape 2 has a significantly shorter runtime than Tape 1, which can make the pacing feel a bit uneven at times. In Tape 1, I had hours between pivotal points to roam and investigate the quirks and familial history of the supporting cast.

There isn’t the same amount of downtime in Tape 2, as you jump between plot points at an urgent pace. It makes sense in the broader context of the story, but it means that the most intriguing developments established in the first half are left unanswered when the credits roll.

In particular, I was left with more questions than answers when it came to Kat’s sister, Dylan, and her abusive boyfriend Corey. Despite efforts to give both of them personalities and depth in Tape 1, Tape 2 sees the duo reduced to strangely one-dimensional archetypes. I wasn’t looking for any kind of redemption arc, but I would have loved to investigate the nuances of their messy relationship in more detail.

Yet despite all my gripes, I was still in floods of tears when the curtains closed on this sensational story. Ultimately, the primary cast of Lost Records are just so tenderly written and easy to connect with – even when the framerate chugs or an annoying gameplay mechanic rears its head to stifle your fun. I could see pieces of myself in all four girls – as teens and adults – from their sisterhood to their shame, and even their awkward kisses.

Should you play Lost Records: Bloom and Rage Tape 2?

Play it if...

Don't play it if...

Accessibility

Lost Records: Bloom & Rage Tape 2 arrives as an update from Tape 1, and so the accessibility settings are essentially the same. From the settings menu, you can choose the interface text size (small, medium, and large) and toggle on and off subtitles. From this screen, you can also select the size of the subtitles (small, medium, large). Due to the heavy themes in Lost Records: Bloom & Rage, you’ll also have the choice to turn on trigger warnings.

These warnings include topics such as drugs, tobacco, and alcohol. On this screen, you can also tweak audio dynamic range, choosing between a narrow (little difference between loud and quiet moments, suitable for low-quality sound systems or noisy playspaces), Medium (moderate difference between loud and quiet moments, ideal for most speakers), and Wide (sizable difference between loud and quiet moments, ideal for high-quality sound systems or quiet playspaces).

From the pause menu, under controls, you can toggle on and off vibrations and how the camcorder behaves in the game. There are also options to reduce motion sickness, such as toggling off head bob, camcorder motion controls, and shifting the camcorder feel between regular, light, very light, and none. You can additionally invert cameras and movements and remap the entire keyboard from this menu.

Where visual effects are concerned, you can toggle on and off motion blur, camera smoothing, and camera shake. From the interface menu, you can also toggle on and off a speaker cue that provides a visual cue for who is talking, as well as toggle the persistent reticle in first and third person.

How I reviewed Lost Records: Bloom and Rage

I completed Lost Records: Bloom & Rage Tape 2’s story in around six hours on PC. In that time, I searched thoroughly through each environment and made conversational choices until the finale. I used an AOC 27-inch QHD VA 144Hz gaming monitor, a Logitech MX Master 3S mouse, and a Logitech G915 TKL gaming keyboard.

For sound, I used my external Creative Pebble V2 computer speakers and Audio Technica ATH-MX50X headphones plugged into a Scarlett 2i2 interface. My gaming PC is powered by an RTX 3080 graphics card, and my CPU is an AMD Ryzen 9 3950X.

First reviewed April 2025

AndaSeat Novis: One-minute review

This chair is good. No seriously, it might not look like much, but for the price it's exceptional. You're looking at $200-250 for the regular or XL variant, and for that, the Novis absolutely nails what a good gaming chair should be.

What makes this one of the best gaming chairs around then? Simply put, it's stupidly comfortable to sit in. The padding in the seat base and the bolsters is absolutely next level. It's covered in a faux leather-like PVC material, but overall comfort is top-tier.

The backrest has lumbar support built into it; it's non-adjustable but it's enough to keep you comfortable through long gaming sessions or during the work day, and the overall feel and style are up there. It's not too gamer-y, nor is it too corporate. It treads a fine line between the two, with the only issue being the potentially a little too intense branding.

It's not perfect, of course; AndaSeat has had to cut back on a number of features and build elements to bring the price down. The armrests, particularly on the XL model I tested, are a little too small, and you don't get any included lumbar or headrest pillows (they're optional extras instead), plus the overall frame has been slimmed down a bit to shave off some material cost, but for what you're paying, that's more than acceptable.

The Novis hits the mark, not because it has some fancy gimmicks or outlandish design, but because it nails the basics and does so with an incredible price point attached to it. It's that simple. This is unabashedly one of the most comfortable gaming chairs I've ever tested, and that's saying a lot.

AndaSeat Novis: Price and Availability

• List Price: $250 (around £210)
• Only available direct from AndaSeat.com
• PVC leatherette and Cloth versions

If you're looking to actually grab one of the world's most affordable gaming chairs right now, I've got some bad news. Unfortunately, it's seemingly only available via AndaSeat directly, and right now the release is limited to the US.

I have no doubt it's coming to other regions at a later date (Europe, likely once various health and safety legislation has been met), but for the time being it's a web store exclusive.

That's likely been done again to shave a bit of cost off the overall price tag. I'd suspect the margins for AndaSeat are so low on these things that having to fork out extra cash to Amazon for the privilege of listing it might be a step too far.

But the thing is, though, it's that pricing that really cements the brilliance of this thing. There are effectively four models on offer. You've got the L-size for folk between 155-190 cm and up to 90 kg, and the XL size (featured in this test) for 165-210 cm up to 120 kg.

Within that, there's a choice of either a premium PVC leather option or alternatively, you can opt for a linen fabric instead that comes in a sleek "Ash Gray" finish, looking equally stellar. The standard L size comes in at $200 regardless of material, and the XL is $250.

Another nice addition to the whole affair is bizarrely something that AndaSeat's excluded from the overall package. In this case, that's the lumbar support and headrest pillow. You can actually buy these as optional extras, either as a package together for $59 or individually at $39 each.

To be honest, I would like to see those prices reduced somewhat (they're high for what they are); however, it's quite nice that they're optional extras and that additional manufacturing cost has been removed from the initial outlay.

AndaSeat Novis: Specs

Andaseat Novis: Design and Aesthetics

• No drama
• Sleek PVC Leather
• Basic armrests

With that pricing in mind, you probably wouldn't expect too much from it. $250 for a gaming chair and a lot of cash these days, certainly with the likes of Noblechair's Legend and Secretlab's Titan Evo kicking around in the big leagues.

Yet the Novis actually delivers quite the package. In its PVC leather form, it's clean, slick, and simple. There's no drama outside of a few embroidered logos. It's a bucket seat design out of the gate, with some fairly simple clean stitching and comfortable bolsters running along the slides.

Unlike with the Kaiser line, there are no dramatic colorways to choose from, just black for the leather and grey for the cloth, and that's about it.

It's comfortable enough, and if you put this in a room with 30 other gaming chairs, you'd be hard-pressed to place it at that $200 mark, which honestly is high praise. It's only when you start to look under the hood that you begin to notice some of the features that have been cut back to really nail that budget entry cost.

AndaSeat Novis: Comfort and adjustability

• Armrests need work
• Adjustment is incredibly limited
• Wildly comfortable, even compared to the Kaiser

Flip this thing over during the construction, and you'll spot immediately that there's just one lever. You don't have that lock-out lever for the tilt mechanism.

Instead, it's constantly unlocked. That said, it's very rigid, and although you can technically tilt back on it, it requires some serious force to shuffle it back by that 15 degrees.

Then there's the armrests (always a bit of a sticking point for AndaSeat). I will say these are more functional than the 5D armrests found on the Pro line with the Kaiser 3 series and the Kaiser 4, but that comes with some major caveats.

Unfortunately, you can only adjust them up and down. There's no rotation, no pivot, and no sliding forwards and backwards. That wouldn't be that big of an issue if it wasn't for the fact that they're remarkably small, measuring just 9.8" (25cm) long and 3.1" (8cm) wide. Even for a smaller human like myself at 5'8.5" (174cm) and 165lbs (75kg) actually resting my arms on them during use is a bit awkward at times. They're not awful though, and they do work relatively well. Perhaps better suited to the smaller "L" sizing.

Then there's the seat itself, and it is wildly comfortable; there's no denying it. AndaSeat's cold-cure foam is out of this world. Squishy, supportive—it's just luscious. The added 2.5" (5cm) raised bolsters on either edge and the subtle angling on those and the backrest bolsters just add to the overall luxurious feel and allow it to compete, certainly on a comfort level with those far costlier flagships out there.

One minor complaint: the PVC leather, although durable, does lack some breathability compared to alternatives out there. In part due to its synthetic nature. It could use some perforations or some form of patterning to relieve some of that glossy, sweaty feel.

I've been testing a lot of graphics cards and systems lately, my office has hit 95F (35C) on a few occasions, and it's made the Novis particularly sticky during those moments. Less than ideal. Still, it's an all-round epic chair, and for the cost, it's hard to beat.

AndaSeat Novis: Assembly

• Quick and seamless
• Very standard process
• Minimal components, minimal fuss

So, easy to build? Yeah. If you've built a few gaming chairs over the last decade or so, you'll get along with this just fine. Unlike with the AndaSeat X-Air there's no complex hydraulic cambling to do or anything along those lines.

You chuck the castor wheels into the base, the piston into that, attach your armrests and seat base mount to the underside of the seat, pop that on the piston, then attach the backrest to that, and wrap-up with the side bolt covers.

AndaSeat reckons you're better off installing the backrest to the seat base first before mounting it on top of the gas piston, but honestly, I found it easier to do it the way listed above, as it reduces the overall weight and doesn't take any longer.

You'll notice there's no frills around it, though. Unlike some other options, there's no subtle chrome badging you need to plug in, or flappy paddles, or anything along those lines really. The only minor annoyance is attaching the armrests, but again, it's so cheap and affordable and takes such little time to attach them that it's really not worth complaining about.

Unlike with the Kaiser 3 Pro XL, it didn't have any trouble with the bolts or securing anything into position either on this sample, just happy sailing, and in less than 20 minutes I had a gaming chair up and built.

Should You Buy The AndaSeat Novis?

Buy it if...

Don't buy it if...

Also consider...

Not interested in an astoundingly good budget gaming chair? Fancy something with a bit more punch? Check these awesome options out instead.

How I tested the AndaSeat Kaiser 3 Pro

• Sat in it for two weeks total
• Tested in all manner of working positions
• Hand built solo

I spent two weeks with the Novis XL getting to grips with it. Particularly challenging being slightly shorter than the recommended numbers. I also got friends and colleagues to sit in it too, to judge just how good it was, and then collated that information into my own review as well.

I've also had a ton of experience with the entirety of AndaSeat's range at this point, which has given me particularly good insight into how it operates and which features and models it has at its disposal.

Read more about how we test

First reviewed April 2025

Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves is finally here, and as the first entry in developer SNK’s legendary fighting game franchise in over 25 years, it’s got a point to prove. Especially in the modern fighting game landscape, where things like Street Fighter 6’s complex Drive Gauge system or Tekken 8’s focus on overpowering aggression have become the norm.

By comparison, City of the Wolves feels refreshingly old-school. Neutral and defensive play is incredibly important here, and thanks to the fun-but-strict REV meter system, lengthy high-damage combos can be very costly. Risk-versus-reward gameplay is a huge factor, and it’s rare you’ll get to brute force your way out of a disadvantageous position; you’ll have to work for it instead.

In terms of presentation, City of the Wolves is utterly gorgeous, with SNK clearly refining the cel-shaded style it’s implemented in recent titles like Samurai Shodown and The King of Fighters 15. Animation is fantastic, characters are highly expressive, stages are awash with color and detail, and it’s all backed up by a tremendously catchy soundtrack.

It’s unfortunately not quite a home run effort, though. Menus still feel incredibly sluggish, with noticeable input lag as you navigate them. And even on a solid-state drive, there are some worryingly long load times even between individual rounds. Furthermore, offline modes are basic at best and uninspired at worst, and the usual Arcade and Survival modes are joined by a tedious main single-player mode that gets old within the first hour.

But overall, if you’re looking for a largely no-nonsense fighting game to learn and improve at in the months to come, Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves is very easy to recommend. It’s not a full-priced game, and it even includes its first-year season pass absolutely free of charge.

As a side note, before we dive in, I unfortunately didn’t get to test online functionality in the review build of Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves, as the servers weren’t ready for prime time.

REV it up

Let’s start with the basics. Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves is a four-button fighting game, with light and heavy punches and kicks forming the core of your neutral offence. On a per-character basis, some of these buttons can be strung together to form a simple target combo or pressed after directional inputs to perform a special move.

The core gimmick in Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves is the REV system, governed by a gauge for each fighter. It starts out empty at zero percent, but fills up as you perform enhanced special moves (done by pressing both punch or kick buttons after a directional input) or by performing moves that are only available to you in the S.P.G. state (more on that soon).

As these enhanced special moves - known as REV Arts - can be canceled into one another for big-damage combos, you’ll find that your REV meter can fill exceptionally fast. If it fills up, you’ll overheat, which means you’ll be susceptible to guard breaks and won’t be able to pull off any more REV Arts or abilities until it fully cools down.

Complementing REV is the S.P.G. (Selective Potential Gear) system. This is visualized on your health bar as a yellow segment, and it can be placed at the start, center, or end of it before a match. While your health is within the S.P.G threshold, you’ll also have access to REV Blows - a powerful invincible tool that can turn the tide on aggressive opponents, thus allowing you to skip neutral or end combos with it. It is another costly resource, though, and will eat into your overall REV meter.

I get that on paper, all this might sound very complicated, potentially exacerbated by your ability to brake or feint your own attacks. These essentially cut your moves short, allowing you to combo into other attacks or specials, and I found it to be a crucial thing to learn in order to access longer and more damaging combo strings.

It’s certainly a lot to take in, but City of the Wolves does an elegant job of teaching you all its systems via an in-depth tutorial, as well as character combo trials that introduce the concept of brakes, feints, and canceling REV Arts into each other, all in a practical fashion. Once you’ve got a proper handle on it all, it feels incredibly satisfying to take your practice into matches.

Offline woes

Speaking of matches, and based on my time with the previous open betas, you’ll probably want to jump online in City of the Wolves as your primary port of call. In comparison, the game’s offline offerings are greatly lacking.

Arcade mode is here as standard, and it’s a good way to get a feel for a character and their story through eight matches against AI-controlled opponents (though bizarrely, guest fighter Cristiano Ronaldo isn’t playable here). Survival and Time Attack modes are also decent endurance challenges.

But it’s the main Episodes of South Town (abbreviated in-game as EOST) that’s the real let-down. An incredibly simple story mode that has you choosing battles on a map, EOST feels extremely phoned in compared to Street Fighter 6’s World Tour or even Tekken 8’s spectacle-filled story mode. There are some fun distractions here, like a bottle smashing minigame and tidbits of trivia for longtime SNK fans, but for me, the tedium began setting in very quickly.

EOST also highlights two of City of the Wolves’ biggest issues: user interface and menu navigation. Menu layout in general is pretty cumbersome, and there is noticeable input delay as you use the D-pad to cycle through options. Worse still, there’s no support for mouse control in this review build, which I sincerely hope can get patched in at launch or at least close to it.

South Town sights

On a stronger note, City of the Wolves’ presentation is simply stunning. SNK has really mastered this cel-shaded look now. Characters and stages have a comic book sheen to them, and subtle filters really help to add depth to any given scene. Particle effects caused by special moves or other abilities are also just the right amount of flashy, not coming across as too intrusive.

Things like this create a smart but eye-catching visual style, and when paired with exceptional animation quality, you have a game that I think is going to be a real spectacle at major tournaments like EVO and Combo Breaker.

If that wasn’t enough, City of the Wolves is backed up by a tremendous soundtrack, with artists like Afrojack, Steve Aoki, and Salvatore Ganacci (who, yes, is somehow also a playable character) contributing music to the game. Overall, the presentation is a moreish audio-visual feast and one of the best things about City of the Wolves.

Should you play Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves?

Play it if...

Don't play it if...

Accessibility

Outside of the ability to reduce screen shaking in the options menu, there isn’t anything in the way of meaningful accessibility settings in City of the Wolves. The main gameplay consideration is the ‘Smart’ control style, however, which simplifies inputs and combo routes which can prove beneficial for those less familiar with fighting games or who’re unable to pull off more complex directional inputs.

How I reviewed Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves

I played Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves over the course of a week and a half for this review, totaling approximately 15 hours of playtime. That included Arcade mode runs for several characters, a full playthrough of EOST mode, numerous combo trials, and no shortage of training mode sessions to get familiar with a number of characters.

I reviewed the game on a gaming PC (via Steam) powered by the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 Ti, and primarily played with a Razer Wolverine V3 Pro controller.