Overview

The main appeal of SNK's fighting games, and their soundtracks, are their strong characters and the themes that accompany them. In the late 90s, the company produced an eleven part series of character sounds collections — each dedicated to a popular character from the Fatal Fury, King of Fighters, and Samurai Shodown series. Containing a mixture of originals, arrangements, and voiceovers, they provided an expansive tribute to each character. The third entry in this series is dedicated to Geese Howard, the curiously named antagonist of the Fatal Fury franchise.

Body

"Kissed by Geese" is the earliest major character theme introduced in an SNK fighter and also one of the company's most long-lived. After its debut on 1991's Fatal Fury, the track was incorporated into almost all of the series' sequels, and it even made its way into the King of Fighters and Art of Fighting franchises. Even after Geese was killed off (for the second time, no less), he and his theme continued to make surprise appearances. While the character has gone down in SNK's history, this didn't warrant dedicating an entire album to him. The end result is inevitably long, but also extremely repetitive.

Even back in its debut, "Kissed by Geese" shone as a defining theme for SNK. With its gritty guitar riffs and urgent but motivating melody, it captured all the intensity of the final boss character. It was also great to hum home to. Most subsequent renditions of track stayed faithful to its original concept, while offering technical enhancements. For example, the synth enhancements of Fatal Fury Special gave a major boost to the fuzzy original, while the live performance from the series' image albums make it even more vibrant. However, most arrangements adhered so close to the originals that they fail to reignite interest. Even the Art of Fighting 2 and The King of Fighters '96 versions are mere resamplings.

This compilation does feature a few other pieces during its 76 minute playtime. Introduced in Fatal Fury 3, "It's Geese!!" is the penultimate stage theme; focusing on thrashing rock riffs, it has a more menacing but less vigorous feel than his main theme. The album also compiles several of the pre-fight and post-fight cinematic tracks associated with Geese's appearances. The majority are short and inconsequential, although "Transient Life" did inspire an operatic rendition in Real Bout Fatal Fury. Apart from the endless renditions of "Kissed by Geese", the album also features four narratives from the character in Japanese and an archaic voice collection.

Summary

Geese Howard is a historic character with a fantastic theme. However, in contrast to opponents such as Mai Shiranui and even Terry Bogard, his music simply failed to evolve over the years. As a result, this compilation — while exhaustive and well-assembled — is simply too samey to be worthwhile.