The uninitiated may wonder why they should care about this game, compared to Street Fighter II. All I can say is that while they are in the same genre, Garou does lots of things differently. The most noteworthy feature is "Just Defended", which gives you a special blocking animation if you input your block command just before the attack hits; a successful Just Defend will give you a little health back, and may leave you in a position to quickly counter-attack your foe. There is also the "TOP Gauge", which is part of your health meter. When you’re at a certain level of health, you do more damage and can use a few extra moves you normally can’t. While not exactly genre-redefining, these are interesting features.

Garou also has excellent variety in its characters. Terry Bogard is the only returning character from older games, with the rest of the cast either being wholly original or having nods to parts of the series’ past. You’ll find style-hybrids like Rock (who uses a mix of Terry’s and Geese’s moves), grapplers like Tizoc that use lunging attacks to quickly close in, tricky combo-oriented characters like B.Jenet, and more. While the roster is small compared to many fighting games with roughly a dozen characters, each is varied enough that you should find one you like.

I do have to stress this is a port of the Neo-Geo game with only the basics of Xbox functionality added. The graphics have a softening filter you can use if you wish, but they still look pretty dated. The game’s plot (what little there is) has most of its old grammar gaffes and typos, and strangely enough the art gallery from the Dreamcast version doesn’t seem to be here. Worse, the in-game move lists for each character contain some really lazy mistakes. Rock’s list has one of the worst errors, as his Raging Storm move (which he pronounces in English) is called "Super Storm Swirl" in the move list. I honestly have to assume the folks at SNK just tossed the movelist into Babelfish or some other machine translator set on Japanese-to-English, and this was the pathetic result.

Despite it being such a lazy port, Garou is a good game. The multiplayer -- really the only truly vital part in a fighting game -- works fine, and the characters are varied enough to keep you interested. It won’t change your mind if you don’t like this genre, but fighting fans should definitely pick this one up. I have only one real caveat: You need a decent controller. Some special moves in this game are virtually impossible to do on the default Xbox pad, so look up a replacement or maybe even pick up an arcade stick if you can; you’ll enjoy Garou a lot more if you do. Beyond that, I’d say it’s easily worth your $10/800 points. That said, stick around; you need to see the Achievement list on the next page... it’s ridiculous.