In the early nineties,
the fighting game genre was rising to new heights, with the charge led
by Capcom’s Street Fighter II. In the aftermath of the aforementioned
title, many companies released fighting games of their own in an effort
to emulate Capcom’s success. Some of these games were absolute tosh,
but a handful stood out on their own. SNK in particular had a good run
of fighting games on its Neo Geo hardware, producing titles such as
Fatal Fury, Samurai Shodown and Art of Fighting. There’s been a bit of
a trend in recent times of releasing compilations of such titles
(though it is declining with the advent of digital distribution), the
latest of which is Art of Fighting Anthology for the PlayStation 2.
Given
that past arcade compilation titles have had considerable amounts of
extras, it’s only fair that one can start to expect that sort of
treatment for each one that hits store shelves. Unfortunately, Art of
Fighting Anthology is completely barren – not a single morsel of extra
content in sight, merely selectable difficulties and arranged
soundtracks for each game. On the other hand, the cost of the
compilation is slightly over a tenner on the high street – roughly the
same as what you’d pay for a similar game on Live Arcade or Virtual
Console. In all honesty, it would have been a lot nicer had there been
some sort of extra features on the disc, regardless of the cheap price.
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There’s your standard early 90’s fire ball attack
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Test your might!
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The Art of Fighting story slots into the Fatal Fury continuity,
roughly 20 years before the Bogards take on Geese Howard. It’s
interesting to note that while the characters do appear in the King of
Fighters series at roughly the same ages/appearances they do in Art of
Fighting despite being with the Bogards and such, the King of Fighters
series is treated by SNK as being in its own continuity. The series
follows the exploits of two characters; Ryo Sakazaki, the son of the
Kyokugen Karate founder Takuma Sakazaki, and Robert Garcia, the wayward
son of a billionaire family from Italy. Together they train at the
Kyokugen Karate Dojo.
The first game deals with the kidnapping
of Ryo’s sister Yuki by the gangster Mr. Big. Big’s goons had kidnapped
the girl in order to entice Takuma into working for him after Ryo had
refused a similar offer. The story mode only allows players to take
control of either Ryo or Robert – disappointing at the time given the
wide array of characters available in similar fighting games. This in
combination with the game’s wretched translation, stiff animation and
limited move set make the first in the series seem very archaic. That
said, the quality of the art in Art of Fighting was actually pretty
impressive at the time; the character’s appearance during and at the
end of a fight would actually reflect how much damage he/she had taken
– something that was not seen in many games at that time.
Art of
Fighting attempted to differentiate itself from the competition back in
1992 by offering innovation over solid gameplay. The game features a
particularly cool sprite scaling technique which will pan the camera
out when the fighters get too far away from each other. Measures were
also taken to prevent the abuse of special moves by equipping each
fighter with a spirit bar, which would be depleted when too many
special moves were utilized, or when a fighter was taunted. In spite of
these innovations at the time, Art of Fighting felt really clunky when
compared to Street Fighter, and even SNK’s other fighting games – and
the same rings true today. Emulation in the first game is of a
reasonably good quality – the graphics and sound come across intact,
and you can even choose between the original and arranged version of
the soundtracks.
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Did we ever figure out whether King was a guy or a girl?
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New characters ahoy!
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Art of Fighting 2 sticks pretty close to the
formula established by the original game. The story takes place a year
after the original, with a young Geese Howard (the boss from Fatal
Fury) calling various fighters to the city for a new tournament called
The King of Fighters. Art of Fighting 2 features an expanded roster and
replaces the spirit gauge with a rage meter, and adds a sort of
desperation boost when your player falls below 25% health. Otherwise
the game is pretty much the same as the original, with slightly
upgraded sprites and a different soundtrack. That means it suffers from
largely the same problems such as stiff animation, poor translation and
a limited moves set. Art of Fighting 2 also features the most difficult
AI to ever grace a fighting game – players will have to make use of
cheap exploits in order to see their way through to the end.
Art
of Fighting 3: The Path of the Warrior is sort of like a lost entry in
the series. It came out in 1996, when most folks were moving on to 3D
fighters and the arcades were falling into their steepest decline. It
also never saw a port to a home console. It’s a real shame, because Art
of Fighting 3 is by far and away the best game in the series – almost
making this compilation worth a purchase on its own. Art of Fighting 3
focuses mostly on Robert and his quest to find a young girl named
Freia, who has been kidnapped by a man named Wyler to force her father
into creating a drug that will have a sort of Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde
effect on its users. Outside of Robert and Ryo, Art of Fighting 3
features an entirely new cast of fighters, including many which went on
to become King of Fighters favourites.
The third game does away
with many of the features established in the first two Art of Fighting
titles, instead opting for a focus on combo strings and juggling
attacks. The game also employs a low-mid-high attack system not unlike
that which you’d expect to see in a 3D fighter, yet the game is still
very much ingrained in its 2D roots. While the fighting system has a
stiff learning curve, it is far more interesting to play and watch
matches due to this added depth, especially when one considers just how
smooth the game’s animation is and how detailed the sprites are. Art of
Fighting 3 is easily one of the most detailed 2D fighters around. The
soundtrack also impresses with a nice mix of jazz, salsa, blues and
rock tracks in its arranged soundtrack. Once again, the emulation is
extremely tight with no noticeable glitches or differences from the MVS
version.
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The third game is in a league of its own
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Jin always felt better when fighting together with Tonic
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Art of Fighting Anthology is
a tough sell largely due to the lack of bonus content on the disc and
the fact that two of the three games on the collection are not
particularly good. On the other hand, the collection is cheap, and Art
of Fighting 3 is one of the best 2D fighters we’ve played – and the
only other way you can find it is by shelling out hundreds for a copy
of the original MVS or AES cart. 2D fighter fans and the retro
obsessive should be easily pleased with the collection, but everyone
else should probably keep their distance.
Top game moment:
Watching the glorious smooth animation of Art of Fighting 3 in action,
knowing it ran on exactly the same hardware as the original game.
