Hiya!

It’s been a while since I’ve had the urge to play Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves. I’m honestly waiting for Blue Mary, who arrives in South Town sometime next month. While I wait, I might as well try out the other new character who SNK just recently added to the roster. In all honesty, I’m not very enthused for him as I thought he died! Apparently, he’s technically still deceased as this isn’t the SNK boss. He’s actually more like a dream/imaginary character, which is why he has the monicker of Nightmare Geese.

I know Nightmare Geese has been out for a while but I was kind of busy getting every Street Fighter 6 character to Master rank. Besides, like I said just a few moments ago, I’m just more eager to see Blue Mary. So, playing Nightmare Geese was pretty low in my priority list. Well, I had some time this weekend so I busted out Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves and gave Rock Howard‘s biological father a spin.

Before I do get to my review proper, I do have to let you know I do have some experience with Geese Howard from playing him in SNK’s other fighting mainline fighting game, King of Fighters XV. So, I was going in with some idea of how he should play. In all honesty, I do think he plays much better in City of the Wolves as a lot of this game’s mechanics makes him a monster.

First off, let’s talk about Nightmare Geese’s appearance. He’s not. I mean, no, Nightmare Geese doesn’t look especially nightmarish. He just looks like Geese Howard before he plummeted from the top of Geese Tower to the street of downtown South Town! I expected him to look much more… monstrous. If you give someone the nickname “Nightmare,” I fully expect this person to look like something scary. At the very least, make him look like he’s undead or something!

Then again, I will have to say Nightmare Geese does have the potential to be a nightmare to opponents! I’ve mentioned how I’m not that good playing City of the Wolves because it’s not exactly beginner friendly. There are so many things to keep in mind, such as proximity normals, feints, Braking, REV Accels and a whole lot more! Nightmare Geese feels so much simpler because you can do really long and damaging combos without really thinking. For example, canceling into a feint to link into normals is one of City of the Wolves’ main combo mechanics. Doing this with other characters seem finicky. Not with Nightmare Geese! Linking after a feint feels rather lenient and I was performing some really fun links from feints pretty easily. In fact, I breezed through Nightmare Geese’s combo Missions in just 10 minutes! That’s surprising, especially for me who hasn’t completed everyone else’s new combo missions!

Another reason why Nightmare Geese’s combo structure feels so much easier is you don’t have to brake any of his special moves. In fact, the only special attack which can break is his weird command jumping attack, the Hishou Nichirin Zan. His other special moves does not have the break option! This makes it less tiring on my fingers as I don’t have to be doing a break in order to do damaging combos like with City of the Wolves’ other characters.

I am getting ahead of myself as I’m already talking about his special attacks when I haven’t really gone through his normals. He does have some really good ones. His far standing light is pretty good as it has good range and is cancellable. Both his far standing heavy punch and crouching heavy punch have some really good range to them and are also cancellable. When it comes to his close normals, Nightmare Geese’s close standing heavy kick is one of the best ones in the game for the simple reason it hits twice. This makes it very easy to hit confirm and, if you cancel it into his regular feint, it links into his far standing heavy punch… and I’ve already mentioned how awesome this normal is, right? Even so, even his far standing heavy kick is really good. It moves him forward and, if spaced right, can be made safe. It’s also a neat way to move him forward when you have your opponent knocked down so you can do his OTG grab, the Raimei Gouha Nage!

Speaking of his special attacks, Nightmare Geese’s kit is pretty good but it is lacking something. First, the good things! The light version of his Fudou Ken is a fantastic mixup tool because of all of the follow ups you can do from it! If it connects clean, you can still mix them up with any of the punch follow ups to either leave them standing or knock them down. If they block, you can do a high/low mixup with his kick follow ups. I also have to mention you can hold the heavy versions of his follow ups for more hitstun! The heavy version of his Fudou Ken knocks them up for a juggle and this is Nightmare Geese’s main combo starter. He has a grounded projectile, the ever popular Reppu Ken, and a jumping projectile, his Shippu Ken. The Shippu Ken can be hard to handle for opponents as this sends Nightmare Geese floating backwards, away from harm. This means Nightmare Geese has a good keepaway game as well.

He also is the only one I know in the game who has a command throw which connects with lying opponents! This means you can actually damage them even as they’re on the ground with this move, the Raimei Gouha Nage! In fact, if you do the REV Art version of this move, it’ll restand them and you can cancel into a REV Accel to pour on the damage! Like with the follow ups from the Fudou Ken, you can hold the buttons for more hitstun and active frames.

If your opponent loves playing defensive and blocks all the time, Nightmare Geese can break through it with his Explosion Ball command throw. Doing the REV Art version will allow you to do REV Accels out of it, adding more damage. His weird Hishou Nichirin Zan, the weird command jump attack I mentioned earlier, does have its uses. It can actually hit as a crossup and, since you can break it, can work as an empty jump. Nightmare Geese also has his classic counters but these can be hard to pull off in the heat of battle. Also, you do have to be good a predicting what kind of attack, either high or low, which can also add to the pressure of using this properly.

His Ignition Gears and Redline Gears do have its uses. One of Nightmare Geese’s biggest weaknesses is he doesn’t have a good anti-air. The closest may be the heavy version of Fudou Ken and even that’s unreliable. His Raging Storm, however, is awesome at this! It can even hit crossup attempts! Sure, it’s a very expensive anti-air but, once you hit them out of the air with this, they’ll think twice about jumping at you when you have enough meter. Deadly Rave is a nice big combo super. Nothing really special but it’s a cool looking combo. I guess the same can be said for his big Hidden Gear, the Rashoumon: Setsuna. It’s a huge damaging super and that’s pretty much it.

Honestly, I really like Nightmare Geese because he does feel like a more straightforward character than the rest of Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves’ cast. I do wish he had at least a normal which worked as an anti-air but I guess SNK though he needed some kind of weakness. His toolkit makes him a very versatile character as he can play keepaway with his projectiles, do rushdown with his high damaging combos, play mixup with his Fudou Ken follow up attacks and even defensive if you’re on point with his counter special attacks. The problem is he doesn’t really excel at any of them. I guess the best thing about him is how beginner friendly he plays. Funny, isn’t it? The boss character is the easiest character in the roster for beginners? You funny, SNK!

Byee!

What do you think of Nightmare Geese? Let me know in the comments section below!