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A year ago Geese Howard was the most powerful man in South Town. As the head of a crime syndicate, Geese had held annual King of Fighters martial arts tournaments to eliminate any potential opposition. A pair of brothers from Geese's past joined the tournament last year, accompanied by a Muay Thai kickboxer. Their names were Terry Bogard, Andy Bogard, and Joe Higashi.

Eleven years ago Geese had been studying Hakkyoseiken under Tung Fu Rue along with Jeff Bogard. When he found out that Tung had decided to pass the secrets of Hakkyoseiken to Jeff, Geese killed Jeff in cold blood before his two sons. Geese then defeated Tung and took his sacred scroll, one of three that held the secrets of Hakkyoseiken. Last year Jeff Bogard's two sons came looking for revenge. They defeated the other fighters in the tournament and challenged Geese himself. Geese defeated Andy and the kickboxer Joe Higashi, and it looked like Terry would fall to the same fate. But with a last burst of energy Terry managed to defeat Geese Howard and knock him out of the window of the top floor of Geese's office complex. Geese is presumed dead.

A year after Geese's defeat, a new face has appeared on the scene. Wolfgang Krauser is of the Strolheim bloodline, and is an extraordinary fighter. He enjoys fighting strong opponents and defeating them for his family's honor. Furthermore he knows Geese, and wanted to find out who could defeat him. He has reinstated the King of Fighters tournament to find that person.

Fatal Fury 2 retains the line system from its predecessor. Stages have a foreground plane and a background plane, and characters can move back and forth between the foreground and background planes. Most of a character's arsenal is meant for attacking opponents on the same plane, although each character has one technique that simultaneously jumps to the other plane and attacks at the same time. Characters also have an attack that will hurl their opponents into the other plane.

In addition to standard and special techniques, desperation moves are now part of the game. When characters get sufficiently beat up their health bar starts flashing. From that point on until they lose all their health they can unleash desperation moves; they're more complicated to pull off than special attacks but also do more damage. Each character has one of these desperation moves.

Players can choose from a selection of eight characters, including the three from the first Fatal Fury. The other five characters are Big Bear, Mai Shiranui, Jubei Yamada, Chin ShinZan, and Kim Kaphwan. Once players have selected their character, they can also select the character they want to fight against first. ~ Kyle Knight, All Game Guide