In a 1995 developer interview featured in the game's guidebook, the game's staff were asked what their concept for the development of this game was. They responded:

In a 1995 developer interview featured in the game's guidebook, they were originally going to add a hidden playable character, but dropped the idea after concluding that including another boss fight after defeating Geese Howard was a strange decision.

In the RBFF guidebook interview, the game's staff were asked about why they updated 'Real Bout' by changing the layout of the buttons. They responded:

"In Fatal Fury 3 we introduced the Oversway Line. It seemed to be very difficult for new players, but we were convinced the idea itself was good. So we tried to make it easier to use this game, which meant adding a dedicated button for it. That was the biggest reason for changing the entire button layout."

Having three attack buttons also corresponded to having weak, mid, and strong attacks, which matched their vision of the game being simple to understand, but deep.

In the RBFF guidebook interview, the game's staff were asked about the meaning of the title “Real Bout”? And they responded:

"That was actually the working project title of the original Garou Densetsu. As this development progressed, we wracked our brains trying to come up with a new title for this sequel, and wondered if changing the entire title itself wouldn’t be more interesting. Then someone suggested, “hey, what if we bring back ‘Real Bout’…” So we have a lot of attachment to it, as you might imagine."

The Ring Out mechanic had several scrapped iterations. These included being frozen, falling off buildings, and being consumed by animals when outside of the ring.

SNK created new assets for the loading screens on the Neo-Geo CD version. However, the art style used for said loading screens was considered "too eccentric" by many fans, to the point that they sent letters directly to SNK demanding that they shouldn't use the style anymore. Because of this, the art style used in those loading screens was never used again in future SNK games.

The team originally wanted to include a brand new character into the game. However, because of Billy Kane's popularity among fans, they scrapped this idea and added Billy instead.

This game was originally planned to be the final chapter in the Fatal Fury series, but the game was successful enough to dismiss this plan.

Cheng Sinzan was originally going to appear in the game as a playable character, but Duck King was chosen over him in the end.

The "ring-out" mechanic added to the game was heavily criticized by arcade players as it was possible to lose a match with only a single mistake such as blocking from an enemy attack, or side-stepping behind the enemy only to fall out. Because of this, the ring-out feature was removed from future games in the series.

In the Neo Geo AES/MVS version of Real Bout Fatal Fury, Blue Mary can be seen topless if she falls into the water, this was cut in the PS2 version.